The Hunterian Museum, London
All institutional museums are, to some extent, a
servant of two masters. Whether they are in universities, schools, companies, regiments or hospitals, they need to find a way to balance the requirement of creating an exhibition that is accessible to the public with one that is suitably specialist and reverential for their internal audience.
The balancing act becomes particularly precarious when, as in the case of the development of the new Hunterian Museum, the funding comes from both sides of the fence: the Heritage Lottery Fund donated £460,000 and the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Trustees of the Hunterian Museum provided £1.5m.
The Hunterian is one of the UK's oldest museums. John Hunter, generally regarded as the founder of scientific surgery, collected comparative anatomy and pathology specimens, skeletons, teaching models, surgical and dental instruments as well as
paintings, drawings and sculptures.
The government bought his collection in 1799, six years after his death, and donated it to the Company of Surgeons, later the Royal College of Surgeons.
The Hunterian Museum opened in 1813 and by 1939 contained more than 65,000 specimens. The quantity of objects, coupled with their fragility, prevented them from being moved to a place of safety during the war, and the college was bombed in 1941. Two-thirds of the collection was destroyed.
The surviving specimens, many of which were from Hunter's original collection, form the core of the present collections. After a two-year closure and a major fundraising campaign, the Hunterian has reopened.
The main museum gallery has been transformed with eight dramatic two-storey glass showcases housing Hunter's collection, so that, like the George III collection at the British Library, it lies at the physical heart of the museum.
The display is visually stunning, exquisitely lit and object-rich. Supporting displays tell the story of Hunter and his work, the history of anatomy, the college and the museum, together with areas for the art collection and historical surgical instruments.
An upper gallery explores the changes in surgery in the 19th and 20th centuries, and provides a small temporary exhibition space, while the MacRae Gallery offers a flexible space that provides access to the reserve collections, and room for school and adult learning sessions.
Most of the Hunterian Museum's visitors fall into the 16-24 year old bracket - a difficult age group to reach for lots of museums. Many are students (medical and arts), and this strong link between art and science is a recurrent theme throughout the displays.
The college has a distinguished art collection, some of which is on display, with portraits of Omai and Two Cherokee Indians by William Hodges, the artist who sailed with Captain Cook, and George Stubbs's delightful paintings of a yak and a rhinoceros, which perfectly capture the wariness of the subjects.
Many of Hunter's anatomical preparations go beyond the functional and are genuine works of art. Hunter himself moved in the world of artists; he knew Johann Zoffany and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Henry Tonks's drawings of patients illustrate the development of plastic surgery during the early 20th century and, in the temporary exhibition space, a powerful selection of portraits of patients with facial disabilities before and after surgery, commissioned by the Saving Faces Art Project, are the work of Mark Gilbert and surgeon Iain Hutchison.
They are the result of a residency at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital.
One of the great strengths of the new displays is that they attempt to give the perspective of the surgeons and patients, though more might be done to tell individual stories. It would have been interesting to discover how those such as Daniel Lambert who weighed 335kg (57 stone) at his death, coped in society.
For many, survival meant marketing themselves as an attraction. Count Joseph Boruwlaski, a person of restricted growth, invited the public to visit him at home for a shilling a time.
So, has the balancing act been successful? Yes, definitely. Previously, the Hunterian was very much the haunt of surgeons and medical students. Now, it is very much a public museum. Nor is the opening the end, but rather the beginning.
The displays have been designed to allow both the cases and labels to be changed relatively easily, and the online collections database and the catalogues, currently in preparation, will allow visitors to explore the collections in greater depth.
All institutional museums are, to some extent, a
servant of two masters. Whether they are in universities, schools, companies, regiments or hospitals, they need to find a way to balance the requirement of creating an exhibition that is accessible to the public with one that is suitably specialist and reverential for their internal audience.
