The knowledge society
In 1861 Prince Albert laid the foundation stone for the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh, an institution that morphed into the Royal Museum. The serious newspapers of the day assured concerned citizens that the new museum would eschew “wantonness”.
But 150 years later, the revitalised and redesigned National Museum of Scotland, a marriage of the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland, had a very different opening ceremony.
In Chambers Street a giant animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex pranced to the music of Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers, while costumed actors mingled with the crowd, and performers abseiled from the roof against a background of Chinese firecrackers.
An 11-year-old schoolgirl knocked three times on the new entrance doors demanding admission. This was granted, heralded by a fanfare on a replica carnyx Celtic war horn.
During the course of that first day the museum was experienced, whether wantonly or otherwise, by more than 22,000 visitors. The original foundation stone laid by Prince Albert read: “Showing Scotland to the world, and the world to Scotland.”
The purpose of the museum clearly remains the same. A sizeable chunk of the private funding came from the kilted diaspora, those worldwide Scots exiles who claim with justification to have had a disproportionate effect on world civilisation.
The American Arthur Herman, whose father once occupied a brief professorship in Edinburgh, was inspired to write The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It.
National Museums Scotland (NMS) director Gordon Rintoul and his colleagues might not indulge in such crude chauvinism, but that self-confident belief in all things Scottish imbues everything that they show.
In any museum there is a conflict between the architecture and the artefacts. If the building is too showy, the collections are diminished. The architectural team, headed by self-described local lad Gareth Hoskins, has served the museum well.
The new street-level entrances bypass the old steep flight of steps and provide access into what was once a warren of storage facilities, now transformed into a vaulted space providing visitor facilities, a shop and brasserie.
From this theatrically dark space, the visitor moves into the four-storey-high giant Victorian bird cage that is the Grand Gallery. It was modelled on the Crystal Palace and is full of light. The clutter has been cleared and vistas opened up so that all the galleries leading off the main space are visible.
The most striking installation is Window on the World, a construction of display cases that rises from the ground floor to the roof. The 800-plus objects spectacularly illustrate the diversity of the collections.
A medieval knight’s helmet sits adjacent to a girder salvaged from the wreckage of the Tay Bridge; a four-seater “tandem”; a statue of Buddha; tiny glass sculptures of slugs; a Charles Rennie Mackintosh lamp; and a working model of Stephenson’s Rocket are among the artefacts that intrigue visitors and draw them to the galleries above.
This is highly desirable, as only 10% of visitors ever ventured upstairs in the old Royal Museum.
What of the now uncluttered floor space? Museum designer Ralph Appelbaum says that this is now “a social convening space mixed with knowledge”.
Translated, this means that museum has a large performance area – the Edinburgh Festival performances of the Rajasthan Dancers will take place there. And its ability to hold 500-seat banquets might provide a useful source of future funding.
On a more proletarian catering note, a family of 10 were ensconced on the plinth of the Nubian god Arensnuphis enjoying a mighty picnic under the friendly gaze of the god and museum attendants. Just imagine if they tried that in the Great Court in the British Museum.
The new Discoveries gallery is the key to understanding the museum. Here, visitors are introduced to the four themes of art and design, the natural world, science and discovery, and world cultures, especially the contribution of “Great Scots”, including David Livingstone, James Bruce, Alexander Fleming, John Logie Baird, James Watt, Joseph Black, Jackie Stewart and Dolly the Sheep.
I visited the museum shortly after it had opened. It was humming with visitors. This part of the museum has been closed for three years and locals were keen to see “their museum” again, especially as 80% of the objects on display had not been exhibited before.
The other factors were the school holidays, the festival and the torrential rain, hence the world’s largest collection of dripping pushchairs. The staff were coping with cheerful efficiency. There was a general buzz of delight and loud conversations.
This museum is clearly not one that inspires whispers. I suspect that visiting patterns will change in the next few months, but for now, encouraged by the free map, folk were engaged in a speedy treasure hunt, ticking off the Maori canoe, before dashing off to the T. rex skeleton via the Lewis chess pieces, Ching-Ching the giant panda, Egyptian mummies, the F1 racing car, and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s knives and forks.
“For the moment,” commented one benign attendant, “it’s all gallop and gawp, but on future visits folk will stop to think, consider and make connections.”
One can but hope so, for the intelligence and research that has gone into galleries such as those devoted to World Cultures deserves respect. The 150 interactive exhibits were still working, despite constant use.
I was amused to note in the Imagine gallery, designed for the under-eights, that the buttons were being monopolised by enthralled parents. I was pleased and invigorated by all I saw and envious of the skill of those who created it.
