Gallery I
Infinity Hall
A corridor of golden rectangles, each one nested inside the last, receding by the same ratio the Greeks called extreme and mean. It appears, by careful construction, to go on forever. Halfway down, you begin to believe it.
Tessella · A museum of mathematics
The pattern beneath everything.
The tiling behind these words is being computed as you read —
a Penrose tessellation that will never repeat, however far it drifts.
Most museums keep their objects behind glass. Ours cannot be caged: a pattern is not a thing but a rule, and a rule weighs nothing, costs nothing, and never wears out. Tessella collects rules — the five-fold tiling that astonished geometers, the spiral a sunflower solves without knowing, the proof a child can walk through. Come and stand inside them.
- Galleries
- 4
- Tilings on display
- 241
- Times our hero pattern repeats
- 0
- Age of the oldest proof shown
- 2,500 yrs
01 — The Galleries
Four rooms,
arranged by wonder.
Gallery II
The Proof Room
Proofs without words. Watch the Pythagorean theorem take itself apart and reassemble — a 2,500-year-old argument you verify with your eyes, not your algebra.
Gallery III
Symmetry Court
A mirrored chamber built on the seventeen wallpaper groups — every way a pattern can repeat, and mathematics has proved there are no more. Stand in the centre and become sixfold.
Gallery IV
The Number Garden
Living mathematics: sunflower heads counting in Fibonacci, pinecones spiralling at the golden angle, and a thousand seeds arranged by the most irrational number there is. Plants solved these equations first; the garden shows their working. Loved best by the under-tens and the over-seventies.
02 — The Pattern Studio
Every visitor leaves
with a theorem.
Choose a symmetry, then draw. The mathematics does the rest — each stroke is repeated by the rotation group you picked, the way a kaleidoscope repeats a shard of glass.
Symmetry
Ink
Draw anywhere on the tile. Touch works too.
03 — Visiting
Plan your visit.
Hours
- Tuesday – Thursday10:00 – 18:00
- Friday10:00 – 21:00
- Saturday – Sunday09:00 – 18:00
- MondayClosed for recalibration
Tickets
- Adults£14
- Students & over-65s£8
- Under-18sFree
- First Sunday monthlyPay what you wish
Tickets include the Pattern Studio and same-day re-entry. The Number Garden closes one hour before the museum.
Getting here
Tessella4 Guild Court, Bloomsbury
London WC1E 7HX
Three minutes from Goodge Street station. Step-free access throughout; the Infinity Hall has a seated viewing gallery. Assistance dogs are welcome everywhere except inside the kaleidoscope.
04 — For Schools
Bring the whole class.
We'll bring the infinity.
Self-guided trails for Key Stages 2–5, workshop sessions in the Pattern Studio, and a dedicated maths educator for every thirty pupils. School groups visit free on weekday mornings — booking is essential.