(Hannah Paddon) Redisplaying Museum Collections C PDF

Redisplaying museum collections
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Redisplaying Museum
Collections
Contemporary Display and Interpretation in British
Museums
Hannah Paddon
© Hannah Paddon 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Hannah Paddon has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street
Union Road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
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England
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Paddon, Hannah.
Redisplaying museum collections : contemporary display and interpretation in British
museums / by Hannah Paddon.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-4707-8 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4094-4708-5 (ebook) –
ISBN 978-1-4724-0625-5 (ePub) 1. Museums – Collection management – Great Britain.
2. Museum exhibits – Great Britain. 3. Interpretation of cultural and natural resources –
Great Britain. 4. Museums – Educational aspects – Great Britain. 5. Museums – Social
aspects – Great Britain. I. Title.
AM151.P33 2014
069'.50941 – dc23
2014012562
ISBN 9781409447078 (hbk)

ISBN 9781409447085 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781472406255 (ebk – ePub)
Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii

List of Abbreviations ix
1 Introduction 1
Part I: The Process Guiding Collection Redisplay
2 Catalysing Change: The Heritage Lottery Fund 9
3 Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections: Three British

Museums19
4 Decision-making, Communication and Teamwork: Key Elements

in the Process of Collection Redisplay 31
Part II: The Factors Shaping Collection Redisplay
5 Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections: The Key Factors 49
6 Agendas: Museum-related Initiatives and Government Policies 53
7 The Core Exhibition Team 59
8 Shifting Power: The Audience in the Museum 67
9 Visitor-centred Goals 75
10 Offering Different Social and Educational Experiences 81
11 Playing it Safe? 87
12 Conflicting Interests 93
13 Harmonising with Architecture 99

vi Redisplaying Museum Collections
14 Designing for Flexibility 107
15 Displaying Biology in the Twenty-first-century Museum 111
16 Lessons Learnt 143
17 Final Thoughts 149
Bibliography 153
Index 167
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 RIBA Plan of Work 2007/2013 mapping diagram; © RIBA 2013 13

4.1 Decisions to be made in a project; reprinted by permission of
the Publishers from ‘Decisions to be made in a project’, in 59
Checklists for Project and Programme Managers by Rudy Kor and
Gert Wijnen (Aldershot: Gower, 2007), p. 104. Copyright © 2007 33
5.1 Mind map: Factors in the re-display and re-interpretation of
museum collections; © H. Paddon 2013 50
10.1 Dimensions of the museum-going experience 82
11.1 Museum redevelopment stakeholders; © H. Paddon 2013 88
15.1 William Bullock’s London Museum; © Crown Copyright: UK
Government Art Collection 114
15.2 Sladen’s Study, RAMM, Exeter; © 2013 Royal Albert Memorial
Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter City Council 124
15.3 Living Planet gallery, GNM, Newcastle upon Tyne, printed by
permission of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums;
© H. Paddon 2009 125
15.4 Life gallery, KAGM, Glasgow, © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums
Collection 127
15.5 Case Histories gallery, RAMM, Exeter, © 2013 Royal Albert
Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter City Council 127
15.6 Fly on the Wall gallery, RAMM, Exeter; © 2013 Royal Albert
15.7 In Fine Feather gallery, RAMM, Exeter; © 2013 Royal Albert
Tables
1.1 Referencing system for project team member quotes 4

2.1 First-round application information required 10
List of Abbreviations
CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild

Fauna and Flora
CyMAL Museums Archives and Libraries Wales
DCMS Department for Culture, Media and Sport
GNM Great North Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne
HLF Heritage Lottery Fund
KAGM Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
KNCP Kelvingrove New Century Project, Glasgow
NIMC Northern Ireland Museums Council
MLA Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
MGS Museums Galleries Scotland
MNHN Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris
NHM Natural History Museum, London
OJEU Official Journal of the European Union
OUMNH Oxford University Museum of Natural History
MORI Ipsos Market and Opinion Research International
RAMM Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
RIBA Royal Institute of British Architects
Chapter 1
Introduction
Over the past twenty years, there has been a transformation in British civic
museums, sparked by an influx of money from an unlikely source, the lottery.
With this funding, museums have been afforded the opportunity to recreate their
spaces, restore their collections and innovate their interpretations. The content
of this book, based on empirical fact and museological theories, explores the
transformations (or display renaissance) of three British museums and offers a
different perspective on the redisplay process, as experienced by those directly
involved in it. Interview snippets provide personal accounts of the positive
and negative aspects of contemporary redevelopment projects and the factors
influencing team members.
My anticipation is that the text will shed light on, and qualify, the current
process of museum redisplay in British museums. To this end, the publication
is a reflection of the museum sector, its funding landscape and the redisplay
opportunities available during the late 1990s to the present day.
This book is not a manual to redisplaying collections; it does not illustrate
how to progress through the redevelopment stage from start to finish (see Dean
1999, 2002, Lord and Lord 2001). However, the issues, and factors, raised in this
book will guide decision-makers when considering aspects of collection redisplay.
It is intended to fill a specific gap in published museological research, that is,
explicating collection redisplay projects through case study examples whilst
simultaneously exploring the factors affecting project decisions.
This book makes clear the fact that the process and factors affecting the
redisplay of collections in the museums studied are generic and applicable to all
British museums and their wide-ranging collections.
The Structure of this Book
This book is divided into two parts. Part I: The Process Guiding Collection
Redisplay, brings together three chapters that present an in-depth examination of
the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) as ‘catalyst’ of contemporary British museum
redisplay projects, introduce three case study museums, which are subsequently
used throughout the book to demonstrate key research findings, and provide a
detailed theorisation of the contemporary collection redisplay process.
This first chapter provides a brief introduction to the book and an overview of
each proceeding chapter. It also presents the reference system for direct quotes
from research participants.
2 Redisplaying Museum Collections
Chapter 2 offers a synopsis of the catalyst for the recent ‘renaissance’:

the HLF. Set up in the 1990s, the HLF is a major funding source for museum
projects, large and small. As a non-departmental government body, the HLF
has revolutionised, and standardised, the way museums afford and carry out
collection redisplays. This chapter takes the opportunity to explain the application
process, partnerships and the overarching technical project management process
in relation to the HLF Heritage Grants programme.
Building upon the first two chapters, Chapter 3 introduces three case study
museums; the Great North Museum: Hancock, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum,
and Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Details, including historical backgrounds,
collection ownership, project backgrounds and the new display approaches provide
context to the rest of the book.
Chapter 4 is concerned with drawing out the elements contributing to the
structured process of museum collection redisplay. Qualitative research analysis
highlights three key elements: decision-making, communication and teamwork.
All three components shape project progress, working relationships and, most
importantly, the display and interpretation of collections, making each project unique.
Whilst Part I: The Process Guiding Collection Redisplay, explains the process,
Part II: The Factors Shaping Collection Redisplay examines the key elements in
depth. Within the key elements of decision-making, communication and teamwork
are a number of ‘factors’. These factors are explored in separate chapters and
are based on empirical research findings across the case study museums. Factors
include architecture, power struggles and design.
Chapter 5, the initial chapter in Part II, introduces the factors, and the way in
which they are interconnected, through a diagrammatic representation.
Exploring overarching government acts and museum-related initiatives, such
as the Disability Discrimination Act, Accreditation and the National Curriculum,
Chapter 6 highlights one of the key factors determining the final outcome;
stakeholder agendas.
In Chapter 7 the key players in the immediate project team are examined in
turn; the curator, educator, designer and project manager. Blended with direct
quotes from research participants, the chapter charts the change in the curator’s
role from totalitarian redisplay controller to egalitarian team player with a
specific team function. The external team member, the designer, has different
relationships with each museum team member; in some cases the relationship
between curator and designer is limited, and monitored, by the project manager
and in other instances the designer is free to discuss visions and issues with the
curatorial teams. What is clear is that for each project, the interaction between
team members is managed by the project manager in a unique way and, therefore,
a unique manner of working is developed.
In ‘Shifting Power: The Audience in the Museum’ (Chapter 8), an in-depth
examination of the role the museum audience plays in the development of gallery
spaces is detailed. Front-end, formative and summative evaluation is introduced
to the reader, with examples of each stage of evaluation illustrated by the case
Introduction 3
study museums. Whilst this chapter explains the consultative process, it does
not detail the intricacies of audience evaluation on aspects such as text, story
selection or objects. Audience consultation data was not available from any of
the case study museums at the time of this research. However, it is acknowledged
that such data may now be freely available, as all three projects are complete.
Further research could be conducted to explore the extent to which audiences are
impacting decisions such as story and object inclusion.
Chapter 9 explores the multitudinous dimensions of visitor-centred goals;
from learning in the museum to cultivating practical skills for use outside the
museum. Visitor experience in the museum is a driving factor in the redisplay of
collections, as demonstrated by the case study museums.
As part of the move to make galleries accessible to more audience groups,
museums are considering the holistic visitor experience. In an effort to be more
inclusive, the case study museums are offering different learning opportunities.
One of the most notable opportunities is the provision of specific learning
spaces in the museums; where members of the public can access collections and
members of staff. These factors are dealt with in Chapter 10 of this book.
Balancing the requirements of stakeholders is extremely difficult. Chapter 11
explores the idea that museums in Britain are playing it safe, when it comes to
design and themes, to satisfy as many stakeholder groups as possible.
Following on from the previous chapter, Chapter 12 builds on the interplay
between stakeholder groups to chart the decision-making difficulties facing
museum project teams. Working to balance the desires of funders and demands
from external partners, they must also maintain their original project aim and
objectives. This juggling act imposes certain stresses and strains on the team.
This chapter examines the conflicts of interest between stakeholders; how
conflicts erupt and are, in the main, resolved.
Physically impacting the redisplay and reinterpretation process is the
Victorian and Edwardian architecture of many local and regional museums in
Britain. Chapter 13 investigates the influence aging architecture has on the design
of galleries and new interpretive frameworks. It also elaborates one specific
finding from the research; the reclamation of space in the buildings for display
and the subsequent move of stored collections to off-site storage facilities.
Chapter 14 focuses on the flexibility of these new displays, considering the
longevity of previous galleries cases, themes and ‘interactives’. New philosophies
are examined and a conversation about the creation of flexible displays brings a
new dimension to the decision-making process for redevelopment project teams.
Chapter 15 has been dedicated to the display of biological collections in the
twenty-first century. Beginning with a historical overview of biological display
from the very origins of the ‘museum’, the chapter continues to characterise
displays through the eras culminating in best-practice examples of contemporary
display. The chapter then moves to explain the twenty-first century display of
biological collections in the case study museums, with examples of emergent
topics such as mascotism, design influences and storytelling.
Table 1.1 Referencing system for project team member quotes
Code for reference Project role Museum Date of interview

A1 Curator GNM 10 January 2008
A2 Curator GNM 10 January 2008
A3 Curator KAGM 13 May 2008
A4 Curator KAGM 13 May 2008
A5 Curator RAMM 15 November 2007
A6 Curator RAMM 15 November 2007
B1 Designer GNM 15 July 2008
B2 Designer KAGM 5 August 2008
B3 Designer RAMM 15 July 2008
C1 Education officer GNM 10 January 2008
C2 Education officer KAGM 14 May 2008
C3 Education officer RAMM 22 August 2008
D1 Project manager GNM 8 January 2008
D2 Project manager KAGM 6 August 2008
D3 Project manager RAMM 22 July 2008
E1 Marketing RAMM 22 July 2008
professional
Note: All interviews were conducted with the project team members in person at their
respective museums, or in the case of the designers, at their offices.
As implied by its title, ‘Lessons Learnt’, Chapter 16 reflects on a variety of

issues raised and problems encountered throughout the process of collections
redisplay. The experiences of museum professionals and designers presented here
can help new projects, and their teams, to avoid pitfalls and realise the importance
of remembering the aim and objectives of a project from the outset.
The final chapter in this book draws conclusions about, and provides final
thoughts on, the process and factors involved in the contemporary redisplay of
museum collections in Britain. The future of collection display is discussed,
alongside its process and the factors that shape redevelopment.
Case Studies
In order to explore the complexities of the collection redisplay and reinterpretation

process, three case study museums were examined: Great North Museum:
Hancock, in Newcastle upon Tyne (GNM); Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum,
in Glasgow (KAGM), and Royal Albert Memorial Museum, in Exeter (RAMM).
This involved interviewing four types of project team members (given the same
titles here for ease of comparison): project managers, education officers, curators
Introduction 5
and external design consultants (designers). There was also one interview with a
marketing professional.
Within this book, first-hand experiences expressed by team members and
project-specific information is interwoven with theoretical museology. To allow
for ease of reading, a referencing system has been devised whereby superscript
alpha-numerical references will appear after any quote made by a member of the
project teams (see Table 1.1).
Part I
The Process Guiding Collection Redisplay
Part I of this book examines the process of collection redisplay in British museums,
the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) as catalyst, the RIBA Plan of Work stages, and
the overarching key elements of decision-making, communication and teamwork.
Chapter 2
Catalysing Change: The Heritage
Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), which was established in 1994, has been funding
heritage projects since its inception. Since that time, the non-departmental public
body has awarded over £276.7 million to ‘exhibitions, interpretation, collections
management, learning and outreach programmes’ in museums (HLF 2014: 2).
And between 1996 and 1997, the HLF embarked on a major funding initiative
to grant monies to capital projects for 45 museums and galleries across the UK
(HLF 2003).
As a heavy-hitting proponent of the heritage sector, the HLF has affected the
museum landscape in Great Britain physically, financially and procedurally. Cities
have witnessed their Victorian and Edwardian museums being transformed as a
result of the catalytic HLF. For some, the impact has been extremely positive:
… enabling development on a major and visionary scale; putting the museum

on the map with all stakeholders; assuring [the] long-term viability of [the]
museum; giving non-discretionary access to all collections and services;
securing the collections for the future; preserving and extending the useful life
of Listed buildings; securing and developing employment opportunities directly
and indirectly; enhancing [the] museum’s contribution to [the] local economy.
(Selwood et al. 1995: 23).
Grants from the HLF can vary in size (see the ‘Programmes’ section below),
but it is in the area of building and collection projects that the HLF has been
a leader amongst heritage funding bodies. The HLF’s large grant scheme,
Heritage Grants, has been instrumental in propelling capital building projects
on an unimaginable scale.
To this end, the HLF has, in the eyes of most, catalysed and enabled sensational
change in terms of collection display. It has also facilitated a change in the roles of
museum professionals in redevelopment projects.
Programmes
Aware of the need to provide funding for a variety of heritage-based projects,

the HLF maintain a range of grant programmes covering a number of heritage
areas, with varying levels of funding and criterion (see <www.hlf.org.uk>). Most
Table 2.1 First-round application information required
Information about First-round application Second-round application