Only in one gallery, the Wildlife Panorama, have the designers’ ideas lurched into eccentricity, perhaps even wantonness. “Can whales, hippopotamuses and porpoises really fly, Daddy?” asked one six year-old, gazing upwards. There is so much to admire.
The project, unlike the Scottish Parliament and Edinburgh tram system, was delivered on time and under budget. I am sure the redevelopment of a further 11 galleries by 2020 will be achieved with the same style. As I came away from the museum, I shared one of the elegant glass lifts with an equally elegant local lady, well Pringled and tweeded.
I expressed admiration for the renaissance in Scottish museums – so many millions made available this year alone for the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, the National Museum of Scotland and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
“You see.... we Scots really value our culture,” she said. “We are proud to be opening museums, while in England, I hear, you are closing libraries.”
Peter Lewis is a writer and former director of Beamish, the North of England Open Air Museum
Unimpeded flow
“There’s one problem,” a local woman informed me: “Everyone’s bumping into each other.” Which is hardly surprising in the new National Museum of Scotland, where gravity-defying objects now scale the walls and hang in mid-air.
The curiosity of visitors is awakened the moment they enter the atmospheric entrance hall and notice objects rising through the ceiling. This Window on the World – a high-density wall display of taxonomically-arranged objects – is provocative for another reason: there are no text labels.
Risky, perhaps, but it works as it makes us look at the objects with fresh eyes. People find their own meanings and connections and are prompted to use the touchscreens that interpret the objects and occasionally suggest visits to other galleries.
Touchscreens containing text, audio, film, graphics and images abound in the museum. They are well-designed and easy to use.
Their content also shows how the museum places people at the heart of things by devices such as comparing our size on a graph with a whale on display, asking for our votes on cloning, or computing our green credentials. Users of the Window on the World touchscreens can navigate through all 800-plus objects.
On the downside, the quality of certain images was poor, there were no opportunities to zoom in or view objects from different positions, and there was an absence of accession numbers and acquisition details. Access to displays is enhanced by the new technology. Physical access seems improved, too.
There are no doors between galleries, and visitors can flow freely. And even though the galleries seem regimented by themes (natural world, world cultures, and science and technology, and so on), this new context enables cross-disciplinary ideas to flow, too.
Each gallery presents a subtheme (such as Living Lands within World Cultures), which encourages more imaginative uses of objects to tell related stories.
For example, where previously butterflies were presented in an entomological context, insects such as the luminous goliath birdwing butterfly now rub shoulders with the peregrine falcon to illustrate animal movement in air.
Elsewhere, the mesmerising Rolling Ball Clock of 1804 is given new meaning surrounded by meteorites and twinkling graphics in the Earth in Space gallery. And a Skidoo (snowmobile), although a product of Science and Technology, has more power in World Cultures presented in front of a vast snowscape graphic telling the Dene people’s story.
NMS has recognised the importance of creating a multitude of spaces within the museum for learning, socialising and relaxing.
The Discoveries gallery, which features standalone displays of Charles Darwin artefacts and David Stevenson lighthouse optics, provides access to Imagine, a colourful space for younger visitors and their families to explore, make noise, play, and tell stories aided by object displays. Despite the proximity, Discoveries feels tranquil and contemplative.
Interpretation across the museum works best when it emphasises analogies with everyday human experience or generates a sense of social interaction.
Highlights include an e-label describing a sabre-toothed animal’s teeth as being a “can-opener for giant armadillo shells”; a manual interactive that reveals a drinking straw and nutcracker to demonstrate how anteaters and walruses eat; and a display of cooking pots that release aromas when their lids are lifted.
One interactive made for my most sociable experience – a four-player ICT game featuring a projection (unfortunately out of focus) of the world onto a circular table-top.
The aim is to select two revolving symbols connected by some cultural significance. As I played, a rowdy crew of 16-24 year-olds jumped in, waving their hands in the projection beam.
Eventually one of them asked me how to play and I suggested: “Select an object, read the person’s story, and find a match.” He found one, heard the fanfare, and exclaimed, “ya dancer”.
As they left with a spring in their step, I felt compelled to look again at the objects, and a sense of connection between the world cultures now echoed throughout the gallery. The success of the new NMS is that these immersive environments establish relationships that can be understood by everyone.
Neil Johnson-Symington is a transport and technology curator at Glasgow Museums
In 1861 Prince Albert laid the foundation stone for the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh, an institution that morphed into the Royal Museum. The serious newspapers of the day assured concerned citizens that the new museum would eschew “wantonness”.
