Displaying vast and outlandish creatures has always been a draw for the Natural History Museum. In 1937, the museum embarked on one of the most ambitious projects it had ever undertaken. Desiring an exhibit that would both astound and educate, construction began on a model of the largest animal that has ever lived - the blue whale. It really was a huge, huge feat. The amount of resources, manpower and everything else that went into the model just before the start of the World War II, I think. If they'd left it any later, possibly the model would never have been constructed. The mammoth task of creating a 90-foot whale had fallen to the museum's chief model maker, Percy Stammwitz. Using photographs and scientific records, Percy and his team toiled for 18 months, building the model in situ in the newly-opened Whale Hall. Constructed on a wooden sub-frame, covered in wire mesh and expertly sculpted in plaster of Paris, the finished model weighed in at over six tonnes.


陈列的大量奇异生物，一直都是自然历史博物馆魅力所在。1937年博物馆展出了史上最为雄心勃勃的项目，馆方希望展品既震撼又有启发性。于是他们开始制造史上最大动物的模型——蓝鲸模型。 这个工程量耗费巨大，建造模型的资源 人力以及其他，刚好在二战之前开始投入。如果再稍有拖延，可能这个模型就造不出来了。建造90英尺鲸鱼模型的艰巨任务，落到了博物馆首席模型制作者，珀西·斯丹伍兹的肩上。通过图片和科学记录，珀西和他的团队艰苦工作了一年半，在新开放的鲸鱼馆就地建造了模型，成品模型建造在木质基架上被金属丝网所覆盖，并用熟石膏进行精心塑形，其重量超过6公吨。