(Stage I) (Stage II)
Activities Outline proposals: Detailed proposals:
Who is your project likely to A detailed action plan,
involve showing all the activities in
The nature and range of your project. This will be
activities that will engage included in your activity plan
people with heritage
Capital work Outline proposals: Detailed proposals:
An initial breakdown of the Detailed plans and proposals
capital work you plan to for capital work you plan to
deliver deliver
Plans for architectural Plans for architectural
elements at RIBA Work Stage elements up to and including
B (Design Brief) RIBA Work Stage D (Design
Plans for non-architectural Development)
elements, such as Plans for non-architectural
interpretation or digital elements, such as
outputs, at the equivalent of interpretation or digital outputs
RIBA Work Stage B at the equivalent of RIBA
Work Stage D
Project outcomes Outline information about the Detailed information about
outcomes your project might the outcomes your project will
achieve achieve
Project management Detailed information about the Detailed information about
work you will do during your how you will manage your
development phase delivery phase, including
Detailed information about briefs for work to be
how you will manage undertaken by consultants and
your development phase, new job descriptions
including briefs for work to be Detailed timetable for your
undertaken by consultants and delivery phase
new job descriptions A project business plan, if
Detailed timetable for your required
development phase
Outline information about how
you will manage your delivery
phase
Outline timetable for delivery
phase
Catalysing Change: The Heritage Lottery Fund 11
After the project ends Outline information about how A conservation plan, if
you will sustain the outcomes required (submitted early in
of your project after funding your development phase)
has ended, including funding Detailed information about
additional running costs how you will sustain the
outcomes of your project after
funding additional running
costs
Detailed information about
how you will evaluate your
project
A management and
maintenance plan, if required
Project costs Detailed costs for your Detailed costs for your
development phase delivery phase
Outline costs for your delivery An indication that you will
phase have secured partnership
Possible sources of partnership funding in place before you
funding for your delivery start your delivery phase
phase and/or a fundraising
strategy for your development
phase
Source: HLF 2012a: 10.
museums will have been redeveloped as a result of gaining a grant from the
Heritage Grants programme. This particular programme supports projects seeking
£100,000 or more. One of the caveats to this programme is that the project’s own
organisation contributes to the overall project fund; those requesting upwards of
£1 million are expected to contribute 10 per cent of the total cost (in cash, non-cash
and volunteer time contributions) (HLF 2012a: 8). This competitive programme
has a two-round application process (explained further below).
Partnership Funding
Because the HLF Heritage Grants programme will not cover the entire cost
of a project, museums must look to other sources for grants; they must secure
partnership funds. Potential trust and foundation funders are swayed to invest in
a project if it has received the proverbial ‘thumbs up’ from the HLF: ‘that was a
core bit of funding that was needed to kick start the whole thing and helped us
to get match funding.’C1 Funders such as the Clore Duffield Foundation awarded
the Great North Museum (GNM) substantial funds for a ‘multi-purpose Clore
Learning Suite’ (Clore Duffield Foundation 2013). Other funders of museum
redevelopment projects include Arts Council England, CyMAL, DCMS/Wolfson
Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, Designation Challenge Fund, Esmée
Fairbairn Foundation, Friends’ groups, Garfield Western, local and regional

councils, Museums Galleries Scotland, Northern Ireland Museums Council and
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Whilst larger partnership funding is generally sourced from arts-focused
bodies (for example, DCMS/Wolfson), non-arts funders, such as the Sita Trust,
will award monies for installation sponsorship and specific areas in museums and
galleries. As a result, the non-arts funders’ interests may conflict with those of the
museum, sometimes testing the ethical motivations of the museum.
The HLF Application Process
Large grant applications are based on a two-round process. However, before

submitting a first-round application, the HLF recommends that a member of staff,
from the prospective project, registers and completes a pre-application form, now
termed the ‘project enquiry form’. The form allows relevant professionals at the
HLF to provide initial feedback to help develop a first-round application.
All applications go through a rigorous decision-making process, satisfying
specific criteria. In the first round, the HLF Board of Trustees asks:
1. ‘What is the heritage focus of the project?

2. What is the need or opportunity that the project is responding to?
3. Why does the project need to go ahead now and why is Lottery
funding required?
4. What outcomes will the project achieve?
5. Does your project offer value for money?
6. Is the project well planned?
7. Is the project financially realistic?
8. Will the project outcomes be sustained after the project has ended?’
(HLF 2012b: 12)
These questions assist the Board in making decisions about the first-round
applications (projects requesting more than £5 million are assessed once a year)
(ibid.). Here, project applicants should have reached RIBA Stage 2 ‘concept
design’, producing outline proposals for the scheme including basic costs,
considerations of risk and limitation, and the outcomes of consultation.
Prospective awardees are also asked to outline a number of key aspects of the
project. Table 2.1 illustrates the levels of information required in the first-round
application.
If the Board deems the project grant-worthy, an invitation to progress the
proposal to the second round is issued. This second round requires more detailed
submissions of data (see Table 2.1). Applications for this round need to be submitted
within 18 months of hearing of a successful first-round application outcome. The
second-round application requires submission of project plans up to RIBA Stage E.
Figure 2.1 RIBA Plan of Work 2007/2013 mapping diagram; © RIBA 2013
On approval of the second-round application, projects proceed to stages

F–K of the RIBA Plan of Work. These stages encompass the tender, production
and completion of the project (see Figure 2.1). Throughout stages F–K, project
management teams are actively encouraged to source expertise from job-specific
consultants and from their assigned project-specific HLF representative. This
representative has a multi-faceted role; they can offer advice and act as a mentor
to the project team, monitor spending and perhaps most importantly, sign off
each stage in order for the project to progress (and funding to be released).
On completion of the project, RIBA Stage L (or in the 2013 Plan of Work, the
‘In Use’ stage), an evaluation report needs to be completed. At this point, the final
10 per cent of funding is released by the HLF to the project.
Project Management Process
It is important to note a change made to the project process by the HLF. By

accepting the grant from the HLF, the public body expects that the project will
progress following the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Plan of Work.
In April 2013, the RIBA implemented changes to this process (RIBA 2013). The
HLF were in the process of implementing of the new Plan of Work to their grant
programmes when this book was in production (Figure 2.1).
Stages
The time taken to complete each stage of the project will be unique to each
project, and dependent upon numerous factors, including subcontractors,
miscalculation of budgets and unforeseen circumstances.
At each stage of the project, work needs to be signed off by an independent
monitor on behalf of the HLF; ‘most things have to be approved by HLF before
we spend the money, so appointing a person or appointing a company, it’s all got
to be reported and approved before you can actually make the appointment.’D1
Stage 0 Strategic Definition Before any applications are made, museum teams

need to be clear about their rationale for the project and the project’s aim and
objectives. Clarity here will not only help the project gain financial backing,
it will also act as an aide-memoire when making decisions throughout the life
of the project. This stage should also encompass the development of a project
programme, scheduling all tasks with manageable deadlines, often using a
Gantt chart to visualise stages. The programme may be subject to change as the
project progresses, but teams should aim to complete within deadlines for the
purposes of all stakeholders. There will be extensive pre-application discussions
to establish the goals and anticipated outcomes of the project.
Stage 1 Preparation and Brief This stage – preparation and brief – firms up

the project’s objectives by considering outcomes, sustainability aspirations and
the budget to develop a considered, informative initial project brief. It is also the
stage at which the project team members are appointed and their roles defined. In
line with the Plan of Work, a feasibility study should be conducted. Preparation
should also begin on a ‘Project Execution Plan’ (PEP). The PEP is used as a go-to
document for policies and procedures as drawn up by the project manager, and his/
her immediate team. The PEP:
• Ensures that everyone knows what the project’s goals and objectives are.
• Tells everyone what has to be done, when, by whom, and how.
• Ensures that project management best practices are effectively applied.
• Clarifies roles and responsibilities and
• Helps identify and manage issues. (Westney 2000: 221)
Within the PEP are strategies explaining the use of technology and, of particular
importance to the museum team, communication. The communication strategy
details the lines of communication, the frequency of communication and the
protocols for information transmission. Projects should be at this stage when
submitting their first-round application to the HLF. If successful, the project team
will be invited to continue with their proposal to Stage 2.
Stage 2 Concept Design The team will prepare their concept design. At this point,
the design programme (a schedule setting dates for specifics of the design process)
and building-related strategies (for instance, the maintenance and operational
strategy and the fire-engineering strategy) need to be drawn up. Concept design
will begin. All information will feed into the final project brief for the design
consultants. This stage involves time-consuming research and development for
most members of the project team. It is important, at this stage, for the project
manager to review the project programme and amend the schedule accordingly.
Stage 3 Development Design Drawing from the research and development

undertaken by the team members, the developed design stage involves firming
up the concept designs: ‘This process may require a number of iterations of the
design and different tools may be used, including design workshops’ (RIBA 2013).
These workshops will typically involve the external design consultants, curators,
education officers and project managers.
As well as finalising the design programme, the architectural, structural
engineering and building services designs will have been finalised. Again, the
project manager must consider the cost information and align it with the project’s
overall budget.
At this stage, the project manager must, again, re-evaluate the project
programme; deadlines must be amended to accommodate design changes, and
budget (cost information) must be kept in check.
If the project involves an element of capital project (new build), and invariably
it does with recent museum redevelopments, the HLF will need to review the plans.
Stage 4 Technical Design The technical design pulls together all designs: the
building services plan, architectural plans, design programme, and so on. This
stage specifies that all subcontractors and suppliers involved in the design work
have their responsibilities defined and their schedules confirmed before moving on
to the construction stage.
Second-round applications should have completed up to stage 4 to be
considered by the HLF.
Stage 5 Construction The construction phase of the process is the point at which

museums will begin to physically realise the project. It is also the period when the
museum is closed to visitors.
Stage 6 Handover and Close Out The handover and close out stage takes over
from the former post-practical completion stage of the RIBA Plan of Work 2007.
At this stage, the building is formally handed back to the client, the museum team,
and reopened to the public.
Stage 7 In Use This is a new stage added by the RIBA to incorporate an evaluative

phase; something all museums endeavour to build into their post-completion
schedule. The HLF retain 10 per cent of the grant until they are in receipt of a
summative evaluation report (HLF 2012a).
Repercussions
Inherently, every project has its problems and issues, both minor and major. In the
likely event that minor issues arise, a simple decision-making exercise by team
members or the management team can rectify the problem. However, in the event
of a major issue arising, decision-making can take considerable time and the issue
may have severe monetary implications.
Whilst these issues are often unforeseen, the repercussions from funders are
limited. In severe circumstances, grant-awarding bodies may pull funding from
the project, but this is extremely rare. All of the projects examined in this book
overran their anticipated completion dates and under-budgeted the total costs of
their redevelopments, yet felt no repercussions from funding bodies.
Finite Projects
Whilst it is true the HLF has facilitated a major redevelopment phase in museums
over the past two decades, it is also painfully apparent that the money they have
granted is awarded for discrete projects, not ongoing programmes of decennial

display renewals.
Museums need to carefully consider theme, collection and technology
longevity when embarking on HLF-catalysed redisplay projects, in the knowledge
that it will likely be a long time before they receive large-scale funding again.
Chapter 3
Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting
Collections: Three British Museums
There have been many large-scale redevelopment projects in museums since the
creation of the HLF. These projects have begun to address the pressing need for the
up-to-date display and interpretation of collections. Projects are achieved with the
guidance of experienced HLF monitors and creatively realised through working
with the external design companies.
Each project is unique because of the team, collections, building and ideas.
However, they do share commonalities. For example, their Victorian establishment
elicits grandiose architecture in keeping with the period: ‘[the museums’ designs]
were daring and unfettered architectural visions: their sheer vastness was truly
sublime; it inspired awe and dwarfed the human presence’ (Giebelhausen 2005:
43–4). Regional and local museums also suffer from a lack of investment; many
displays date from the 1970s and 1980s, and those galleries that have recently
been redisplayed make the aged spaces around them seem even more archaic.
The projects detailed here were selected as foci for research because, at the
time, they were in the process of redisplaying their collections, or had completed a
redisplay project. They were also at different stages of the redevelopment process.
Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
Quick Facts
Museum originally opened: 1884
Year of HLF application: 2004
Funding from HLF: £9.246 million
Total funding for project: £26.246 million
Museum closed for redevelopment/reopened: April 2006/May 2009
The museum has a chequered history owing to complex ownership of the building
and collections in the recent past. The fledgling natural history collections at the
Hancock were amassed during the eighteenth century, when Marmaduke Tunstall,
an ornithologist, began collecting specimens of all types from across the globe
(Jessop 1999). In 1793, the Philosophical and Literary Society of Newcastle
was established by subscription (Orange 1983: 205). An opportunity arose to
purchase Tunstall’s original natural history collections in 1823 and they were
subsequently displayed at the new offshoot museum of the Natural History Society
of Northumbria in 1834. In the ensuing years, the Hancock brothers, John and
Albany, became active members of the society contributing naturalist knowledge,
expertise and specimens. As with many Victorian museums, the collections
expanded and outgrew the museum building. John Hancock was also ‘instrumental
in the campaign’ to set up a new Newcastle Museum and, in 1884, the museum
moved to its current site near Barras Bridge. Following John Hancock’s death in
1890, the Society decided to rename the Newcastle Museum in honour of John and
Albany Hancock (Cross et al. 2005).
With over 500,000 specimens, over 1,000 of which are type specimens, the
natural history curators had many specimens to select from to place on display.
Significantly, these collections in their entirety gained ‘Designation’ status (only
applicable to collections in English museums) in 1999, elevating their importance
nationally and internationally.
The museum building is also important, having gained Grade II* listed status,
which means that it is particularly significant and can be considered of interest
both regionally and nationally.
Ownership of the Collections
The collections’ ownership rested with the Natural History Society of Northumbria
from the early 1800s until 1959 when the society ‘entered into an agreement’
with the University of Newcastle. The university agreed to lease the collections
and building for 99 years from the agreement date. However, in the 1990s, the
‘museum entered a twilight period of nobody really wanting it.’D1 With subsequent
closures of the geology and biology departments, the university felt that the
running of the museum and maintenance of the building would be best passed
over to Tyne and Wear Museums, a regional museums service in the north-east of
England. A management package, or ‘Service Level Agreement’, was put in place
to realise the potential of the collections of the society, increase visitor numbers
and decrease capital spending.D1 Thus, a tri-partite agreement was reached between
all three organisations to run the museum, safeguard the collections and maintain
the building.D1
Project Background
The project is to increase access to the following heritage sites; Hancock Museum
(Grade II* listed), Museum of Antiquities collections, Shefton Collection and
the Hatton Gallery. The project seeks to provide new opportunities for learning
and engagement with the heritage, including the formation of a new joint library.
(Tyne and Wear Museums 2006)
In 2004, an application was made to the HLF, in support of a redevelopment

project, for £8.75 million. This application proposed a number of measures to
Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections: Three British Museums 21
bring the Hancock Museum up to date and in line with other twenty-first century
museums. The mission statement for the project explained the rationale behind the
redevelopment and also what it hoped to achieve:
The development of the GNM arises from the unique opportunity to combine the
collections from four of the region’s finest museums, namely:
• The Natural History Society of Northumbria’s collections of Natural
History and World Cultures currently located in the Hancock Museum
• The Society of Antiquaries’ and University of Newcastle’s collections of
British and Foreign archaeology located in the Museum of Antiquities
• The Shefton Museum of Greek Art and Archaeology and
• The Hatton Gallery’s fine collection of African sculpture and fine art.
(Tyne and Wear Museums 2006)
Bringing together the collections has enabled exploration of their potential for
interrelated interpretation. The relationship of both natural history specimens and
archaeological objects to the landscape, and the impact of humans upon the land,
provides an interesting starting-point from which to evolve interpretative ideas.B1
The amalgamation of the collections also raised another major issue for
the museum: its name. Before the project was under way, heated discussions
between the society and the project team took place over the renaming of the
museum. Several suggestions were put forward but the final decision, after much
consultation, was made and it is now known as Great North Museum: Hancock.
The project funded a three-storey extension to the museum which allowed for
improved positioning of a temporary exhibition space and learning suites. It also
incorporated new staff spaces and a library for the Natural History Society of
Northumbria (Tyne and Wear Museums 2008: 34).
From the outset, the management of the project was modelled on the PRINCE2
method (Curtis and Cobham 2008, Office of Government Commerce 2009). This
‘process-based project management method’ has become a UK government standard
for project management (Curtis and Cobham 2008: 594). PRINCE2 suggests a
hierarchy of staffing throughout the project and strict lines of communication: ‘It’s
a very structured communication system … There’s a very detailed PEP (Project
Execution Plan) which details how communication must work through the project
in the different phases of the project … there are conventions in terms of the way
communication routes work.’D1
New Display Approach
The GNM project team decided upon a traditional approach to collections display,
in that the museum collections from the four museums were not amalgamated
within the gallery spaces. Instead, each collection was given its own gallery, and
in the case of the biological collections, two galleries.
Audience Groups
Following consultation with museum and non-museum users, the museum project
team identified two main visitor groups from which to focus gallery interpretation:
families and school groups. The museum team also had to bear in mind the different
stakeholders in the project, namely the Natural History Society of Northumbria and
the University of Newcastle. Displays would therefore need to provide appropriate
levels of information to appeal to a wide range of audience groups.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (KAGM)
Quick Facts
Funding from HLF: £13 million
Museum closed for redevelopment/reopened: June 2003/July 2006
In the mid-nineteenth century, Glasgow had numerous ‘branch museums’ spread