The balancing act becomes particularly precarious when, as in the case of the development of the new Hunterian Museum, the funding comes from both sides of the fence: the Heritage Lottery Fund donated £460,000 and the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Trustees of the Hunterian Museum provided £1.5m.
The Hunterian is one of the UK's oldest museums. John Hunter, generally regarded as the founder of scientific surgery, collected comparative anatomy and pathology specimens, skeletons, teaching models, surgical and dental instruments as well as
paintings, drawings and sculptures.
The government bought his collection in 1799, six years after his death, and donated it to the Company of Surgeons, later the Royal College of Surgeons.
The Hunterian Museum opened in 1813 and by 1939 contained more than 65,000 specimens. The quantity of objects, coupled with their fragility, prevented them from being moved to a place of safety during the war, and the college was bombed in 1941. Two-thirds of the collection was destroyed.
The surviving specimens, many of which were from Hunter's original collection, form the core of the present collections. After a two-year closure and a major fundraising campaign, the Hunterian has reopened.
The main museum gallery has been transformed with eight dramatic two-storey glass showcases housing Hunter's collection, so that, like the George III collection at the British Library, it lies at the physical heart of the museum.
The display is visually stunning, exquisitely lit and object-rich. Supporting displays tell the story of Hunter and his work, the history of anatomy, the college and the museum, together with areas for the art collection and historical surgical instruments.
An upper gallery explores the changes in surgery in the 19th and 20th centuries, and provides a small temporary exhibition space, while the MacRae Gallery offers a flexible space that provides access to the reserve collections, and room for school and adult learning sessions.
Most of the Hunterian Museum's visitors fall into the 16-24 year old bracket - a difficult age group to reach for lots of museums. Many are students (medical and arts), and this strong link between art and science is a recurrent theme throughout the displays.
The college has a distinguished art collection, some of which is on display, with portraits of Omai and Two Cherokee Indians by William Hodges, the artist who sailed with Captain Cook, and George Stubbs's delightful paintings of a yak and a rhinoceros, which perfectly capture the wariness of the subjects.
Many of Hunter's anatomical preparations go beyond the functional and are genuine works of art. Hunter himself moved in the world of artists; he knew Johann Zoffany and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Henry Tonks's drawings of patients illustrate the development of plastic surgery during the early 20th century and, in the temporary exhibition space, a powerful selection of portraits of patients with facial disabilities before and after surgery, commissioned by the Saving Faces Art Project, are the work of Mark Gilbert and surgeon Iain Hutchison.
They are the result of a residency at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital.
One of the great strengths of the new displays is that they attempt to give the perspective of the surgeons and patients, though more might be done to tell individual stories. It would have been interesting to discover how those such as Daniel Lambert who weighed 335kg (57 stone) at his death, coped in society.
For many, survival meant marketing themselves as an attraction. Count Joseph Boruwlaski, a person of restricted growth, invited the public to visit him at home for a shilling a time.
So, has the balancing act been successful? Yes, definitely. Previously, the Hunterian was very much the haunt of surgeons and medical students. Now, it is very much a public museum. Nor is the opening the end, but rather the beginning.
The displays have been designed to allow both the cases and labels to be changed relatively easily, and the online collections database and the catalogues, currently in preparation, will allow visitors to explore the collections in greater depth.
Project data
Cost: £3.2m Funders: Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Hunterian Trustees £1.5m, Wellcome Trust £1m, Heritage Lottery Fund £460,000, Garfield Weston Foundation £100,000, MLA Designation Challenge Fund £94,000
Architect: Julian Bicknell & Associates
Exhibition design: Ronayne Design
Object mount design and production: Rutherford & Wheeler
Cost: £3.2m Funders: Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Hunterian Trustees £1.5m, Wellcome Trust £1m, Heritage Lottery Fund £460,000, Garfield Weston Foundation £100,000, MLA Designation Challenge Fund £94,000
Architect: Julian Bicknell & Associates
Exhibition design: Ronayne Design
Object mount design and production: Rutherford & Wheeler
