I have two lifelong cultural delights: live theatre and museums. With museums my first and single most intense experience came in the late 1940s.
A group of my young schoolmates and I, free of any adult supervision, came to South Kensington. Most boys descended to play in the basement of the Science Museum.
For whatever reason, it may have been the grandeur of both the fascia and the interior, I went alone to what we now call the Natural History Museum (NHM).
I suspect that not all the collections had been returned from their wartime hiding places, but there was plenty to enchant me. As children we had known nothing but fear. At a very simple level the galleries seemed to proclaim that, despite the worst depredations of man, nature could begin a healing process.
Elite array
Walking through the pedestrian tunnel from the tube station to the museum, I’d been intrigued by the excellent posters for the Treasures exhibition: clear, intriguing, with a splash of wit.
The invitation is a tempting one: “Discover the highlights of our world-famous collections – 4.5 billion years of nature: 70 million specimens: 22 objects: one very special gallery.”
The style and tone of this exhibition is clearly very different to that of the displays that so moved me more than 60 years ago.
Entering through the Cromwell Road entrance and into the central hall feels like coming home. The Cadogan Gallery, where the Treasures exhibition is housed, is contained in a highly decorated room whose ceiling is covered by the tree artwork commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
Down the centre of the room on a series of plinths are displayed what the museum calls an elite array – the most exceptional items.
It would be intriguing to know how the discussions, debates and possibly open warfare between departments reached this final selection.
Von Trapp curatorship
Inevitably there is an annotated first edition of On the Origin of Species. Three extinct birds are mourned – the great auk, the moa and the dodo – Darwin’s pigeons and an Emperor penguin egg, a plate from John James Audubon’s The Birds of America book plus the earliest bird/dinosaur fossil Archaeopteryx vie for attention with skulls of Neanderthal man and a 700-year-old Barbary lion.
Ammonites, a meteorite and a piece of moon rock sit adjacent to iguanodon and dwarf elephant teeth. Hans Sloane’s carved nautilus shell is a rare work of art as are the extraordinary Blaschka glass models of sea creatures.
Herbarium sheets from Joseph Banks and George Clifford plus Alfred Russel Wallace’s insects pay tribute to the passion of collectors.
A portrait of Richard Owen, the first superintendent of the museum, stands guard over the exhibition while in the foyer, equally impassive and frowning, sits Guy the gorilla, London Zoo’s most famous celebrity. Each treasure has its own identical touchscreen with pages of facts.
The combination of the decor, stained glass, crepuscular light and reverent texts give the gallery a somewhat ecclesiastical aura. It feels like a chantry or the treasury of a provincial cathedral.
The behaviour of the public is interesting; they move slowly and talk in whispers and close the doors quietly as they leave. As a tribute to sponsors, the gallery is clearly a success. But the humble majority seem to be confused as to how they should behave. Shorn of context each extraordinary object is diminished.
The image of each artefact, which we are invited to download, is brighter and larger than reality. The theme of the gallery seems to be driven by the Maria von Trapp school of curatorship – these are a few of my favourite things.
The chosen artefacts would make an excellent series of short films or form the chapters of a book about the World of Nature on the lines of the British Museum’s A History of the World in a 100 objects. But as a conventional display in glass cases it is less than glorious and soon becomes congested.
Worried that my less than favourable reaction is the result of old fogeydom, I did visit the mammals and fossil galleries, and found them to be lively and popular.
Coming back to the Cadogan Gallery I spent some time comparing the behaviour of visitors there with those in the adjacent Our Place in Evolution gallery.
Ancestral quiz
I saw that the response to the former was predominantly passive and timid. The latter invites the public to speculate who their closest relatives might be, both in the modern world and in the past.
The information on Homo erectus, Neanderthals and Australopithecines is intellectually more demanding, with far fewer touchscreens and more text to read and evaluate.
Visitors were clearly accepting the challenge to weigh up the evidence, to discuss with others and decide for themselves.
It is perhaps significant that at the end of a visit to the Cadogan Gallery one is invited to vote for one’s favourite treasure – shades of the X Factor. Little wonder that sitting next to the voting screens Guy has the facial expression that seems to say: “If I’m a celebrity, get me out of here.”
So have I, deep into second or third childhood, become disillusioned with my first love? Far from it. I’ve seen and studied the plans for the redevelopment of the central hall and for the new galleries and they seem excellent.
There are still many wondrous things to experience in the NHM. But I have to record that the Cadogan Gallery of Treasures is – alas – not one of these.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish, the Living Museum of the North
A group of my young schoolmates and I, free of any adult supervision, came to South Kensington. Most boys descended to play in the basement of the Science Museum.