across the city which held valuable collections of art, social history and natural
history.A4 One such museum, Kelvingrove Mansion, exhibited the McLellan
art collection, now one of the museum’s most prized collections. Kelvingrove
Mansion sat within Kelvingrove Park in the affluent West End of the city. A
number of extensions were added to the Mansion but it became clear that the
collections were rapidly outgrowing their storage and display spaces. Not only
that, the buildings themselves were deemed unsafe due to overcrowding and, in
the case of the McLellan Galleries, a serious fire hazard (Leslie 2001: 121). It
was then resolved to construct a large museum building to house the collections
already overwhelming Kelvingrove Mansion, with room for further collections
and continued collecting.
To accommodate an International Exhibition held in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove
Park in 1888, Kelvingrove Mansion was demolished. Profits from the International
Exhibition financed the start of the museum building project to the sum of £40,000
(Hamilton 2002: 24). Additional monies were acquired from public subscriptions
raising the total to over £120,000. The city council eventually took ownership of
the project and completed the building in 1902 at a cost of over £250,000 (Glasgow
Museums 2013a: 1). The building itself ‘reflect[ed] the pride, wealth and cultural
ambition of one of the Victorian era’s great industrial and trading cities’ whilst ‘the
new museum aimed to encompass the entire world of art, history, archaeology and
natural history’ (O’Neill 2006).
Today, KAGM is a Category A listed building. The Category A listed status
denotes that the museum building is of national or international importance and
is the highest protection status for architectural structures in Scotland (Historic
Scotland 2013: 12). The contemporary HLF project aimed to conserve the building
and improve its interior in a number of ways:
• Removing all of the non-original features that impede visitor flow around
the building.
• Enact repairs which ensure the building’s conservation and embark on a
phased programme of restoration of original features.
• Greatly improve the environment in the building for the collection.
• Upgrade the building’s electrical and heating and ICT infrastructure.
• Re-house collections stored in the building basement to a new store
with improved conditions and the potential for expansion and greater
public access.
• Open up the basement, create a ground level public entrance and establish
display and visitor facilities in the basement of the building and
• Increase the amount of display space by 35 per cent. (KNCP 1999: 2–3)
These improvements to the building were proposed in order to make safe the
environment for both the collections and museum visitors. Orientation throughout
the museum would be vastly improved with the removal of accretions, for example,
‘the most radical change was that so much was boxed off and turned into offices
and storerooms for the duration of its life and that’s of course all been altered
now.’A3 In opening up areas of the museum which had previously been blocked
off for officers and stores, it became symmetrical again and wayfinding improved.
It also meant that the increase in the total amount of display space given over to
the museum permitted more objects and specimens to be displayed and thus, more
themes and stories to be told.
Project Background
Although the KAGM was becoming a ‘museum of museums’ with its ageing
displays and dilapidated building in dire need of updating, many visitors flocked
to the museum each year (1.13 million per annum before its closure).D2 However,
with the advent of a new director, Julian Spalding, in 1989, the idea for a new
display approach was mooted. This project idea, and redisplay approach, was then
taken on by Mark O’Neill, who was made ‘project champion’ and furnished with
the responsibility ‘for setting the vision and starting the whole project, raising the
plans, etc.’.D2
In 1999, the Culture and Leisure Services Department of Glasgow City Council
submitted an ambitious first-round application to the HLF. In its application, the
council asked for a contribution of £8.643 million to support the redevelopment
of the KAGM. Set out within the bid was the mission for the Kelvingrove New
Century Project (KNCP), the application stated: ‘We will use our collection to
enrich people’s understanding of the world and themselves’ (KNCP 1999: 4;
original emphasis).
It was to be accomplished through a number of key objectives. They were to:
• Work with the strengths of the collection to communicate across time and
cultural diversity to inspire people of all ages to learn and understand more
about themselves and the world we live in.
• Restore the building to as near its original condition as possible and
introduce new displays in ways which respect the architecture.
• Build upon the museum’s tradition as a social place, owned by the people
of Glasgow.
• Connect to the lives of our multicultural audience by being flexible and
inclusive to create a genuinely visitor-centred museum and
• Reduce the proportion of the building devoted to functions which can
be carried out elsewhere and maximise the space devoted to access.
(KNCP 2001: 7)
In order to achieve these goals the project team proposed to increase and renew
all of the museum display space, conserve the collections, develop a new off-
site storage facility and conduct essential maintenance to the building itself. The
project was granted in January 2002 by the HLF.A4 The total contribution to the
KNCP by the HLF was £12,793,000, an increase of £4 million more than the
original bid. The new museum design had to be ‘both flexible and responsive,
a radical change from the old methods of display and interpretation’ (Glasgow
Museums 2013b, 2013c). The designated galleries of art, natural history,
archaeology and sculpture were replaced by diverse galleries which brought
together assorted objects and specimens from the collections under new themes.
This new approach presented ‘stories’ centred on general themes such as ‘Conflict
and Consequence’ and ‘Scotland’s Wildlife’. These ‘stories’ would then allow
the gallery spaces to become ‘flexible’ with changing objects, interpretations
and gallery layouts (ibid.). Written within the opening pages of the HLF bid, the
project team recognised the need to refresh and update the displays due to the
high amount of repeat visitors to the museum. In the document, they promised
to ‘reinterpret or replace eight stories displays in this way each year’ (KNCP
1999: 11).
As with most Victorian museums, collections tend to be incomplete and eclectic

with bequests and donations of a variety of objects and specimens being acquired
over many years. Project champion, Mark O’Neill, conceived of a new KAGM
where a ‘storytelling approach’ would revolutionise the museum’s displays by
amalgamating objects and specimens from within the museum’s varied collections.
The interpretation of these collections meant that the museum would tell stories
about objects and specimens and group these stories into broad themes – working
with the strengths of their collections – at the same time as recognising that the
collections were piecemeal and could not ‘summarise entire disciplines’ (KNCP
1999: 9). Instead they would ‘concentrate on telling the best stories … with the
best objects’ (ibid.).
In 2001, exhibition designers were offered the opportunity to tender for the
project. A brief was devised by the project team for the KNCP to inform designers
of the new approach the museum wanted to take with regards to display and
interpretation. This included thirteen objectives, devised by the core project team
from best-practice museum standards and council goals, to fulfil the museum’s
aim. They were to:
1. Attain a quality threshold in keeping with the importance of the building

and the collections.
2. Meet standards of display for access, conservation, security and health
and safety.
3. Deliver robust display structures, interpretive techniques and technologies
that will be interesting and relevant throughout their expected twenty-
year lifespan.
4. Develop design solutions that can be applied to the diverse display needs of
the objects in the collection.
5. Achieve the display targets for both objects and interpreted paintings.
6. Provide a range of different visitor experiences.
7. Combine lighting, aesthetics and audio (if used) to provide a range of
gallery atmospheres.
8. Create displays that respond to the needs of different target audiences.
9. Manage the visitor flow by developing an appropriate orientation strategy.
10. Develop a flexible display approach which allows the displays to be altered
and reconfigured ensuring that the objects on display can be rotated in a
resource effective way.
11. Achieve successful integration of objects and display interpretation.
12. Respond to long-term museum issues by assessing maintenance, running
costs, and energy efficiency and
13. Correspond with key city council objectives, social inclusion objectives
and best value review objectives. (Glasgow City Council 2001c: 5)
With the new approach to display and contemporary objectives, the traditional
single-collection galleries were replaced by multi-disciplinary, narrative galleries.
Objects within KAGM galleries are displayed both within cases and on open
display. The galleries have been designed to incorporate different interpretative
tools; interactives, text and audio-visuals.
One of the major objectives for the new museum was to develop a flexible
display system which would allow for the furniture to be reconfigured in a number
of combinations. Working with a number of contractors, the museum issued a brief
for the flexible display system which would ‘incorporate audio, sequenced lighting,
computer control, integral display lighting, etc.’ (Glasgow City Council 2001a: 2).
The final system was developed using measurements from the building itself. The
education officer explained that:
… the designers went to a huge amount of effort. They went round and measured
the architectural details … the skirting, the dado, all of the ceiling design, the
coving and everything else and it was on that basis that they came up with those
measurements that are used throughout the building like the modular display
system so it’s all built up of … modules of 245 mm so 245, 490 and then … 735
and then the horizontal measurements are all units of 400, 800, 1200 and so on.C2
In order to redevelop the museum’s displays, working with the new storytelling
approach, a team structure was developed to map out strands of communication
and working relationships within the institution.
Curators for the project sat within the display production teams and were
answerable directly to their corresponding senior production teams. There was
no direct communication between the display production teams and the project
team. The project team at KAGM consisted of a group of four to five people who
represented different sections of the museum’s staff, for example, conservators,
curators, education officers, and so on. The project team members were responsible
for making design decisions, with input from many sources including the display
senior production teams, the external project managers, the design team and the
project manager.
However, between 1999 and 2000, a Best Value Review (BVR) was undertaken
to ‘develop policies’ for the Glasgow museum network ‘and in doing so aimed
to maximise their contribution to social inclusion, lifelong learning, economic
development and tourism’ within the Glasgow Museums organisation (Glasgow
City Council 2000: 3). The results of the BVR led to a restructuring of the staffing
hierarchy within the museum, although this was somewhat disruptive as it
occurred in the midst of the redevelopment project (Glasgow City Council 2001b:
163). The recommended restructuring meant that commonplace divisions within
the museum were reorganised to create new positions and new departments:
… we went from being largely dominated by curators in terms of numbers and

having one education member, seconded from the education service, to having I
think 40 on the education and access team, a research team, increased curatorial
team, increased information team and that sense that all of whom, the education
and access team were specifically called curators on the same grade to make sure
that there was parity within the service.D2
In an interview with one curator, the restructuring exercise was explained, ‘part
way through the [redevelopment] process we were restructured and we then had
research departments … We’ve got a research manager for natural history, art,
science and technology, and history with a senior research manager on top of
that.’A4 Curators, therefore, were directed by research managers and sat within
four main departments. Those departments and team members were supervised by
one overarching senior research manager.
The curator continued by explaining how this restructuring affected the team
members’ involvement in the redevelopment:
… the idea was that the research managers would lead a quarter of the KNCP
each and manage the content for the new displays. So we were split into what we
call DDTs, Display Development Teams. I was DDT3 which basically covered
the ground floor on that side so it was basically the natural history but I also had
Ancient Egypt and Glasgow stories.A4
The reorganisation drew together, in DDTs, different discipline team members, who
had the scope of wide-ranging curatorial expertise and in-depth sector knowledge,
for example, natural history curators working with social history educators. The
restructuring of staff and the amalgamation of duties and responsibilities meant
the museum aimed to produce a more competent, holistic interpretation of the
collections through a variety of stories.
Audience Groups
KAGM project staff identified target audiences which they used as a tool to help
decide on themes and stories for the museum’s galleries. Each visitor group was
given a profile: what type of display they preferred, the interpretation used in
the galleries, the pace and ambience of the galleries, and so on. Each story, with
accompanying interpretation, within an individual gallery was determined for a
specific audience, although that did not mean that the story was irrelevant to other
visitor groups.
Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM)
Quick Facts
Funding from HLF: £8.922 million
Museum closed for redevelopment/reopened: December 2007/June 2010
The RAMM was opened in August 1869. The building, which has dominated
Queen Street for the last 150 years, sits in the heart of Exeter and was designed
by local architect John Hayward. For the founding fathers, it represented the
archetypal Victorian institution where education was the utmost motivation.
Moreover, the building housed multiple institutions, including the city library, the
School of Art, the School of Science, a reading room and the collections of the
museum. The various disciplines were assembled in ‘the hope that each would
nurture the other’ (Exeter City Council 2004: 3).
The institution continued to grow and develop with extensions to the building
and additions to the museum collections. In the twentieth century, the museum
became a stand-alone institution, with the library and other institutions moving
into independent buildings throughout the city. The RAMM is a Grade II listed
building, denoting its special architectural and historical interest.
Project Background
The project will make physical changes to the Museum, making the building
more ‘legible’ to visitors as well as to include facilities that meet modern-
day expectations. The collections will also be re-displayed, to emphasise
the contemporary relevance of heritage and reflect and respond to change. A
clear narrative will link differing aspects of the collections with associated
‘branches’ which encourage in depth exploration of particular interests and
return visits; recognising different learning styles; different perspectives and
use ‘voices’ of individuals and communities to promote a sense of shared
involvement. More of the Museum’s collections will be accessible, increasing
the range and depth of the Museum resource. IT will be used as a way of
making information further available. A Learning Suite will be used by people
of all ages and backgrounds for activities, enhancing their experience of the
Museum. (HLF 2005: 1)
In 2004, the RAMM, together with Exeter City Council, put together an
HLF application for the redevelopment of the entire museum excluding two
permanent galleries which would remain in situ due to recent redisplay: Sladen’s
Study and the World Cultures gallery. This proposal incorporated plans for a new
entrance at the rear of the museum, Garden Entrance, and the redisplay of its
major collections.
The project was approved in January 2005 with the initial exhibition
designs being developed by external, international museum designers. Prior
to the redevelopment, Sladen’s Study was a stand-alone biology gallery on
the first floor. This gallery’s permanency, coupled with the desire to create an
uninterrupted space dedicated to the history of Devon and Exeter on the ground
floor, acted as the starting-block for the redevelopment of the biological galleries
and prompted their amalgamation on the first floor of the museum.
The second-round HLF application, submitted in September 2006, sought
to solidify the details of the proposed redevelopment. The application not only
reiterated the project aim, but also presented the objectives and the new display
approach which the staff intended to implement.
The aim recorded in the HLF application documents was to: ‘develop the
Royal Albert Memorial Museum as a dynamic twenty-first century regional
museum, which interprets the past, enriches the present and responds to the
future’ (Exeter City Council 2006: 2)
Four main objectives were developed to achieve the aim for the project. They
were:
1. The reinterpretation of the collections to improve access and understanding.

