Inside Oxford's Ashmolean: a new look for Britain's oldest gallery

While the museum seems almost unchanged from the street, retaining its Victorian facade, in fact 60% of its old buildings have been destroyed to make way for the new extension Photograph: Richard Bryant/PR

Beyond the Grecian entrance lobby, architect Rick Mather has constructed a huge concrete-and-glass box in the courtyard behind the original museum Photograph: Richard Bryant/PR

The museum's 39 galleries are spread out over six floors, all connected by a giant stairwell, which is easy to find. 'We know a lot about museum fatigue,' says museum director Christopher Brown, 'so we've made a sequence of spaces that, hopefully, will keep this to a minimum' Photograph: Richard Bryant/PR

Eighteenth-century Roman busts are among the museum's many treasures – among them Anglo-Saxon jewels, Guy Fawkes's lantern, and a wooden doorway donated by Lawrence of Arabia – that have been given more space in which to shine Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

Display space has been maximised with floor-to-ceiling walls, and with what Mather calls 'fat walls', which double as recessed exhibition spaces Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

These high walls create plenty of space on which to hang the Ashmolean's 5,000-piece textile collection Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

Mather says: 'The idea is to entice visitors up, down and through the galleries. The contents of each can be glimpsed from the one before, through openings and windows. So you get pulled along' Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

Among other musical instruments donated to the museum by Arthur and Alfred Hill in 1939 is the famous 'Messiah' Stradivarius violin. No one is allowed to play it – 'A condition of its being here,' says Brown. 'Rather sad, don't you think?' Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian