Revitalising our civic museum spaces

I have recently been to see three museums in Birmingham, Preston and Liverpool that are all housed in huge Victorian buildings and provide an imposing sight as you approach them.

Despite the impressive (or off-putting, depending on your point of view) exteriors, what is of real interest is what is going on inside to refresh the galleries so that they appeal to today’s visitors.

The Harris opened in 1893 and was built following a bequest by Preston lawyer, Edmund Robert Harris. The museum has recently undergone a £16m overhaul and the results are fantastic.

The new displays, which were created with the support of exhibition design firm RAA, tell some fantastic stories and feel bold, dynamic and fun. They appear genuinely community driven and the whole visitor experience feels welcoming and inclusive.

I am really looking forward to hearing more about the development of the museum at the Museums Association’s one-day conference on exhibition design, which I am chairing. It takes place on 18 March at the Barbican Centre in London.

There are lots of fun interventions in the displays, whether that is providing a community voice or clever juxtapositions of objects. And everything feels well thought and high-spec, making if feel like a museum that local people can feel really proud of.

My time in north-west England also included a visit to the refreshed Dinosaurs and Natural World gallery at the World Museum Liverpool, which is part of National Museums Liverpool. Speakers from the designer, Studio MUTT, and the museum will also be speaking at our exhibition design conference.

When I visited, people of all ages were enjoying the new displays, which feature fresh interpretation and immersive technologies. When it closed, parts of the gallery dated back over 60 years, making it the oldest gallery space in the museum.

Earlier this year, I also visited Birmingham Museum Art Gallery, which reopened in October 2024, with new displays in the Round Room and Industrial Gallery, two new galleries dedicated to children and families, telling stories about nature in the city.

This was followed by the reopening of its history galleries in May 2025, along with a new display, the Elephant in the Room, which explores how artefacts from around the world came to be part of Birmingham Museums’ collections.  

The phased reopening continued in October 2025 with a new display of more 60 works from the city’s Pre-Raphaelite collection across four newly refurbished galleries, and full public access to the Staffordshire Hoard.

MA members will get a chance to see all the exciting work that has been going on at the museum at this year’s conference, which takes place in Birmingham on 2-4 November.

I have seen one more great exhibition recently, although this has now closed. Black in the Game at the National Football Museum in Manchester showcased the cultural impact, unique achievements and untold stories of African and Caribbean communities within the English game.

This exhibition was co-curated with representatives from across football’s Black heritage community and this approach has reaped huge rewards – the stories told in the displays were wide-ranging, fascinating and moving – and the exhibition design supported the interpretation perfectly.

I only wish the exhibition hadn’t closed so I could make a return visit.