2. Encourage learning and enjoyment at all levels.
3. Improve the visitor experience and
4. Create a sense of place.
Working to this aim and the numerous objectives, the team developed a new
approach to the display of the RAMM’s collections.
The RAMM, as with the other case study museums, recognised that this project
was a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity to reconfigure the interior of the museum
and develop new, innovative gallery displays in a comprehensive, unified manner,
unlike approaches in the past which were piecemeal and infrequent. The project
team developed a two-pronged interpretation strategy, which included the mantra
‘collections-led, audience-guided’. Staff were very aware of the Victorian legacy
and wanted the collections to lead the way for the stories and themes that would
be told in the new museum. They were also aware of the need to consult with their
audiences and develop galleries which presented an ‘informed learning experience’
to ‘engage visitors in playful and stimulating ways’.B3 This interpretation strategy
was supported by a philosophical approach: ‘The Museum is about people, identity
and knowledge and the Museum’s methods are spectacle, story and rhythm’ (Exeter
City Council 2006: 1; original emphasis).
Audience Groups
From evaluation conducted prior to the museum’s closure, users of the RAMM
were identified and, for the sake of the project, split into four core groups: young
visitors, older visitors, specialists and families. These groups were then cross-cut
by two other groups of museum users: people with disabilities and those attending
the museum for formal education. These cross-cut groups could be applied to
any of the core audience groups. For example, young people with disabilities
could visit the museum and so their specific needs would encourage specialised
interpretation within a gallery, for example, audio-visual interactives, but this
interpretation would benefit the remaining core groups as well.
Chapter 4
Decision-making, Communication and
Teamwork: Key Elements in the Process of
Collection Redisplay
Decision-making, communication and teamwork are seminal aspects in the process

of collection redisplay; indeed, they are seminal to any project (Dinsmore and
Cabanis-Brewin 2011, Gido and Clements 2011, Phillips et al. 2002, Smith 2004:
33). These three elements, with their variety of modes, indubitably shape and define
the ways in which collection redisplays begin, evolve, progress and conclude.
Markedly, in the local and regional museums of yesteryear, curatorial staff
were responsible for driving collection redisplay. This, in turn, more often than not,
led to an autocratic mode of decision-making with the curator acting as funding
bidder, content developer, object selector and graphic designer, as well as general
project manager. The large-scale processes of redisplay witnessed at three case
study museums – Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (KAGM), Great North
Museum: Hancock (GNM) and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) –
each demonstrate a significant shift away from the curator as sole decision-maker to
a more collaborative, team decision-maker process (explored further in this chapter
and Chapter 7).
In order for the team decision-making process to work successfully, and the
project to remain on time, within budget and fulfil all of its aims, teamwork must be
embraced by all project members. Excellent teamwork is facilitated by constant and
clear communication between project team members and throughout the hierarchy
of the project team structure. It is imperative that all project members understand,
from the outset, the aims and desired outcomes of the redisplays. If not, this can
lead to individuals reshaping the aims, delaying project stages, over-spending on
materials and services, the need for unplanned, secondary actions and a departure
from the original concept.
The three elements, decision-making, teamwork and communication, therefore,
are compellingly interconnected and, if managed correctly, ensure the success of the
redisplay project.
Decision-making
Decision-making is clearly an important element in any project. Arguably, the best

way to make decisions is by ‘using a systematic process to select one option among
competing alternatives’ (Kendrick 2010: 43). Of course, this necessitates the team
being in receipt of all the options in order to make an informed decision. It also
demands that communication between team members and external colleagues is
effective, open and continuous. Kendrick offers a rather simplistic view of decision-
making which, according to Hooper-Greenhill (2000: 124), does not reflect the
complexity of the process involved in collection display decision-making.
Decision-making, within the context of collection redisplay in museums,
occurs throughout all project stages, from the conceptual phase where aims
and objectives for the projects are decided upon and design briefs written, to
the evaluative stages where museum teams decide if their redisplays have been
‘successful’. Any decision will steer the direction of the project and shape the
overall course of decision-making. Subsequently, the gallery designs, themes,
chosen objects and outcomes will have been shaped by the unique decision-
making process determined by the project team members, the budget, the schedule
and the collections.
Decision-making occurs on varying levels, as well as through the various
stages of each project.B3 Many of the large, project-shaping decisions are made at
the outset and therefore any subsequent decisions are almost always guided by the
initial decisions.
A Model for Decision-making
From the outset, the three museum case studies had differing concepts, frameworks,
team members and collections driving their decision-making. For these reasons,
the decision-making process is extremely complex and difficult to elucidate.
However, one model (Figure 4.1) that does help to simplify the process is that
of Kor and Wijnen (2007: 104). The model illustrates that the decisions made at
the earliest stage of any project (the ‘initiation’ stage) are the largest decisions the
project team face making during the whole process. Importantly, in doing so, the
team has already begun to limit the alternatives of all subsequent stages.
At each stage of project development, fewer choices are available and
alternatives are dropped. Also, in each instance of decision-making, the level, type
and mode can and must change to fit the situation (Verzuh 2005: 260–62).
The process at each museum followed this model and, in addition, the projects
employed a combination of decision-making modes for varying levels and types
of problem. For example, the consensus mode was employed in design decisions
but if the decision became contentious – possibly because of monetary or space
issues – the decisions was passed up to the project manager, who would make
an autocratic decision. Ultimately, ‘good decisions result from systematic group
dialogue to reach agreement on one choice among a set of alternatives’ (Kendrick
2010: 246). By ensuring that decisions are informed by all stakeholders, from
curators to the visitors and society members to funders, the aims and objectives
of the original museum project will stand a better chance of being achieved: the
ultimate goal for all involved in the redevelopment project.
Decision-making, Communication and Teamwork 33
Figure 4.1 Decisions to be made in a project; reprinted by permission of

the Publishers from ‘Decisions to be made in a project’, in 59
Checklists for Project and Programme Managers by Rudy Kor
and Gert Wijnen (Aldershot: Gower, 2007), p. 104. Copyright
© 2007’
Decision-making at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The redevelopment of KAGM was mooted long before the final project was
accepted by the HLF. The then director, Mark O’Neill, made one of the biggest
decisions, which was to become the driving force for the redisplays of collections
held at the museum. O’Neill essentially ‘set the vision’ for a display philosophy
of ‘flexibility’.D2 In a museological article reflecting on the vision for the KAGM,
O’Neill (2006: 96) described the flexible approach to collections display as a
‘new epistemology of museums’. The project director explained that the vision
for Kelvingrove was an approach which witnessed a ‘new object-based, visitor-
centred, storytelling epistemology’, which would break down the ‘fairly arbitrary
divisions’ or specialist disciplines, for example, biology, social history, costume
and fine art, that once categorised its galleries.D2
Introducing an interdisciplinary, flexible approach to collection display at
Kelvingrove granted the museum two major benefits, O’Neill argued. The first
was an ability to substitute old stories for new ones; they would still sit within the
overall gallery theme, and the second was that it focused the visitors’ attention on
the objects on display, further facilitating personal meaning-making (ibid.: 107).
The decision to undertake such a radical paradigmatic and epistemological
change in the museum guided the project team in the decision-making process.
The biological collections would no longer be found in designated galleries but
scattered throughout the museum forming the focus of stories about hunting and
design, for example.A3
Empowering its visitors, the KAGM team were extremely keen, and convinced
of the need, to mount a varied and intense programme of front-end and formative
evaluation with museum and non-museum audiences (Economou 2004: 30). As a
result, the audience became decision-makers, playing a key role in the selection
of display stories and feeding back information when testing prototype design
elements (ibid.).A4 This move to include the local community in decision-making
in its most radical form has been described as an idea of the postmodern museum.
Marstine (2006: 19) declares that this kind of museum ‘actively seeks to share
power with the communities it serves, including source communities’. The ideas
that O’Neill posited also went some way to suggesting an embracing of the
ecomuseum ideals; creating a sense of place and community (see Davis 2011).
The Kelvingrove team also played to the Museums Association’s Code of Ethics
for Museums (2008: 9), which states that ‘society can expect museums to; consult
and involve communities, users and supporters’ and ‘promote a sense of shared
ownership in the world of the museum’.
The only conceivable way to redisplay all 22 galleries in the museum with
interdisciplinary display stories was to create a team which included curatorial,
conservation and education staff. A team structure was essential to define the
relationships between project team members but it also enabled the project
management team to define each team member’s decision-making powers (Hill
2008: 217).
By having a key decision-maker, Mark O’Neill, steering the project from
the outset, consulting with members of the public in the lengthy research and
development stages and establishing the new team approach to decision-making,
the powers of the decisions-makers of the old museology, the curators, had shifted
considerably. The team approach at Kelvingrove removed the curator from the
prime decision-making role and produced equality in decision-making at the
design level.
This redistribution of decision-making power meant that the Kelvingrove
project had a hierarchy of decision-making. One curator explained, ‘Curators
would make comments; they were passed onto the research managers, who
then passed them onto the project team who made the decisions.’A4 Frustrations
began to arise when curators felt their messages, ideas and opinions were getting
lost or ‘filtered out’ through the layers of hierarchy and expressed the feeling
that ‘it was just the project team that made the decisions.’ However, a fellow
team member explained that it wasn’t a case of losing, ignoring, or filtering
out messages, but that decisions were made objectively, and that didn’t always
satisfy all team members:
I think the project team was very clear and focused so [the decisions] tended
not to be hugely difficult but again, it’s something that I don’t know if the story
curators fully grasped, the degree to which every point they made was considered
even though it might not go through in the end. It wasn’t sort of willy-nilly …
although it wasn’t as regimental as that but everything [the curators] said was
taken into account but not everything that they asked for was implemented.C2
Setting a clear, focused brief with aims and goals for the project from the outset is
imperative, and was certainly important to the project team in this case. The team
was able to make decisions measured against the wider context of the project.
One team member explained that whilst this was the case for the project team,
the curatorial teams and research managers had a tendency to try and further their
collections and story agendas; they were ‘focused on their particular display but
didn’t have awareness of the bigger picture’.C2
Other decision-making pressures were brought about by the appointment of an
alternative design company partway through the project schedule for the redisplay
of the collections. The new design company was commissioned to take over the
design process in October 2003. The change brought with it extreme pressure to
make quick decisions, in order for the museum to reopen on-time.
The real problem was, because of the huge amount of work involved, the project
management team didn’t really have any time left for discussions. Sometimes they
said, ‘We’ve got to make a decision now; yes or no?’ So some decisions were
definitely wrong decisions but they didn’t have time to discuss them. And they had
to make a decision there and then because we were running out of time.A4
The decision-making process at Kelvingrove was virtually unique, in museum

terms, because of the large scale of the project. Kelvingrove’s project manager
estimated that 300 people worked on the project, with approximately 40 curatorial
team members alone. The management and responsibility of decisions was
centralised in the form of a project management team who were able to make
informed decisions by gathering information from the relevant curatorial,
conservation, education and design teams.
Decision-making at the Great North Museum
From the outset, the GNM project team decided that the major gallery of biology
(Living Planet) needed to have ‘the wow factor’.A1 The gallery needed to make an
impact. The team decided they were going to achieve this by creating a spectacle
of animals much akin to those of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris
(Lord and Lord 2001: 479–82) and Naturalis in Leiden (Houtgraaf 2008). The
project manager admitted:
To be honest a lot of this focus and direction did come from me. It was based
on my feelings towards places like Leiden and Paris and the London Natural
History Museum who do this sort of thing, which I quite liked. And I was keen
to bring out this large exhibit of diversity and showcase our big animals and
then within that integrate all the complexity within it somehow. So it became a
showpiece if you like.D1
The decision was made, in the initial stages, to produce a biology gallery that would
act as a frontispiece for the museum. However, it was also acknowledged that this
concept for placing the aesthetics of design first, using the collections to populate the
gallery, was a gamble: ‘There’s a risk there as well … it might not work, it might not
be perfect. Not everybody will go “Ooohhhh” and will like this.’D1
In fact, one curator explained that the concept for a ‘wall of biodiversity’ would
not have been their first choice for the redisplay of the biological collections:
Probably, if I’d come in at the start, I might not have decided to turn the gallery
into a wall because I think it’s given us a lot of problems. I don’t think you can
deny that it will be quite a dramatic structure and yes, I don’t think the boxes
detract too much. I think what concerns me more is the height of some of the
objects in the display … We want people to stand back from the wall because
you need to appreciate the scale of it but it does mean that you don’t get the
chance to get up close to it.A1
That initial decision to make the gallery ‘spectacular for visitors’, to allow them
to stand in awe of the ‘wall of biodiversity’ did not, apparently, take full account
of the collections already catalogued at the museum. The ‘wall’ was divided into
four world climatic zones. This caused problems; mainly because the bulk of the
museum’s biological collections were local or regional, not global. There was
therefore a need to acquire new objects to ‘populate’ the gallery:
There are areas like the desert section, which is a very small section because we
really don’t have a large collection of desert creatures. That was something that
came to light slightly later in the process, after we had already decided that we
wanted to do a desert section. Obviously we’ve had to try and supplement that
with acquisitions.A1
This is illustrative of the impact of decision-making in the early stages of the

project and the knock-on effect of each decision made in the initial stages of the
redisplay process.
For the GNM team, nearly all decisions were made through consensus: ‘in the
first year we all worked all of the time all together.’A2 And for design decisions,
there were group meetings. These group meetings, which would involve the key
members of the project team, allowed an informed, consensus agreement to be
made. As a team, they worked through ideas and made decisions by consensus:
We did frequently have meetings where we could meet with the designers, and
[the project manager] would be there, and [the education officer] who’s been
coordinating all the learning and interpretation, and we’d all thrash through the
ideas and then maybe we’d make some changes like that, as a group. And then
I would have to go away with those changes in mind and do a bit of research
and come up with an alternative way of doing it. Then I would come back to
the group. So I think as we’ve progressed with the project, the way that we’ve
worked has changed; the decisions are made a bit more collectively.A1
As with any project, some decisions are contentious and at that point the decision-
making responsibility may be passed to the Steering Group, as was the case for
the GNM. At the GNM, the Steering Group were charged with making informed,
autocratic decisions based on the information presented by each of the team
members. This was equivalent to the project management team for the Kelvingrove
redevelopment project.
One of the key points made by the GNM team members was the importance of
sticking with decisions once they had been made. Reversing a decision or changing
aspects of the design can have explicit ‘cost implications’ and ‘time implications’.
The project manager needs to stand firm on original decisions: ‘One of the issues
about this type of project is not changing your mind all the time. There’s a time
for that and then it gets to a point where there isn’t time for that anymore. And you
have to say, “You’ve got to make your decisions and stick with it.”’D1
With the intensity and quantity of decision-making, and the fast pace and
complexity of a project, it is imperative that all decisions, large or small, are
recorded by the team (Lord and Lord 2001: 445). In doing so, it allows team
members to refresh their memories and prevent disagreements on decisions that
have already been made:
What happens, and I’m guilty of this as well, is that in six months’ time you
say ‘Well I don’t remember saying that’. So recording it is important. We’ve
recorded the decision-making process, which is what we do. [The interpretation
coordinator] records everything basically so he/she can go back to the minutes
of the meetings and say ‘No, we did agree. Look we agreed there. That’s the
decision we made, we’ve got to stick to it.’D1
Decision-making at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum
The external design company was briefed to create new galleries for the museum
that would
… connect the collections to their original habitats, and/or to the people

who owned, made or used the collections. They had to contextualize the
interpretations within social, geographical and historical frameworks to
encourage an understanding of diverse cultural and social viewpoints. (Exeter
City Council 2006)
The decision to focus on this particular framework sprung forth from the desire to
maintain the museum’s integrity:
We are unashamedly about the collections and the quality of the collections.
We know our history and we know our strengths and we’re trying to play to
those rather than trying to reinvent ourselves for the twenty-first century. In a
comfortable way it’ll be an obvious development rather than a new direction.D3
Having decided upon the framework, or concept, for the redisplay of the
collections, the curators were set the task of auditing the collections to establish
any particular collection strengths and/or stories of interest that fit within the
socio-geographic-historic framework. To this end, the curators at all three case
study museums were given decision-making power to select objects and develop
stories; arguably, curators are best placed to do this. Having undertaken the audit,
the curators identified two collections, within the natural history department, that
would be best displayed in dedicated galleries: the bird collection and the insect
collection. The remaining diverse collection of biology was used to tell stories
within galleries such as the Discovering our World gallery and the Devon and
Exeter gallery. This conceptual framework placed the collections at the heart
of the decision-making process, whilst audience consultation helped in guiding
decisions further; the museum’s mantra was ‘collections-led, audience-guided’.E1
Moving through to the development stages of the redisplay project, the team,
which was considerably smaller than the KAGM team – that is, more on a par
with that of the GNM – were given the power to help in the decision-making
process; the only person who could make autocratic decisions was the museum’s
project manager. One team member explained how few decisions were impossible
to resolve: ‘I think most people come to a sensible consensus. Nothing’s been that
contentious.’C3 So the vast majority of decisions were made by a group of subject
specialists coming together and deciding by consensus: ‘If you’re the only person
that thinks a particular thing is of value there comes a point, that like anything else,
you can go on until you’re blue in the face but it probably won’t happen. You have
to know when no is no!’A5
If team members cannot accept that decisions have been made, rifts and
conflicts can arise (Lee 2007), but this does not seem to have occurred within the
project team at the RAMM.
The Power to Decide
Undoubtedly, the biggest factor to affect the decision-making process in the

