A few years ago Isambard Kingdom Brunel came a close second in the BBC's popularity contest, Great Britons. This year is the 200th anniversary of his birth, and the iconic status of this famous engineer is being celebrated in a series of events taking place in Bristol and across the South West of England.
Brunel 200 is a complex and varied project with a total budget of about £2.7m. The Millennium Commission and Arts Council England have provided £500,000 through the Urban Cultural Programme, while the Heritage Lottery Fund has given £1.4m. The remainder is from private sector sponsorship.
'We've always envisaged Brunel 200 as both a celebration of the man and his past and a springboard for Bristol and the South West in the future,' says Andrew Kelly, the director of Brunel 200 and the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership (BCDP).
'It combines exhibitions on the history and heritage side with those that take on contemporary issues. For instance we have just launched 200 ideas for Bristol, which uses the spirit and vision of Brunel to inspire people today.'
What makes Brunel 200 different is its scope, geographically and culturally. Along with three major exhibitions in Bristol museums there will be more than 20 other projects throughout the region, many museum and gallery-based.
These include heritage trails, restoration schemes, community events and performances everywhere from the steam museum in Swindon to the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath.
Brunel's most iconic project, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, will have a new lighting scheme to be revealed on the anniversary of his birth on 9 April, when there will be a procession and street party.
The popular appeal of these events might be helped by the fact that Brunel - compared to most 19th-century engineers, at least - is famous. He is celebrated for shipbuilding projects such as the ss Great Britain, his feats of railway engineering and the suspension bridge. Passengers still travel to and from the Bristol region along the rail routes he created.
Most of the major exhibitions underpinning Brunel 200 are in Bristol. The Forces that Made IK Brunel in At-Bristol looks at the science and engineering of Brunel with interactive displays recreating his experiments.
Brunel's ss Great Britain - the first propeller-driven steam powered ship to cross the Atlantic - is dry docked in Bristol next to the newly refitted Maritime Heritage Centre, which houses an exhibition on the Nine Lives of IK Brunel.
Brunel and the Art of Invention at Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery brings together artworks from the era, including Samuel Jackson's impression of the Clifton Suspension Bridge created for Brunel.
'The aim is to show the cultural climate which allowed Brunel's creativity to blossom,' says Kate Brindley, the director of museums, galleries and archives in Bristol. 'The way we worked across the city was unique, all our cultural institutions played to our strengths and created complementary exhibitions, making sure we didn't tell the same story.'
Beyond the exhibitions the scope is even broader: everything from a Brunel comic for 11-year-olds to a beer. But with the story being told in so many different ways, is there a danger of it being diluted?
Andrew Kelly says not, and feels that Brunel 200 is keeping a hold on events. Even the development of the beer is far less of a publicity stunt than it might seem: a local brewer researched the beers of Brunel's time and came up with a new brand, which now sits in local pubs along with 150,000 beer mats with Brunel-based information on them. 'This is a way of reaching a new audience,' he says.
Brindley says the city is buzzing about the celebrations: 'I think there is a particular resonance because there is so much of Brunel to be seen, so many artefacts all round us - the ss Great Britain and the bridge are the ultimate legacies. It is the sum of all the parts that's exciting here.'
She says it's rare for so many cultural events to be linked with one theme. 'We as a city are joining together to give the full picture and a contemporary and community response. In celebrating Brunel's innovation we are saying that Bristol is still a very creative place to be.'
What about after the celebrations? Kelly hopes that the legacy of Brunel 200 will be a greater awareness of Brunel and what he achieved. 'I hope people will get something very personal out of it. Brunel was important in that he united the arts and science. His work was functional but also beautiful. If the world is going to move forward we have to encourage more people like Brunel.'
Kelly says that the region has found it hard to work together in the past because of its size. He hopes one of the legacies will be a much stronger regional alliance.
Getting funding on the scale of Brunel 200 is a major achievement, but how did it happen? 'We had a vision for Bristol as a centre of cultural excellence,' says Kelly. 'We were committed to building the partnerships we needed. Our business plans were robust and we had good links with the private sector, which resulted in nearly £1m of private support.'
This is a combination that certainly seems to have worked and Kelly now has his eyes on a similar project involving Charles Darwin, Plymouth and HMS Beagle.
Then there is always the forthcoming Museum of Bristol to think about. Brindley is hoping that the events of Brunel 200 will help with content creation and the general level of excitement needed to forge ahead with the £18.6m capital project, which will open in mid-2009.