But 150 years later, the revitalised and redesigned National Museum of Scotland, a marriage of the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland, had a very different opening ceremony.
In Chambers Street a giant animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex pranced to the music of Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers, while costumed actors mingled with the crowd, and performers abseiled from the roof against a background of Chinese firecrackers.
An 11-year-old schoolgirl knocked three times on the new entrance doors demanding admission. This was granted, heralded by a fanfare on a replica carnyx Celtic war horn.
During the course of that first day the museum was experienced, whether wantonly or otherwise, by more than 22,000 visitors. The original foundation stone laid by Prince Albert read: “Showing Scotland to the world, and the world to Scotland.”
The purpose of the museum clearly remains the same. A sizeable chunk of the private funding came from the kilted diaspora, those worldwide Scots exiles who claim with justification to have had a disproportionate effect on world civilisation.
The American Arthur Herman, whose father once occupied a brief professorship in Edinburgh, was inspired to write The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It.
National Museums Scotland (NMS) director Gordon Rintoul and his colleagues might not indulge in such crude chauvinism, but that self-confident belief in all things Scottish imbues everything that they show.
In any museum there is a conflict between the architecture and the artefacts. If the building is too showy, the collections are diminished. The architectural team, headed by self-described local lad Gareth Hoskins, has served the museum well.
The new street-level entrances bypass the old steep flight of steps and provide access into what was once a warren of storage facilities, now transformed into a vaulted space providing visitor facilities, a shop and brasserie.
From this theatrically dark space, the visitor moves into the four-storey-high giant Victorian bird cage that is the Grand Gallery. It was modelled on the Crystal Palace and is full of light. The clutter has been cleared and vistas opened up so that all the galleries leading off the main space are visible.
The most striking installation is Window on the World, a construction of display cases that rises from the ground floor to the roof. The 800-plus objects spectacularly illustrate the diversity of the collections.
A medieval knight’s helmet sits adjacent to a girder salvaged from the wreckage of the Tay Bridge; a four-seater “tandem”; a statue of Buddha; tiny glass sculptures of slugs; a Charles Rennie Mackintosh lamp; and a working model of Stephenson’s Rocket are among the artefacts that intrigue visitors and draw them to the galleries above.
This is highly desirable, as only 10% of visitors ever ventured upstairs in the old Royal Museum.
What of the now uncluttered floor space? Museum designer Ralph Appelbaum says that this is now “a social convening space mixed with knowledge”.
Translated, this means that museum has a large performance area – the Edinburgh Festival performances of the Rajasthan Dancers will take place there. And its ability to hold 500-seat banquets might provide a useful source of future funding.
On a more proletarian catering note, a family of 10 were ensconced on the plinth of the Nubian god Arensnuphis enjoying a mighty picnic under the friendly gaze of the god and museum attendants. Just imagine if they tried that in the Great Court in the British Museum.
The new Discoveries gallery is the key to understanding the museum. Here, visitors are introduced to the four themes of art and design, the natural world, science and discovery, and world cultures, especially the contribution of “Great Scots”, including David Livingstone, James Bruce, Alexander Fleming, John Logie Baird, James Watt, Joseph Black, Jackie Stewart and Dolly the Sheep.
I visited the museum shortly after it had opened. It was humming with visitors. This part of the museum has been closed for three years and locals were keen to see “their museum” again, especially as 80% of the objects on display had not been exhibited before.
The other factors were the school holidays, the festival and the torrential rain, hence the world’s largest collection of dripping pushchairs. The staff were coping with cheerful efficiency. There was a general buzz of delight and loud conversations.
This museum is clearly not one that inspires whispers. I suspect that visiting patterns will change in the next few months, but for now, encouraged by the free map, folk were engaged in a speedy treasure hunt, ticking off the Maori canoe, before dashing off to the T. rex skeleton via the Lewis chess pieces, Ching-Ching the giant panda, Egyptian mummies, the F1 racing car, and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s knives and forks.
“For the moment,” commented one benign attendant, “it’s all gallop and gawp, but on future visits folk will stop to think, consider and make connections.”
One can but hope so, for the intelligence and research that has gone into galleries such as those devoted to World Cultures deserves respect. The 150 interactive exhibits were still working, despite constant use.
I was amused to note in the Imagine gallery, designed for the under-eights, that the buttons were being monopolised by enthralled parents. I was pleased and invigorated by all I saw and envious of the skill of those who created it.