redisplay of any museum collection has been the shift, or transfer, of power in the
museum.
Unequivocally, the curator’s role in the redisplay of collections has changed.
Previously acting as the project manager, education officer and designer, the
curator was the chief, and often sole, decision-maker in collection redisplay. But
as Black (2012: 255) articulates, ‘the days when the curator could make all the
decisions on a new exhibition are passing.’ In fact, it is fair to say, considering
these contemporary collection redevelopments, that those days have passed. Black
continues, ‘It is impossible to see the development of a major new permanent
exhibition, and unwise to view a major temporary exhibition, as anything other
than a team effort’ (ibid.). As such, the once all-encompassing, dictatorial curator
role has been diluted and diffused in order to balance curatorial power with that of
other project team members.
This ‘redistribution of power’ (Stam 2005: 55), a condition of the New
Museology, best explains the decision-making power shift. Curatorial powers of
decision-making are further redistributed to empower other stakeholders in the
redisplay process. These include project team members, the visitors, funders, the
media, and so on. The postmodern museum, of which all three case study museums
display characteristics, ‘actively seeks to share power with the communities it
serves’ (Marstine 2006: 19). In doing so, redisplaying collections has become a
widened team effort – the extent of the team far outreaching the internal museum
hierarchies. It now encompasses a wide variety of ‘communities’ in the decision-
making exercise, to varying degrees.
To focus on the audience for a moment, as key decision-makers, the shift
in decision-making power is borne through the commissioning of intense and
rigorous programmes of front-end and formative evaluation. The programmes,
which amongst other things, test storylines, themes, furniture, display texts,
multimedia use and interactive elements, feed into the museum’s decision-making
exercises through audience representatives: the education officers (or equivalent).
Within the museum project team, decision-making powers have also
transferred upwards to a new but temporary member of the museum team:
the project manager. Project managers, in all three of the case studies, were
seconded from their existing positions within their museums to carry out
essential management of the projects. The most powerful management tool
was the decision-making tool. It was with this tool that project managers could
reject or accept team proposals. In some cases, rejection was construed as
project managers being ignorant of individual’s opinions, but in reality it was
a case of making a decision which ‘ostensibly went against or in favour of one
team, discipline, profession or opinion’.D2 It was not a slight on the individual
or specialist team. The project managers were charged with making decisions
measured ‘against the wider context of the project’ in all three museums, casting
their personal opinions and agendas aside.C2
One project team member from the GNM aptly explains the decision-making
process as ‘one of these things that evolves’, and I agree.C1 Decision-making can
be described as adaptable and modifiable within the modes, types and levels of
decisions needing to be made.
Aside from the process of decision-making, the shift in powers to take decisions
away from the curator, empowering other stakeholders, has initiated new lines of
communication and reinforced the need to work as a team. Conflict, however, is
inevitable, so it is the job of the project manager to diffuse the conflict and make
the final decision. All project team members must be informed of decisions taken.
Teamwork
For many years, museum professionals have been employed to work

independently, or as independent entities, conducting various functions in
the museum such as collection curation, educational programming, object
conservation, museum administration, and so on. With the advent of these large-
scale, twenty-first-century museum redevelopments, museum managers have
implemented a new approach to collections redisplay: the team approach. As
teamwork literature suggests, ‘When we work cooperatively we accomplish
infinitely more than if we work individually. This is the principle of group
synergy – that the contribution of the whole group is greater than the sum of its
individual members’ contribution’ (West 2012: 7–8).
As such, the transition to a team approach to collection redisplay has been
long overdue. Lindauer (2005: 41) notes that it is only in the last decade that the
team approach has been embraced in museums. This is corroborated by Mark
O’Neill (2006: 109), project champion for the KNCP redevelopment, who notes
that teamwork ‘is a relatively new practice in museums’.
O’Neill (2006: 109) is also quick to relate that the team approach is ‘the
only way interdisciplinary working can be carried out and the only way in-depth
expertise of museum content can be integrated with expertise about museum
visitors’. This team approach to projects facilitates successful multi-layered
interpretations which seemingly appeal to the multitude of stakeholders involved
(Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 2007). The opportunity to bring together
specialisms in the museum, particularly those of the curator and the education
officer, has ensured that the visitor is considered from the outset of the redisplay
process, not as an afterthought as a project approaches completion.
These large-scale projects across the British Isles have suddenly thrust
museum staff into a new situation: a project team. Working within a large group,
which extends outside the museum, requires new skills to ensure positive,
productive working relationships and limited conflict. Conflict is one of the
negative aspects of any teamworking. However, conflicts are generally resolved
by the project manager in order to enable teams and projects to progress. Project
managers typically select from five different options to resolve conflict:
1. Forcing (one party forces the other party to agree).

2. Smoothing (minimises disagreement by making differences seem
less important).
3. Compromising (each of the parties renounce something).
4. Problem-solving (proving or disproving a point; decision based on fact), or
5. Withdrawal (retirement of one party, and subsequently resolution, can have

negative effect). (Newell 2005: 124–7)
Common issues of conflict arose across all of the projects:
We couldn’t do everything and [the project team] had to make a decision which
ostensibly went against or in favour of one team, discipline, profession or
opinion. And so what we did was, we took them as a group and we fed back
those decisions to the individual teams. So a conservator that had been seen
to lose an argument could go back and say, ‘Look. I fought very hard for you.
It wasn’t my fault but this is the reason why we’ve taken this decision’ and it
meant that their relationship with their team was intact and they could continue
to manage them and deliver the work.D2
Within the large Kelvingrove structure, it was the middle managers who resolved
conflict, whereas with the smaller teams at the GNM and the RAMM, it was the
job of the project managers.C3
Conflicts may also arise as a result of poor communication, personal agendas
influencing decision-making and/or personal teamwork issues, but the execution
must always remain the same: resolve the issue quickly without causing further
conflict or angst within the team (Griffin 1987).
In addition to conflict, project managers may also have to deal with ‘point
scoring’ (Macdonald 2002, Roberts 1997) and the team becoming fractured.
Within the three case studies, this was not witnessed to the extent that it prevented
project progress, but some team members still seemingly harboured grudges:
Because most of the people on the project team have a relatively small amount
of museum experience, then I mean, they had experience but not necessarily
museum experience, they weren’t necessarily coming up with the right decisions.
And the experienced people who were saying, ‘You should do this’ were being
ignored … ‘You wouldn’t be told! We told you that months ago!’ (Anonymous
2008, personal communication)
With the curatorial role in the redisplay of collections unchanged for more than
a century, accepting the change from a leading project role to team-working on
redisplay projects required the need for trust between team members (Costa 2003):
‘People can put their point across and it will be listened to no matter whereabouts
in the team they are.’A6 Team meetings should promote a safe environment where
members can feel free to express opinions. For Pritchett, communication is the key
to the success of a team: ‘No other factor plays such a precious role in building
and preserving trust among teammates. Communication is the make-or-break
issue’(Pritchett 1992: 2).
Communication
As Farnell (1984: 153) comments, ‘when we use the word “communication”

in the museum context, it is all too often to talk about communication between
the museum and the visitor – or, more accurately, between the museum staff and
the visitor.’ Farnell’s comment is well-founded, considering the large amount
of museological literature dedicated to the lines of communication between
museums and their audiences (see Bicknell and Farmelo 1993, Hooper-Greenhill
1994, McManus 1991, Ravelli 2006). What is often unreported, particularly
within museum redisplay projects, are the lines of communication between project
professionals.
Project team members often struggle to detail the communicatory lines
between team members, suggesting that it is not necessarily something project
team members are aware of, they ‘evolved in slightly different ways at slightly
different times’.C2 However, lines of communication are extremely important for
the transmission of project information and should be controlled by the project
manager, as well as written into the PEP.
Communication Theory
Communication theory was conceived by mathematicians Shannon and Weaver

who developed a model for communication between individuals (see Shannon and
Weaver 1949). Together, they constructed the linear model to represent
… (a) the technical problem of achieving efficient transmission and reception;

(b) the semantic problem of increasing the precision with which one person
conveys a message to another by selecting the appropriate words; and (c) the
effectiveness problem of understanding whether the meaning of the message
affected the receiver’s conduct in the manner the sender intended. (Heath and
Bryant 2000: 63)
Communication theory has been adopted by museologists to explain the transfer

of information from the museum professional to the museum visitor. In the context
of collection redisplay projects, the model can be modified and used to explain,
in a simplistic way, the transmission of information from one museum project
member to another.
Using Shannon and Weaver’s model, a message begins with information from
a source moving from the transmitter through a channel to the receiver. Once the
receiver has interpreted the information, it has reached its destination and the
communication is complete. However, as information moves from the transmitter
to the receiver, distortion of the message may occur due to ‘noise’. Hooper-
Greenhill (1994: 35–53) applies this communication model to the transmission
of information from museum professional to audience member, whereby the
transmitter is the curator and the receiver is the visitor. ‘Noise’ within the gallery
space can affect the message (‘noise’ may take many forms including crowds,
actual noise, poor interpretation methods, and so on).
Building on this linear model, Hooper-Greenhill adds a feedback loop – the
process is a closed circle of communication. If this new feedback communication
model is applied to the communication between project team members, it
becomes more realistic. ‘Noise’ between the transmitter and the receiver in
project teams is generally attributed to channels such as jargon, unclear goals,
lost correspondence, and so on. This can greatly affect the interpretation of
messages by the receiver.
Communication is regarded by many as the most important factor in successful
and effective project management. However, ‘most of it is done ad hoc, driven
by individuals, personalities and preferences, rather than by needs, protocols,
processes and procedures’ (Pritchett 2004: 1).
The project team at the GNM split the communication procedure in two. The
first set of communication procedures were set out in the ‘very detailed PEP’.D1
In the document, the lines of communication were outlined to provide a formal
framework for the project team to abide by when communicating with external
team members, for instance, project contractors. However, within smaller
project teams, guidelines are normally less formal: ‘We’ve got a relationship
that’s flexible enough for us to communicate between ourselves’ without the
strict procedures adhered to when communicating with external team members.
D1
This flexibility in internal communication procedures allows a team to address
issues more quickly and efficiently as and when they arise. Whilst this may
appear to go against the advice of Kerzner (2009: 244), teams followed-up their
ad hoc informal communication with scheduled meetings, the results of which
were formalized in communication formats such as meeting minutes, reports
and circulated electronic mail.C1, C2, D3 Again, whilst some propose that an ad hoc
approach to communication is unacceptable in the course of a project, others
suggest that ‘informal communication is often as (or more) important on projects
as formal communication’ because casual conversations can alert team members
to potential problems before they occur and foster better working relationships
(Kendrick 2010: 18). Ultimately, communication is key to any project and
different lines of communication will develop and shift between members as the
project progresses. Good communication is exemplified by clarity, reiteration
and the ability to listen to each other.
Communication and the Project Manager Role
The project manager’s role in the transmission of information is crucial. It is the

job of the project manager to facilitate information transfer through vertical and
horizontal lines of communication (Lock 2007: 129); upwards to and from the
project management team, downwards to subordinate and project office personnel,
horizontally to peers, customers, informal and formal partners and societies/
friends’ groups (Cleland and Kerzner 1986).
Project managers should act as the ‘facilitator’ in the communication of

information. They are also responsible for ‘ensuring that communications are sent,
received, and (to the degree possible) understood’ (Pritchard 2004: 3).Listening
to the project managers involved in the case study projects, every one remarked
about the bridging nature of the role; to act as a conduit between all team members,
transmitting messages.D1, D2, D3
In large-scale redisplay projects, communication between the project manager
and their team members requires an organised approach, a reciprocal respect and
an open nature between the parties. A breakdown in communication from or to the
project manager can lead to misunderstandings, confusion and agitation.
Communication Between Curator and Designer
The amount of direct communication between the curators on a project team and
the external designers can differ immensely: no direct lines of communication,
limited communication, say at meetings tightly controlled by the project manager
and free communication between the curators and designers without the immediate
supervision of the project manager.
The curators involved in all three museum redisplay projects were, on the
whole, afforded limited communication with designers. However, in the initial
stages of the design process, they were invited to speak directly with the designers
(with the project manager present) to discuss their ideas for gallery themes,
storylines and specimens.B1, C2, D3 One designer explained how the process worked
for their project:
We’ve had a whole series of different workshops and we’ve had a whole bunch
of contact workshops where we go [to the museum] and have a session per
gallery. We might do a couple of galleries per day, or one gallery over two days,
whatever it takes, where we bring those curators to the meeting table, understand
what they want to do and they show us the content.B3
As mentioned, some project managers elected to limit the communications

between curators and designers. In the case of one redisplay project, this was
due to the pressurised turn-around schedule due to a change of design company.
Consequently, all communication between curator/s and designer/s was conducted
through the project management team.
We said at the time that given the amount of time, or lack of time, that we had
we didn’t feel that we were able to work with all the curators because they love
to talk; they want to talk everything through. We did end up meeting them all
in the course of it, but we couldn’t work directly with them. That would have
been a problem that they had previously, that the designers were being pulled in
different directions by different curators.B2
So in this instance, the project management team collated opinions, ideas, and so
on, from the curatorial teams, conservation teams and education teams, and talked
them through with the designers. This communication procedure was established
to prevent the lower team members in the hierarchy from having direct contact with
the designers. This eradicated the problem of being pulled in different directions,
but the lack of communication between the designers and the curators did lead to
some pressures and animosity from the curatorial team members:
We would be expected to get comments back to [the designers] within three days
… That was the theory, in practice it was often within 24 hours! And latterly it
was in five minutes. [The education officer] would phone and say ‘I need the
answer now’ … So if you see a few things that aren’t quite right, that’s why.
Some decisions were made very, very quickly and you just didn’t have time to
think.A4
Another issue was the geographical distance between the museums and the
commissioned external design houses: ‘You’re dealing with [a designer] that’s
working in London and you’re meeting on occasions and submitting ideas and
it does take a while for any ideas to be heard and to be acted on. There isn’t that
sense of immediacy that you’d get with constantly working with somebody.’A5
The nature of these large-scale redisplay projects commands a restricted level
of communication between these two sets of individuals in order to control the
project costs and maintain the team approach to decision-making for the galleries.
It is the role of the project manager to set out and inform curators and designers of
the limits to lines of communication. It is also the project manager’s responsibility
to monitor communications between the parties, ensuring all decisions are
coordinated and agreed, thus maintaining project progression within time frames
and budgets.
Filtering Information Through the Team
Now that the redisplay of collections is being achieved through a team approach
to redevelopment, information needs to be communicated to a wide number of
individuals. In many cases, the redisplay of entire museums involves hundreds
of team members. Informing all team members about project progress enables
continued teamwork and effective decision-making. Poor communication,
however, can lead to conflict within the team and will inevitably have knock-on
effects on ‘project control, coordination and workflow’ (Kerzner 2009: 212).
The need to filter information is a key aspect of communication in all teams.
The cascading of information from the project manager through to the other team
members, and vice versa, is the mainstay of project effectiveness:
I work with [two people], who are the joint project managers, to look at the big
picture, to look at what we have to do, the key dates for those things to be done
by … Then I take that and filter it down, so I meet on a regular basis with the
curatorial teams to move forward on whether it’s looking at specific content of a
display or looking at how we interpret that content, working with them on what
the interactives are going to do, and then I tend to put that into some sort of
report form or action plan, send it out to various other people for comment on,
bring it back to the design table with [the designers], move it forward a bit more,
and bring it back to the curatorial team.C1
To this end, communication is not a one-way process but a multi-way process,