For whatever reason, it may have been the grandeur of both the fascia and the interior, I went alone to what we now call the Natural History Museum (NHM).
I suspect that not all the collections had been returned from their wartime hiding places, but there was plenty to enchant me. As children we had known nothing but fear. At a very simple level the galleries seemed to proclaim that, despite the worst depredations of man, nature could begin a healing process.
Elite array
Walking through the pedestrian tunnel from the tube station to the museum, I’d been intrigued by the excellent posters for the Treasures exhibition: clear, intriguing, with a splash of wit.
The invitation is a tempting one: “Discover the highlights of our world-famous collections – 4.5 billion years of nature: 70 million specimens: 22 objects: one very special gallery.”
The style and tone of this exhibition is clearly very different to that of the displays that so moved me more than 60 years ago.
Entering through the Cromwell Road entrance and into the central hall feels like coming home. The Cadogan Gallery, where the Treasures exhibition is housed, is contained in a highly decorated room whose ceiling is covered by the tree artwork commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
Down the centre of the room on a series of plinths are displayed what the museum calls an elite array – the most exceptional items.
It would be intriguing to know how the discussions, debates and possibly open warfare between departments reached this final selection.
Von Trapp curatorship
Inevitably there is an annotated first edition of On the Origin of Species. Three extinct birds are mourned – the great auk, the moa and the dodo – Darwin’s pigeons and an Emperor penguin egg, a plate from John James Audubon’s The Birds of America book plus the earliest bird/dinosaur fossil Archaeopteryx vie for attention with skulls of Neanderthal man and a 700-year-old Barbary lion.
Ammonites, a meteorite and a piece of moon rock sit adjacent to iguanodon and dwarf elephant teeth. Hans Sloane’s carved nautilus shell is a rare work of art as are the extraordinary Blaschka glass models of sea creatures.
Herbarium sheets from Joseph Banks and George Clifford plus Alfred Russel Wallace’s insects pay tribute to the passion of collectors.
A portrait of Richard Owen, the first superintendent of the museum, stands guard over the exhibition while in the foyer, equally impassive and frowning, sits Guy the gorilla, London Zoo’s most famous celebrity. Each treasure has its own identical touchscreen with pages of facts.
The combination of the decor, stained glass, crepuscular light and reverent texts give the gallery a somewhat ecclesiastical aura. It feels like a chantry or the treasury of a provincial cathedral.
The behaviour of the public is interesting; they move slowly and talk in whispers and close the doors quietly as they leave. As a tribute to sponsors, the gallery is clearly a success. But the humble majority seem to be confused as to how they should behave. Shorn of context each extraordinary object is diminished.
The image of each artefact, which we are invited to download, is brighter and larger than reality. The theme of the gallery seems to be driven by the Maria von Trapp school of curatorship – these are a few of my favourite things.
The chosen artefacts would make an excellent series of short films or form the chapters of a book about the World of Nature on the lines of the British Museum’s A History of the World in a 100 objects. But as a conventional display in glass cases it is less than glorious and soon becomes congested.
Worried that my less than favourable reaction is the result of old fogeydom, I did visit the mammals and fossil galleries, and found them to be lively and popular.
Coming back to the Cadogan Gallery I spent some time comparing the behaviour of visitors there with those in the adjacent Our Place in Evolution gallery.
Ancestral quiz
I saw that the response to the former was predominantly passive and timid. The latter invites the public to speculate who their closest relatives might be, both in the modern world and in the past.
The information on Homo erectus, Neanderthals and Australopithecines is intellectually more demanding, with far fewer touchscreens and more text to read and evaluate.
Visitors were clearly accepting the challenge to weigh up the evidence, to discuss with others and decide for themselves.
It is perhaps significant that at the end of a visit to the Cadogan Gallery one is invited to vote for one’s favourite treasure – shades of the X Factor. Little wonder that sitting next to the voting screens Guy has the facial expression that seems to say: “If I’m a celebrity, get me out of here.”
So have I, deep into second or third childhood, become disillusioned with my first love? Far from it. I’ve seen and studied the plans for the redevelopment of the central hall and for the new galleries and they seem excellent.
There are still many wondrous things to experience in the NHM. But I have to record that the Cadogan Gallery of Treasures is – alas – not one of these.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish, the Living Museum of the North
Project data
- Cost undisclosed
- Main funder Cadogan Charity
- Exhibition design Casson Mann
- Contractor The Hub
- Display cases Glasbau Hahn