Two hundred years on, some of Brunel's enterprising spirit certainly seems to be alive and well in the city that remembers him best.
Louise Bishop is a freelance journalist
Brunel 200 is a complex and varied project with a total budget of about £2.7m. The Millennium Commission and Arts Council England have provided £500,000 through the Urban Cultural Programme, while the Heritage Lottery Fund has given £1.4m. The remainder is from private sector sponsorship.
'We've always envisaged Brunel 200 as both a celebration of the man and his past and a springboard for Bristol and the South West in the future,' says Andrew Kelly, the director of Brunel 200 and the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership (BCDP).
'It combines exhibitions on the history and heritage side with those that take on contemporary issues. For instance we have just launched 200 ideas for Bristol, which uses the spirit and vision of Brunel to inspire people today.'
What makes Brunel 200 different is its scope, geographically and culturally. Along with three major exhibitions in Bristol museums there will be more than 20 other projects throughout the region, many museum and gallery-based.
These include heritage trails, restoration schemes, community events and performances everywhere from the steam museum in Swindon to the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath.
Brunel's most iconic project, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, will have a new lighting scheme to be revealed on the anniversary of his birth on 9 April, when there will be a procession and street party.
The popular appeal of these events might be helped by the fact that Brunel - compared to most 19th-century engineers, at least - is famous. He is celebrated for shipbuilding projects such as the ss Great Britain, his feats of railway engineering and the suspension bridge. Passengers still travel to and from the Bristol region along the rail routes he created.
Most of the major exhibitions underpinning Brunel 200 are in Bristol. The Forces that Made IK Brunel in At-Bristol looks at the science and engineering of Brunel with interactive displays recreating his experiments.
Brunel's ss Great Britain - the first propeller-driven steam powered ship to cross the Atlantic - is dry docked in Bristol next to the newly refitted Maritime Heritage Centre, which houses an exhibition on the Nine Lives of IK Brunel.
Brunel and the Art of Invention at Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery brings together artworks from the era, including Samuel Jackson's impression of the Clifton Suspension Bridge created for Brunel.
'The aim is to show the cultural climate which allowed Brunel's creativity to blossom,' says Kate Brindley, the director of museums, galleries and archives in Bristol. 'The way we worked across the city was unique, all our cultural institutions played to our strengths and created complementary exhibitions, making sure we didn't tell the same story.'
Beyond the exhibitions the scope is even broader: everything from a Brunel comic for 11-year-olds to a beer. But with the story being told in so many different ways, is there a danger of it being diluted?
Andrew Kelly says not, and feels that Brunel 200 is keeping a hold on events. Even the development of the beer is far less of a publicity stunt than it might seem: a local brewer researched the beers of Brunel's time and came up with a new brand, which now sits in local pubs along with 150,000 beer mats with Brunel-based information on them. 'This is a way of reaching a new audience,' he says.
Brindley says the city is buzzing about the celebrations: 'I think there is a particular resonance because there is so much of Brunel to be seen, so many artefacts all round us - the ss Great Britain and the bridge are the ultimate legacies. It is the sum of all the parts that's exciting here.'
She says it's rare for so many cultural events to be linked with one theme. 'We as a city are joining together to give the full picture and a contemporary and community response. In celebrating Brunel's innovation we are saying that Bristol is still a very creative place to be.'
What about after the celebrations? Kelly hopes that the legacy of Brunel 200 will be a greater awareness of Brunel and what he achieved. 'I hope people will get something very personal out of it. Brunel was important in that he united the arts and science. His work was functional but also beautiful. If the world is going to move forward we have to encourage more people like Brunel.'
Kelly says that the region has found it hard to work together in the past because of its size. He hopes one of the legacies will be a much stronger regional alliance.
Getting funding on the scale of Brunel 200 is a major achievement, but how did it happen? 'We had a vision for Bristol as a centre of cultural excellence,' says Kelly. 'We were committed to building the partnerships we needed. Our business plans were robust and we had good links with the private sector, which resulted in nearly £1m of private support.'
This is a combination that certainly seems to have worked and Kelly now has his eyes on a similar project involving Charles Darwin, Plymouth and HMS Beagle.
Then there is always the forthcoming Museum of Bristol to think about. Brindley is hoping that the events of Brunel 200 will help with content creation and the general level of excitement needed to forge ahead with the £18.6m capital project, which will open in mid-2009.
Two hundred years on, some of Brunel's enterprising spirit certainly seems to be alive and well in the city that remembers him best.
Louise Bishop is a freelance journalist