in which feedback operates all the time throughout the course of the project. The
lines of communication described by all project members are in line with that of
the Feedback Communication Model purported by Hooper-Greenhill (1999a).
Continuing communication with all team members throughout the course of
the redisplay project is a difficult task. Depending on the stage of the project,
team members may find they are not playing such an active role or, alternatively,
may be heavily involved in decision-making. Either way, team members should
be aware of the general decisions for the project through communicatory channels
and the filtering of information (for example, meeting minutes, meetings, email
correspondence, reports, and so on). As Kerzner (2009: 212) purports that
problems can arise as a result of poor communication ‘caused by team members
simply not keeping others informed on key project developments’, the best way to
avoid problems is to make sure all team members are aware of progress through
regular updates.
Decision-making, communication and teamwork should be regarded as
dynamic and malleable; they can be reconfigured to suit the situation, at least up
to a point. These three elements have a tremendous impact on project management
and consequently reflect the character and quality of the redisplay of collections
in museums.
Part II
The Factors Shaping Collection Redisplay
Part II is concerned with the factors contributing to the final outcome: the galleries.
These factors include museum architecture, stakeholder influence and a chapter
dedicated to biological collection redisplay. This section of the book culminates
by drawing conclusions about the redisplay process, lessons to be learnt, successes
and the future of displays.
Chapter 5
Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting
Collections: The Key Factors
All redevelopment project outcomes, the galleries, are unique. However, the
contemporary process in Britain, if supported by the HLF, is one undertaken in
stages. As well as processual commonalities, there are numerous factors that all of
the case study museums shared. Project members highlighted these factors over
the course of data collection at the institutions.
Data Analysis
Factors were uncovered through the qualitative analytical process of coding.

After conducting each interview, the audio recordings were transcribed verbatim.
Reading through the transcriptions, each sentence was given a ‘code’; short,
simple codes using active verbs were used to describe the sentences (Paddon
2009a: 146). The result of the primary analytical stage was the emergence of over
fifty initial codes (represented in circles in Figure 5.1). Once initial coding had
been conducted for the entire interview data, the analysis progressed to the next
stage; focused coding. Focused codes were formed by considering the abstract
and theoretical links between initial codes and grouping them ‘incisively and
completely’ to form overarching themes (Charmaz 2006: 57). In Figure 5.1, the
twelve focused codes are represented in the squares.
Links
As the grouping of the initial codes progressed, it became clear that they could link
to one or more focused code categories. For example, ‘access’ is an initial code
that links three focused codes:
1. Harmonising with architecture.

2. Shifting power: The audience in the museum and
3. Agendas: Government policies and museum-related initiatives.
Hence, access applies to three factors shaping the redisplay of collections in

museums. In all three case study museums, physical access was an issue. The
architecture of the buildings, being of Victorian and Edwardian design, restricted
access to the museum, its galleries and its collections (on display and in storage).
Listed
Maintaining Orientation building
Agendas: building status
Government integrity
policies and Off-site
museum-related storage
initiatives Victorian
Social legacy
Incorporating inclusion
policies Drawing
visitors
DDA through HLF as
Understanding
catalyst
your National
audience curriculum
Harmonising Gallery Gallery

Access with longevity
placement
architecture
Evaluation
Circulation Layering
Designing
interpretation
with flexibility
Shifting power:
The audience and
National the redisplay
Study
curriculum zones Offering different Interpreting
social and through
learning different Adopting new
opportunities mediums philosophies
Reinforcing
Setting prior
learning knowledge Hi- and low-
Lacking
outcomes technology
Creating experience Terminology
Material interactives
flexible
Live influencing displays Project
designs Limiting text management
animals
Love/hate Omitting Delaying
opening
Single or
multi- Understanding
disciplinary redisplay
Visitor-centred Open process
Adopting new galleries
goals display
philosophies Creating wow
factor Learning
Displaying from
Encouraging biology in the process
engagement twenty-first
Posing
with natural century
questions The core
world museum
Mascots exhibition team
Enhancing Creating a Joining
visitor house style project
experience Changing
trends in partway
Global, display through
Making national and
everyone local themes Gallery
happy themes Acquiring
specimens Incorporating Feeling
Objects vs. Telling existing Working RIBA
pressured
design multiple specimens with Re/structuring
stories designers Borrowing
museum
ideas
teams
Working with Team roles
partners
Playing it safe? Wanting to

Conflicting Visitor
Project Sidelining succeed
interests Shifting numbers
stakeholders natural
Satisfying history power:
funders Incorporating curators
funders
messages
Knowing what
Competing You want
Personal
agendas
Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections 51
Further affecting access, in terms of architecture, is the listed building status

(or similar) each of the case study museum buildings holds (see Chapter 13).
Access is also linked to the audience, that is, the access museum visitors have
to the collections, both on display and in storage. Now audiences are more vocal
about accessibility, and rightly so, as it influences interpretive formats and display
modes. Museum teams need to consider different modes of access when making
decisions for the design of galleries. This is inextricably linked to the final of
the three focused codes: agendas. Government policies impact museums in many
ways. For example, the impact of the Disability Discrimination Act (2005) has
ensured museum teams incorporate different levels of interpretation; accessibility
has been increased throughout museum galleries.
Figure 5.1 opposite (© H. Paddon, 2013), illustrates in mind map format the
interconnected factors of redisplay and reinterpretation. These factors are explored
in depth in the following chapters.
Chapter 6
Agendas: Museum-related Initiatives and
Government Policies
Driving some of the key decisions on the design and interpretation of collections
are policies and initiatives. Whilst the connection to museums may not always be
obvious, legislature and museum-related initiatives can impact and alter the paths
creative teams take to develop their ideas.
Museum-related Initiatives
The Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries was established in 1931 to

advise the government on museum affairs throughout the UK (MGC 1994a: 303).
In 1981, it became known as the Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC), with
its main roles developed to advise institutions, encourage the adoption of museum
standards, and continue to raise those standards through the administration of
grant-giving schemes (ibid.).
In 1988, the MGC devised a regulatory scheme which would set out guidelines
for high standards throughout museums: the Registration Scheme. After only five
years, over 1,500 museums throughout the UK were recognised as having fulfilled
the Registration Scheme requirements including strict documentation standards,
revision of museum constitutions and excellent collection management practice
(MGC 1994b: 311). The four main benefits of the Registration Scheme were:
1. The opportunity for a museum to publicise itself as an organisation

which provides a basic range of services for the benefit of its visitors and
other users.
2. The fostering of confidence among potential providers of material
for a museum’s collection that a registered museum is, in principle, a
suitable repository.
3. Eligibility for MGC and Area Museum Council (AMC) grant-aid and
subsidized services and
4. The fostering of confidence among other funding agencies that a registered
museum is, in principle, worthy of support. (Ibid.)
A drive towards ‘social inclusivity’, a key catchphrase for the newly‑appointed

Labour government in 1997 (Sandell 1998: 401), drove the revolution in gallery
redisplays and heavily influenced audience participation in museums (Black
2012, Hein 1998, Hooper-Greenhill 1998, 1999a). Sandell (1998: 408–9) draws
parallels from modern museum ideals of social inclusion and the nineteenth-
century ‘notions of the museum as an instrument for positive social change’,
stating that ‘culture might possess the potential to bring about social cohesion
or to narrow social inequalities.’ It has been recognised, indeed, that museums
provide opportunities for social inclusion. In 1999 and 2000, the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) produced two reports based broadly
on this topic. The first, Museums for the Many, sought to guide museums and
galleries in developing their access policies (DCMS 1999). Access in museums
is regarded as a form of social inclusion and therefore the work of the DCMS
in 1999 highlighted the need for museums to develop new audiences through
innovative access plans. The second publication, Centres for Social Change:
Museums, Galleries and Archives for All, provided policy guidance for social
inclusivity. Within this publication, ten objectives were set by the DCMS to help
tackle social exclusion in the heritage sector; these included access, outreach,
consultation, recognising diversity, partnership working and acting as agents
of social change (DCMS 2000: 50). In order to achieve these key objectives,
the DCMS also outlined a six-point plan for museums, galleries and archives to
follow (ibid.), assessing and reviewing practice, developing new services and
implementing strategic objectives. Social inclusion was high on the government
agenda, as well as sector and funder agendas.
In addition to the social inclusivity agenda, the government called on the
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) to ‘[develop] a national
framework for learning in museums’ (MLA 2013), the outcome of which was
Inspiring Learning for All. The Inspiring Learning for All framework was to
act as a checklist for museums. Staff were to assess visitor learning through
comprehensive methodology and mixed methods approaches.
In 2004, the MLA revamped their Museum Registration Scheme, and in the
process renamed it the Museum Accreditation Scheme. This new scheme called
for nationally agreed standards with which museums should comply: ethics,
collections management, user experiences, and so on. The Accreditation Scheme
document also provided a toolkit to enable museums to critically evaluate access.
Today’s Museum Bodies
In 2010, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport announced
the future abolition of the MLA in England. This move saw the ‘museums’
functions of the MLA transferred to the Arts Council England in 2011. Under the
umbrella of the Arts Council England, museums have experienced more change.
In 2012, the Council did away with the museum ‘hubs’ scheme and relaunched the
Renaissance programme. Within the remit of the Renaissance scheme, the Council
have made major changes to funding and programmes including the:
Agendas: Museum-related Initiatives and Government Policies 55
1. Museum development fund – funding aimed at small museums and

2. Strategic support fund – development opportunities.
They are also investing a relatively small amount of capital (£3.25 million) into
national programmes including subject specialist networks, Culture24, PRISM
fund and Accreditation (Arts Council England 2013).
In Scotland, Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) is the membership
organisation responsible for guiding and supporting museums to achieve the
objectives of Going Further: The National Strategy for Scotland’s Museums and
Galleries (MGS 2012), akin to the Arts Council England. This body is responsible
for administering the Accreditation Scheme in Scotland. It also administers
the Recognition Scheme, which was launched in 2007. This scheme highlights
collections of great importance to Scotland, similar to the Designation Scheme in
England.
CyMAL, otherwise known as Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, and
the Northern Ireland Museums Council (NIMC) are the bodies responsible
for administering the Accreditation Scheme in Wales and Northern Ireland
respectively. Set up in 2004, CyMAL is a body devoted to providing advice to
museums, managing grant schemes and acting as the advocate for museums on
policy matters raised with the Department for Culture and Sport. Similarly, the
NIMC, established in 1993, is a membership organisation that takes pride in acting
as a major conduit between the museums of Northern Ireland and the Department
for Culture, Arts and Leisure in the North Ireland Assembly (NIMC 2013).
Government Policies
The Public Libraries and Museums Act (1964) was enacted to ensure the ‘provision
and maintenance of museums and art galleries by [local] authorities’ in England
and Wales. This Act, which is still enforceable, does not stipulate institutional
requirements with regards to the display, interpretation, or maintenance of
collections. However, there is some legislature that undeniably affects the
decision-making process around the redisplay and reinterpretation of collections.
Disability Discrimination Act (2005)
One of the most significant pieces of UK legislation to affect the museums sector
in the last decade is the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). This Act calls for
‘increased awareness of the needs of disabled people’ (Samuels 2006: 195). And,
as such, strict measures have been put in place to ensure access in museums is
considered at all levels. For example, to gain Accreditation status, museums must
show that they have taken steps to ensure that their institutions are compliant with
the terms of the DDA (2005).
So whilst access was not necessarily considered by gallery developers of the

past, the contemporary redisplay of collections must take the appropriate steps to
consider access in all formats. All visitors must be able to access a gallery and its
interpretation, collections and the facilities within the museum.
For the redevelopment of the case study museum galleries, project team
members worked with access consultants to audit designs.D3, E1 These audits
considered the hierarchies of text, opportunities for multi-sensory interactives,
casings, visitor routes and signage, and so on. The museum professionals and
designers were quick to highlight that no one disability took priority over another
when auditing the designs. In fact, one education officer articulated, ‘we’re trying
to devise approaches that will help with all kinds of disabilities because you can’t
have a hierarchy of disabilities; you’ve got to deal with all of them.’C3
Employing an access consultant during any redevelopment projects is essential,
and Lang et al. (2006: 21) report that permanent access officers are more and more
frequently found in large museums.
‘Access’ can mean many things within the museum space, including but
not limited to physical access: lines of vision, doorways and disabled toilets,
collections access, including hands-on object interactions, and interpretive access,
including a range of reading levels and Braille. Policies, set out at the beginning
of the projects, would set display and interpretation standards, ‘font sizes and
contrasting heights and design elements for access’ and ‘learning, emotional and
behavioural objectives’.C2
The visitor is firmly at the heart of the decision-making process. Consideration
of the DDA has worked to ensure accessibility, in all its forms, is a major factor in
the process of collection redisplay and reinterpretation.
Educational Curricula
In line with the Education Reform Act (1988), the National Curriculum was
introduced to England, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure all pupils attending
state schools were taught core subjects, and a broad and balanced curriculum,
to a level related to their age group. Similarly, Scotland has the Curriculum for
Excellence, which focuses on eight core areas: expressive arts, health and well-
being, languages, mathematics, religious and moral education, sciences, social
studies and technologies (Education Scotland 2013).
While these curricula are not ‘Acts’ in any of the UK countries, they are go-to
tools for museum redevelopment teams. As museums seek to justify their local
government funding, the relevance of institutions can be bolstered by redisplays
and reinterpretations that cater to school-aged children (Reeve 2006).
Whilst the National Curriculum can be a useful tool for decision-making
around gallery themes, some have challenged the weight attached to the curricula
in driving these decisions. Evidenced by contemporary galleries, a perceived lack
of relevance to the curriculum means ‘many excellent museum exhibitions and
galleries may not appear to “fit” [the curriculum] and are ignored as a result’ (ibid.:
Agendas: Museum-related Initiatives and Government Policies 57
50). Museums have little choice but to include curriculum-related galleries and
themes. If not, they risk alienating one of their main audience groups, that is,
school-aged visitors:
There are definitely some areas that get more use from our educational services
than others because of the nature of the National Curriculum in terms of that
formal education. Sad to say, but inevitably those tend to be Romans, Egyptians,
Tudor and Stuarts and World War II; those very definite curriculum-led
approaches.D3
The National Curriculum, as a driver, illustrates a shift towards government-led

audience agendas.
Conclusions
Whilst museums within the UK are regulated by different governments, government

policies and agendas have unquestionably influenced museum collection redisplay
and moulded gallery themes. This chapter has examined two of the main policies
defining contemporary redisplays and reinterpretations of collections in museums
across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: the DDA and educational
curricula.
The DDA forces museum professionals and design companies to consider
aspects of display and interpretation that, perhaps, were not considered before.
This, in turn, has stimulated a more holistic approach to design schemes.
Given the unwieldy task of selecting gallery themes, museum project teams are
turning to the National Curriculum, or Curriculum for Excellence, for guidance.
While this is an easy way to narrow down options, and will ensure galleries are
appropriate for visitors aged 3 through 18, the museum teams should not forget the
importance of selecting themes relevant to their collections.
Chapter 7
The Core Exhibition Team
The redisplay and reinterpretation of any museum collection involves a large