Only in one gallery, the Wildlife Panorama, have the designers’ ideas lurched into eccentricity, perhaps even wantonness. “Can whales, hippopotamuses and porpoises really fly, Daddy?” asked one six year-old, gazing upwards. There is so much to admire.
The project, unlike the Scottish Parliament and Edinburgh tram system, was delivered on time and under budget. I am sure the redevelopment of a further 11 galleries by 2020 will be achieved with the same style. As I came away from the museum, I shared one of the elegant glass lifts with an equally elegant local lady, well Pringled and tweeded.
I expressed admiration for the renaissance in Scottish museums – so many millions made available this year alone for the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, the National Museum of Scotland and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
“You see.... we Scots really value our culture,” she said. “We are proud to be opening museums, while in England, I hear, you are closing libraries.”
Peter Lewis is a writer and former director of Beamish, the North of England Open Air Museum
Unimpeded flow
“There’s one problem,” a local woman informed me: “Everyone’s bumping into each other.” Which is hardly surprising in the new National Museum of Scotland, where gravity-defying objects now scale the walls and hang in mid-air.
The curiosity of visitors is awakened the moment they enter the atmospheric entrance hall and notice objects rising through the ceiling. This Window on the World – a high-density wall display of taxonomically-arranged objects – is provocative for another reason: there are no text labels.
Risky, perhaps, but it works as it makes us look at the objects with fresh eyes. People find their own meanings and connections and are prompted to use the touchscreens that interpret the objects and occasionally suggest visits to other galleries.
Touchscreens containing text, audio, film, graphics and images abound in the museum. They are well-designed and easy to use.
Their content also shows how the museum places people at the heart of things by devices such as comparing our size on a graph with a whale on display, asking for our votes on cloning, or computing our green credentials. Users of the Window on the World touchscreens can navigate through all 800-plus objects.
On the downside, the quality of certain images was poor, there were no opportunities to zoom in or view objects from different positions, and there was an absence of accession numbers and acquisition details. Access to displays is enhanced by the new technology. Physical access seems improved, too.
There are no doors between galleries, and visitors can flow freely. And even though the galleries seem regimented by themes (natural world, world cultures, and science and technology, and so on), this new context enables cross-disciplinary ideas to flow, too.
Each gallery presents a subtheme (such as Living Lands within World Cultures), which encourages more imaginative uses of objects to tell related stories.
For example, where previously butterflies were presented in an entomological context, insects such as the luminous goliath birdwing butterfly now rub shoulders with the peregrine falcon to illustrate animal movement in air.
Elsewhere, the mesmerising Rolling Ball Clock of 1804 is given new meaning surrounded by meteorites and twinkling graphics in the Earth in Space gallery. And a Skidoo (snowmobile), although a product of Science and Technology, has more power in World Cultures presented in front of a vast snowscape graphic telling the Dene people’s story.
NMS has recognised the importance of creating a multitude of spaces within the museum for learning, socialising and relaxing.
The Discoveries gallery, which features standalone displays of Charles Darwin artefacts and David Stevenson lighthouse optics, provides access to Imagine, a colourful space for younger visitors and their families to explore, make noise, play, and tell stories aided by object displays. Despite the proximity, Discoveries feels tranquil and contemplative.
Interpretation across the museum works best when it emphasises analogies with everyday human experience or generates a sense of social interaction.
Highlights include an e-label describing a sabre-toothed animal’s teeth as being a “can-opener for giant armadillo shells”; a manual interactive that reveals a drinking straw and nutcracker to demonstrate how anteaters and walruses eat; and a display of cooking pots that release aromas when their lids are lifted.
One interactive made for my most sociable experience – a four-player ICT game featuring a projection (unfortunately out of focus) of the world onto a circular table-top.
The aim is to select two revolving symbols connected by some cultural significance. As I played, a rowdy crew of 16-24 year-olds jumped in, waving their hands in the projection beam.
Eventually one of them asked me how to play and I suggested: “Select an object, read the person’s story, and find a match.” He found one, heard the fanfare, and exclaimed, “ya dancer”.
As they left with a spring in their step, I felt compelled to look again at the objects, and a sense of connection between the world cultures now echoed throughout the gallery. The success of the new NMS is that these immersive environments establish relationships that can be understood by everyone.
Neil Johnson-Symington is a transport and technology curator at Glasgow Museums
Project data
- Cost £46.4m
- Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund £17.8m; Scottish Government £16m; private sources £12.6m
- Architect Gareth Hoskins Architects
- Exhibition design Ralph Appelbaum Associates
- Gallery fit-out Beck Group
- Main contractor Balfour Beatty