number of stakeholders: the public (visitors), funders, governors, donors, curators,
directors, builders, architects, conservators and educators, to name but a few. And
whilst all of these stakeholders are involved in the redisplay of the collections at
some stage, there are a few who are deeply immersed in the process from conception
to fruition. These people are referred to in this book as the core exhibition team;
that is, they are a group of people who work on a daily basis to redisplay and
reinterpret the collections. Identified during the in-depth research, four main team
members (curator, project manager, educator and designer) constitute the core
exhibition team. Here, their roles and relationships are examined in more detail.
The Role of the Curator
It is important to note that when referring to ‘the curator’ in this book, I am not
referring to the director, rather I am referring to the collection curators who have
specialist knowledge of the groups of objects, for example, the curator of biology.
Something that is also difficult to define is the role of the curator in the modern
museum. Many museologists have been quick to surmise that the curator has power
over the museum, its exhibitions and its visitors; curators ‘are not without agendas,
and displays are not without subcontext’ (Asma 2001: 43). Witcomb speaks of the
nineteenth-century curator as controller of the visitor and purveyor of knowledge:
‘a positivist epistemology, together with an evolutionary view of history, provide
the framework for an authoritative claim to knowledge, a claim which situates the
curator as a rational subject in a position of control over a homogeneous, mass
museum public’ (Witcomb 2003: 108).
The curator has always had the ‘authoritative claim to knowledge’ and
therefore, has had the authoritative claim to displays:
If you were the curator you [would] just decide what [you] would want to put
on display and somebody would probably say ‘well you can get so many cases
in’ and that’s about it … It probably was the other way round, you decided on
the cases and then how you fill the cases rather than the way we’re doing it.D3
A stronger assault on the power of the curator is provided by Julian Spalding,

who speaks of curators as ‘mini-directors’ who ‘sit over their part of the
collection like a hen over a brood and dictate what’s to be done with it’. Spalding
continues with the brash, but fairly accurate, metaphor of a curatorially‑driven,
directorially‑superfluous museum as a ‘spider with a brain in each leg, each wanting
to go in a different direction’ (Spalding 1999: 32). Miles further backs Spalding’s
claims of curatorial power declaring museum curators as ‘power brokers’ who are
‘able to decree what objects are selected for display, how they are shown and what
is said about them’ (1994: 256).
As well as deciding on the objects and cases, the curator had sole responsibility
for information within the gallery, that is, labels, text panels and interactives (if
any). For example, the curator would pitch the information within galleries to
more knowledgeable audiences, their peers, as opposed to members of the public:
‘[Curators] tend to be concerned with looking good in the eyes of their fellow
specialists rather than with the public’s needs, and they act as though the public
visits their exhibits to pass judgment on their scholarship’ (ibid.).
However, this began to change in the 1990s as there was a move away from
object-based displays towards a thematic, information-based format of collection
display. Ultimately, there was a ‘loosening of curatorial control of exhibitions’
(Lee 2007: 184).
Although the above arguments represent curators of the past, and still
represent curatorial characteristics in many smaller civic museums, curators
employed within museums undertaking multi-million-pound redevelopment
projects have realised that their role has changed and so with it, their approach
to redisplay has also changed. They have become equal components ‘working
as [part of] a larger machine’A3 to decide upon key aspects of collection display.
For many curators, this change in the redisplay approach was unexpected. The
project manager for the Kelvingrove redevelopment, spoke about the assumptions
made by curators on the project team. He felt that the curators believed the
project would run as previous projects had, that is, curatorially‑directed. But the
vast amounts of money at stake and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity meant
that the museum changed tack:
I think there was a feeling that we would run this project as we had run other
projects in the past, which was effectively the curators in charge and they would
select their objects and write their text in a timetable according to themselves
and they would deliver it … We had to say ‘this is £25 million, it’s 10,000 square
metres. We’ve got 22 galleries, 8,000 objects, that’s not the way we’re going to
work and so you’ll be involved as and when. We will listen to everybody but we
might not agree’ and that was quite a difficult lesson, for people to understand
the difference.D2
These redevelopment projects have changed the role of the curator inescapably,
from a person who has responsibility for the entire redisplay of a gallery to a
person who needs to be able to work in a team, communicate well with their peers
and accept decisions that are made by other team members, even if the decision
The Core Exhibition Team 61
goes against their beliefs. The curator has needed to evolve, or adapt, to the change
in approach – but this has not been easy.
The curators for the projects expressed their roles in the redevelopments as
‘project managing’ on a micro-scale and developing over time: ‘I think as the
project has progressed the role has been less about actually being a curator and
more about coordinating all the things that are happening in the gallery.’A1
Key to the change in the curator’s role, and their power, are the implications
of strict project deadlines. One curator explained how the role of curator meant
working to the strict deadlines for the project as well as working with colleagues:
‘[my role] really entails writing briefs and getting information from other people
and making sure that if I need help from the other members of the team, that they
deliver what is needed on time so we can meet the deadlines from designers and
for the project managers.’A2
This aspect, as Miles argues, is one with which curators are not wholly at ease
with:
Unhappily, matters tend to be worse with curators, for, unlike designers, deadlines
are rarely part of the broader practice in their profession, and traditionally
they have been encouraged to spend a lifetime exploring their chosen field of
scholarship, often with no very definite end in sight. (Miles 1994: 260)
Meeting deadlines is an essential part of project success. Progress is dependent

upon the flow of communications between team members, decisions being made
on time and the team working effectively together to move forward collectively
with decisions to meet those deadlines.
Working Within a Team
In identifying team roles and recognising that the curatorial role has changed
significantly in the redisplay of any collections, the structure of teams was vital
to lines of communication, decision-making powers and teamwork channels. All
three museums had team structures which placed curators at the base of complex
hierarchies of power. McLean (2004: 201) charts, in the 1980s, a shift away
from the linear ‘curator-driven model’ towards a team approach to redisplay.
Interestingly, McLean also notes that although this team approach meant that team
members gained ‘mutual appreciation’ for one another, there was ‘no discernable
improvement in the quality of exhibitions developed by teams’ (ibid.). The team
approach and the structuring of teams into significant hierarchies – with the curator
at the base – has undoubtedly affected the power held by the curators.
Working With Designers
As explained in the previous section, for those curators who were used to working
solely in-house, working with external design companies was a major change. One
project manager acknowledged that the two parties had very distinct roles within
their redevelopment project: ‘the designers were in charge of the design and the
curators were in charge of the object selection.’D2 Although this may seem obvious,
and not much of a change, it was in fact a considerable change for the curators.
Part of redisplaying collections in the past was the opportunity to redesign the
galleries, selecting the casings, materials and overall look of the gallery. Now
the curator is expected to hand over this creative process to the designers and
renounce their former design ownership.
All museums monitored, and even forbade, direct contact between designer
and curator, almost making a bad situation (in the curator’s eyes) worse.
Project teams stipulated the lines of communication and from the hierarchies,
communication was not direct between designers and curators but tended to
go through a conduit: either the project manager or the project management
team. In doing so, the conduits were able to filter information, as the project
manager for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum redevelopment explained:
‘I’m essentially the contact between the curatorial team, who I manage, and the
exhibition designers and the architects. So I’m the filter and focus through which
the exhibition design needs to go both ways.’D3 Across all three projects, this
filtering meant that some of the curatorial comments and wishes were omitted;
as a curator explained, curatorial comments would be collected about designs,
interpretation and specimen mounting, and so on, and passed on to another
member of the team to be taken to design meetings:
[The senior curator] then collected those with any conservation and other
issues and they were then put to the project management team who would
then say what was important and what wasn’t. Those comments would then be
passed back to [the design company], so quite often comments that curators
made, because they had to go through two or three stages, didn’t get to the
designers and that was a major problem. And quite often we would come back
to the next meeting with the designers and say ‘but you haven’t done that’,
‘but you didn’t tell us about that’, it had been cut out in one of the stages going
through.A4
Similarly, the curators didn’t have direct contact with the designers for much of the
RAMM redevelopment project. The project manager explained:
Basically my role is to do exactly that: to filter information from the curators and
pass it on to the design team and vice versa. When the designers come back with
layouts of galleries, I distribute them and get comments back and then feed the
comments back to the designers. It’s really important for a project like this that
you’ve got a single point of contact because if not you get lots of different people
with lots of different ideas, the designers get confused and staff get confused. It’s
actually really important.D3
Another project manager reaffirmed that this control of contact between the curators
and designers is important, explaining that curators ‘didn’t have necessarily direct
access to the designers, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to control what was
happening’.D2
The Role of the Project Manager
The role of the project manager is complex and extremely demanding. Juggling
budgets, people and time, the project manager must be diligent, able to make
decisions, lead their team and communicate effectively. As with many museum
redevelopment projects, oftentimes an existing member of staff is appointed to the
project manager role. There are many advantages to this:
1. The staff member is already familiar with the museum building

2. The staff member is already familiar with the scope of the museum collections
3. The staff member is already familiar with internal relationships and
hierarchies, and
4. The staff member has an awareness of the institution’s ethos and
forward plan.
Similarly, there may be disadvantages to sourcing someone from within the

organisation rather than externally. For example, existing tensions may be
heightened if the internal project manager is seen to favour some team members
and/or the internal project manager lacks the necessary project experience to
manage the process, its budget, time frame and people.
One of the major aspects of the project management role, and one that was
raised during interviews time and time again, was the necessity to manage conflict,
as the projects involved not only internal team members with their own agendas,
but also involved external team members with alternative priorities, designs,
resources and time frames.
The Role of the Educator
Whilst the focus of the curator is the object and collection, the focus of the educator
is the public. The educators are the voice of those visiting and interacting with the
collections in the gallery and storage spaces. They guide the exhibition team on
issues such as learning styles and the National Curriculum (see Chapter 6). Their
input is essential from the conception of the project through to the summative
evaluation stage, after the museum has reopened.
It is the job of the educator to help interpret and define the demographic groups
of visitors the museum exhibitions are aimed at. For example, there may be a
group of visitors that did not frequent the museum prior to the redevelopment; the
education officer will also work to encourage new audiences into the museum.
The educator will also be instrumental in the development of interpretive media
produced to support the objects on display: the object and group labels, introductory
texts, guidebooks and interpretation packs. Educators are also charged with
helping to develop the interactive elements of the galleries and build curriculum-
based activities into the spaces. They possess knowledge of learning styles, which
enables them to guide the interpretation combinations for one or many groups of
visitors. For instance, some museums have been designed with a small gallery
space dedicated to young visitors (KAGM and GNM).
The Role of the Design Company and the Designer
With such large amounts of investment in what are termed ‘redeveloped permanent
galleries’ in museums around Britain, specialist external design companies have
taken over the role of exhibition design from their in-house museum counterparts.
Selecting the design company is a major decision influencing the development
and overall outcomes in the gallery spaces. An ‘invitation to tender’ will be
produced, detailing the scope and scale of the project and giving as full a design
brief as possible. Tenders will then be judged on their innovative design solutions,
the costings for those designs, the experience of the design company, their
interpretation of the collections and how well they satisfy the brief (these large-
scale projects must adhere to the OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union)
procurement process where public spending exceeds £100,000; see <http://www.
ojec.com/WhatIsTheOJEC.aspx>). The successful design company will also be
the one that shares, or at least can work with, the ethos of the museum and the
vision it has for its galleries (Black 2012).
Essential to a successful partnership, the designer needs to work cooperatively
with the museum staff to interpret their ideas and overall vision, whilst providing
design alternatives for the presentation of the objects.
In each of the case study examples, the designers worked differently with the
museum team members. In one case study, the curators had no contact with the
designers; instead, they explained ideas and visions to the conduit (the project
manager), who would then meet directly with the designer to explore design options.
This limiting of direct contact caused frustrations. In the other cases, the designers
had direct contact with the curators, but it was monitored and sanctioned by the
project managers. Curators could not be given free rein to insert an interactive or
select a bigger case, as these kinds of decisions had monetary impacts.
In all cases the designers had to develop strong lines of communication with the
museum professionals. Working remotely, they would spend the minimum amount
of time on site and provide alternative design solutions for discussion at project
meetings.
Conclusions
The shift away from the curator as dictator of collection redisplay has been
forced, in these three case study museums, as redevelopment projects with vast
investment from external stakeholders demand high-quality goods delivered on
time and in budget. Displays and exhibitions, in the past, have been within the
remit of curatorial positions (Horie 1986: 268). In fact, the onus of bringing more
visitors into the museum had been laid at the curator’s door. But the museum
profession has come to realise that a team approach can, indeed, raise creativity,
productivity, and produce all-round better displays for the visitor.
This team approach has impacted upon the curator. Once taking complete
ownership of displays, ‘on the whole, curators are used to taking all the big
decisions and see exhibitions as primarily a showcase for their learning, so have
the most to lose’ (Miles 1994: 260); they have become components of a larger
machine. Curators are now expected to work more closely with project managers,
designers and education and access officers to produce cohesive, well-thought-out
displays which will appeal to identified target audiences (Lord and Lord 2001: 2).
This move sees curators losing ownership of the displays, instead it has become
a shared ownership;, shared between all stakeholders. But this ownership is not
shared equally. Decisions which affect the redisplay of biology are made by
someone, or a group of people, and so ownership is disparate.
Chapter 8
Shifting Power: The Audience in the
Museum
The Victorian museum was conceived of as an institution within which collections

would be gathered and displayed to educate the masses (see Alexander 1995: 158,
Fyfe 1996: 213, Hooper-Greenhill 2000: 2). However, the idea that the Victorian
curator would form a focus group to gauge what their audience wanted to see on
display, conduct interviews to identify the kinds of subjects or stories that the visitor
was interested in, or study how individual learning styles differed across the mass
audience, was inconceivable. Curators were experts and all learning was directed
by them. Until the more recent past, museum displays, as well as writing styles,
have remained didactic in nature. Lindauer believes that this forced learning and
interpretation in museums can be viewed as ‘asserting factual information and
exuding an aura of truth or respected knowledge’ about a subject, a collection or
an object. Further to this, the didacticism witnessed in countless museum displays
demonstrates the social and/or cultural power of curator over visitor (Lindauer
2006: 213). ‘Truth-speak’ acknowledges this power play between curator and
visitor whereby the curator is an expert with whom visitors place their trust; display
information, museum literature and curators are correct and truthful (Bal 2006: 201).
With the advent of the ‘New Museology’ or ‘Museologie Nouvelle’ in the
1980s, and its progressive theorisation and integration in museological studies
(Halpin 2007: 49), there was a call for ‘change, relevance, curatorial reorientation
and redistribution of power’ (Stam 2005: 54–5). This call for change was borne
out of pressures from the social, economic and political environments of the late
twentieth century, in which many museums were obliged to justify their value
and worth. The factors of the new museology – change, relevance, curatorial
reorientation and redistribution of power – are all observed in the shift in power
towards the audience.
The redistribution of power is most keenly seen within two groups in the
museum: the audience and the curator (curatorial power shifts are examined in
Chapter 7). This chapter is concerned with the change in audience power, the
shifts in museological thinking which have encouraged the power changes and the
implications, if any, for the redisplay of collections within museums.
As a result of the developing new museology of the 1980s, many professionals
in the museum sector have slowly come to realise that if change is to happen and
museums are to become more relevant to their audiences, and society, they need
to consult with their audiences and markedly change the ways in which displays
are developed.
Although the need to understand the museum audience, and that audience’s
motivations, emerged in Britain during the 1960s, it was not until the 1980s that
the sector, as a whole, embraced the idea of audience consultation (Dean 2002:
19). Audience consultation, or evaluation, has three major stages (Grewcock
2001: 44–57). Beginning at the conceptual stage of the project, ‘front-end
evaluation’ is used to assess existing displays, test new ideas, themes, stories
and concepts, and build visitor profiles, whilst simultaneously identifying new
audiences (Ambrose and Paine 1993: 107, Hein 1998: 59). The second stage,
‘formative evaluation’, occurs at the same time as the development of the
project, and can be used to test display schemes, text and reading levels, display
formats and furniture, and so on (Diamond 1999, Durbin 1996: 216). The final
stage, where consultation occurs after the gallery has opened, is known as
‘summative evaluation’ (Grewcock 2001: 44–57). At this phase of the evaluative
process, consultation is used to rectify problems in a gallery and feed into future
redisplays (Hooper-Greenhill 1994: 75).
The shift in audience power charts many aspects of museological change
including increased awareness of access issues, the need to understand the
museum audience (Who are our visitors? What do they want from their
museum?), the museum team, the need for consultation/evaluation and audience
development programmes, and the changes in collection display design and
interpretation methods.
Front-end Evaluation
In order for a museum to identify and define their audience, museum staff and
external consultants conduct front-end evaluation with museum users and non-
users. They employ a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods – self-
completion questionnaires, demographic and quantitative research, focus-group
research, and observational studies – to identify and define their audiences (DBA
2006, Economou 2004: 33, KNCP 1999: 24–7).
Having conducted front-end evaluation, project teams will identify a variety
of audiences. These audience groups feed into the interpretation, story and theme
development of each gallery. The family group was identified as a very fast-
growing museum audience group in the 1990s (Middleton 1991), and is certainly
one that continues to dominate the thinking around the redisplay of collections in
museums at present.
The prioritisation of the family group as the overarching target audience in
museums illustrates an overall change in the display philosophy of civic museums.
Whereas previous displays, with Victorian philosophies, tended to set the text and
reading levels for the expert visitor, or well-educated visitor, new displays focus
on the family group, how they interact, learn, have fun and interpret collections
for themselves. However, the move to simplify interpretation, primarily for family
and school audiences, has been judged by some in the museum community as a
Shifting Power: The Audience in the Museum 69
step towards the ‘dumbing-down’ of museology – this is a highly contested, well-

established discourse in museums (Barr 2005: 99).
Some authors argue that the ‘dumbing-down’ of museum displays is indicative
of ‘twenty-first-century philistinism’ whereby intellectuality is shunned (Furedi,
quoted by Barr 2005: 99). Defensively, and understandably, museum staff feel that
this is not the case:
In museum design, we’re getting beyond the argument that if it’s comfortable
to read it must be dumbing-down. I think we’re getting much more savvy at
maintaining the intellectual content displayed but just making it easier to get to
that content. And I think that’s really good!C3
Of course, this critical discourse in museums has had an impact on the interpretation
of collections. Although museum staff may want to focus on the family audience,
they understand that interpretation needs to be multi-layered, and within those
layers, interpretation needs to be pitched at different levels:
We need to put everything at a certain base level but that’s quite low. When I
say low I don’t mean that in a patronising way, but not everyone is interested in
the same depth [of information] so rather than putting it all there and burying
people, what you obviously need to do is layer it.D3
It is also important not to alienate visitor groups:
[The museum is] partnered with the university and the graduates use the
collections for research; they’re experts … so it’s always been a really difficult
path to try not to dumb it down, make it child-friendly to the point where it
alienates the other group, but then we don’t want to make it academic because
the core audience is families, there’s no doubt about that.B1
Most museums conduct visitor surveys on some level. Evaluation and consultation
programmes, developed as part of front-end evaluative processes, seek to gather
information which not only details the audience demographic but consults local
groups and allows for the testing of concepts and designs. At the GNM, the team
conducted a number of consultation exercises which ranged from sessions with
teachers to focus group interviews and pre-closure surveys with members of the
public.
This mixed-methods approach to data collection is common across museums
and serves as a means to collect both rich, real data (qualitative) and broad, highly
comparable data (quantitative). The introduction of evaluative methods to the
museum sector has meant that museums have been forced to consider different
approaches to consultation – a simple questionnaire will not suffice – and in
employing a variety of consultation methods, one designer admitted, ‘We’re really
starting to understand what the audience wants. That’s really come through.’C1
This ‘getting to know your audience’, and the subsequent understanding of the
audience, is symptomatic of museums as they move through the redisplay process.
It is also beneficial to the museum project team, ‘always, an understanding of
audience needs and expectations will enhance both the process and the product
of exhibitions’ (Dean 2002: 19). For many museum professionals, who have been
employed at their museum for a substantial period of time, the tendency is to
assume audience knowledge, what they want to know and what subjects interest
them. Front-end evaluation is a means with which to test those preconceptions
and offers the opportunity for museum professionals and visitors to work together,
thus increasing the relevance of the displays to the audience.
The definition of museum audiences and the identification of the key target
audience helps to develop the aims, objectives and project briefs, as well as the
interpretive frameworks. In addition, front-end evaluation study data is often
submitted as part of the HLF bid documentation.E1 Cementing the approach to the
study in your own mind and the minds of your funders only justifies the project
further. It also acts as an objective measure of appropriateness for funders – the
HLF stipulates that projects must ‘consult new and existing audiences in order
to develop a detailed programme of activities to engage people with heritage’
(HLF 2012a: 11).
Formative Evaluation
From the outset of redevelopment project, museums form focus groups, ‘boards’
and/or ‘panels’ from new and existing audiences. These focus groups incorporate
members of the public who fit the target audiences identified during the front-
end evaluation stage. For museum professionals and design consultants, the
formative evaluation provides feedback to shape the new displays. For the focus-
group participants, ‘it’s about everyone feeling that they are having a say in their
museum, which is important.’B3
These evaluation sessions act as a check for decision-making throughout the
development stage of the redisplay process: ‘[the visitor survey results were] kept
very much in the forefront of our minds when we were thinking about the style of
the interpretation and the objects that were selected.’A3
For KAGM, audience consultation was used to guide the decisions about
which stories to include in the new galleries: ‘[The KAGM team] went through a
huge process of consultation, where they had big sessions where they listed all the
stories that they wanted to tell and the public were invited to come in and tick the
ones [they liked]. So they whittled them down.’B2 In fact, audience consultation
led to the story selection for the galleries, but staff were keen to highlight that
evaluation was not the sole deciding factor in the project team’s final selection:
We… ended up with a list of about 100 stories and they were evaluated. We
did it according to three criteria; what we had and what the strengths of the
collection were; what the public were interested in seeing, so there are a couple
of examples of stories where we haven’t really got great collections but the
public were just so keen; and the third one which was the opposite of that, was
what we felt it was important to show, so there were a couple of stories that
scored very low amongst our evaluation but we felt, as an educational institution,
that it was absolutely right for us to have.D2
The intense involvement of the general public, in deciding upon which stories
they wanted to see in their museum, was not necessarily the case for all of the
case study museums. The RAMM and GNM projects conducted consultation
programmes but the results did not seem to have such a powerful impact as they
did at Kelvingrove: ‘the feedback from [focus groups] was quite interesting but
I’m not sure it meant that we changed direction.’D3
For many of the more ‘traditional’ museum professionals, consultation is
subjective and is viewed with pessimism: ‘most surveys either have too small a
sample size to be really effective or they ask the wrong questions.’A5
Perhaps an effective way to combat this pessimism is by using the, quite
expensive, example set down by the KAGM redevelopment team. In order to
test their new display ideas with audiences, a prototype display, which included
furniture, text, and so on, was set up within a gallery of the museum. In similar
evaluative programmes conducted by staff at the Science Museum, the mock-ups
sought to ‘involve visitors in the construction of the museum’ (Macdonald 2002:
170). The prototypes gave the audience the chance to experience the new approach
in its totality as opposed to testing individual display components ad hoc. The
outcome was two-fold. It was a beneficial tool for the audience, interacting with
prototypes and providing feedback on concrete installations rather than a list of
gallery themes or stories. And secondly, it allowed the project team members
to see their ideas in action. The prototyping format became ‘consultation as
demonstration’.C2 There were in-house benefits to the prototype exhibitions: ‘the
text that was coming through just wasn’t right so [the mock-ups were] partly to
demonstrate [to the curators] what the issues were.’C2 For example, one issue
involved reading levels pitched for an expert audience rather than a family group.
Whilst evaluation is important, biases should be taken into account, for
example, the social desirability bias (Marsden and Wright 2010: 285–7): ‘I think
there’s a chance that people will not want to react unfavourably.’A5 One way in
which the museums attempted to counteract this bias was through the employment
of external consultants:
… [the consultants] set up two evenings of interviews. The first focus group
was people’s children, the second focus group was older people who might be
retired who either might have grandchildren or they might find interest in leisure
pursuits. I went along to it. I was in one room with a one-way mirror, because
the [consultants] didn’t want us to be there. They felt we might influence what
[the participants] thought we wanted to hear.C1
Front-end and formative evaluation stages are imperative to the process of

redevelopment. Not only are evaluation studies key to identifying audience groups,
they also offer the opportunity to test ideas and concepts at the development stage,
whittle down story choices, and allow the audience to provide feedback on ideas.
Although evaluation studies may hit upon biases, such as the social desirability
bias, steps are taken to generate a broad range of consultative data with which to
inform decisions.
Summative Evaluation
Equally as important as the front-end and formative evaluation stages is the

summative evaluation stage. Summative evaluation occurs on completion of
the project, as the display opens (Brookes 1992: 98), but is often overlooked. In
the past, summative evaluation has merely consisted of reporting the number of
visitors to the museum.
As part of any HLF bid, and at the stipulation of other funders, museums must
now compile qualitative and quantitative audience feedback once the museum is
in the final stage of the process, that is, the In Use stage: ‘there’s an evaluation
budget. The museum has to be evaluated over one or two years after it opens in
terms of monitoring its performance and what we’ve achieved.’D1 Each funding
organisation will have its own evaluation process and require different data:
‘DCMS Wolfson have, for example, a very rigorous evaluation programme
in which you have to continually evaluate what you have done, what you’ve
achieved, what the impact of the funding has [been] … .’D1 Evaluation of the final
outcome is crucial in justifying project ‘success’, but also to support opportunities
for future funding and displays.
Since reopening to the public, all of the case study museums have enjoyed
vastly increased visitor numbers. Whilst this is, in large, due to the redisplays and
reinterpretations, credit must also be given to the fact that each of the museums has
endured a long hiatus (the closures of the museums arguably increased interest and
drew in both existing and new audiences).
Kelvingrove recorded 989,000 visitors in the year before its closure.D2 Set at
the beginning of the project, the museum redevelopment team had estimated 1.6
million visitors would visitor KAGM per annum following the redevelopment.
The actual figure, in the first year of its reopening, was around 2.2 million.A4 The
initial feedback following the KAGM reopening was tremendously positive: 95
per cent of visitors rated the museum as ‘very good’ to ‘excellent’ according to
the surveys.D2
The GNM was the next museum to reopen, inviting visitors into the
redisplayed galleries in May 2009. A smaller museum than KAGM, the GNM
team had set a fairly conservative target of 300,000 visitors each year. In the first
three months after reopening, the museum had been visited by 400,000 people
(Henderson 2009). As of December 2012, the GNM had entertained 2 million
visitors, becoming the most popular free museum in England’s North-east region
(Arts Council England 2012).
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum was the last of the case study museums
to reopen; an eagerly anticipated reopening in December 2011 (HLF 2011). Within
the first month of reopening, the museum staff had recorded 50,000 visitors, an
increase in the teenage attendance rates and 96 per cent positive feedback about
the new-look museum (BBC 2012).
Love/Hate (Biological Collections Display)
Having established who the museum audiences are, it is imperative to know what
they think about collections. Although there is a tendency, in all museums, for
curators to believe their subject is of utmost interest to visitors, little in-depth
research has been undertaken to prove which collections appeal to the majority
of audiences. People either love animals on display in their museum, or they hate
them: ‘in the benchmark surveys that we had done every year, which only give you
a very general feel for what people think, 50 per cent of people said they loved
stuffed animals, 50 per cent of people said they hate them.’C1 And so in this sense,
curators, museums staff and funders need to accept that specimens on display will
not appeal to everyone.
But why is there such a strong, emotive relationship occurring between the
public and biological collections? The most obvious reason is the manner in
which specimens were collected. For the game-hunters of the day, the display
of taxidermied specimens, overcome on expeditions in the wilds of far-flung
countries, was representative of their ‘mastery over the natural world’ (Ryan 2000:
203). Although museums do not amass collections in this way today, the negative
connotations continue to persist.A5
In order to break those negative connotations and encourage museum audiences
to embrace collections of biology on display in museums, the project manager
thought that the RAMM had developed the right approach:
No matter how much you try and explain that … we don’t go out shooting
animals, some people still persist in that sort of idea. What we’re trying to
do with some of these [animals] is to actually explain the stories behind the
collectors so that people get some concept of why they did it. It’s difficult to
explain sometimes why they did it! But that these are historical artefacts as
much as they are natural history specimens, biological specimens.D3
Focusing on individual specimen stories will not justify the actions of past
generations, but will go some way to explaining the attitudes of the Victorian and
Edwardian collectors and why it is imperative that we maintain these collections
for future generations: ‘what you really want is the younger generation to come
to look upon the museum positively’A5 and accept the historical nature of the
collections.
Alternatively, creating multi-disciplinary galleries gives museum teams the
opportunity to incorporate some of the less favourable objects and collections.
Where once whole galleries may have been omitted from visitor itineraries, new
approaches to gallery themes and stories ensure the integration of a range of
objects – galleries now become more appealing.
For those members of the public who do not agree with the display of natural
history collections in museums, the time has come for acceptance. Acknowledging
that policies and international conventions (CITES) are shaping the ways in which
museum specimens are acquired may sway some agnostics towards the importance
and value of biological collections in museums, and help to alleviate animosity.
These collections advance our understanding of nature, science, medicine, and so
on, and help to educate people about global issues (Pettitt 1997).
Chapter 9
Visitor-centred Goals
With the shift in power, or the broadening of the power base (Watson 2007: 11),
towards the museum audience, core exhibition teams are setting visitor-centred
goals. Structured audience development plans and strategies for visitor learning
ensure the audience is considered in all stages of the redisplay and reinterpretation
of collections. When setting goals for visitor learning through individually tailored
plans and strategies, museums are guided by the ‘Generic Learning Outcomes’
(GLOs) and ‘Generic Social Outcomes’ (GSOs) outlined by the then Museums,
Libraries and Archives Council’s learning framework Inspiring Learning for All
(MLA 2013).
Many factors contribute to the mapping of visitor-centred goals, including
generalities such as enhancing the visitor experience, encouraging engagement with
collections and making the audience happy, all of which are examined in this chapter.
Kotler and Kotler examine the question ‘Can museums be all things to all
people?’ In doing so, they conclude that museums must be clear in their mission,
or ideology: ‘Sound choices’ will ensure museums include multiple audiences and
stand a chance to be all things to all people. They also acknowledge the need to
‘[reach] out to a large public and [offer] a richer museum-going experience for
visitors’ (2000: 286).
Making Everyone Happy?
So, can museums be all things to all people? Or, can contemporary redisplays and
reinterpretations be all things to all people?
In satisfying one audience group, you may disappoint or frustrate another but
isn’t this to be expected? As complex beings, humans have different rationales for
visiting museums:
Some visitors are very knowledgeable about specific aspects of the museum
collection; others are relatively uninformed … Some visitors learn best when
they touch things; some visitors learn best by reading … Some visitors will go to
a museum only with other people; some visitors strongly prefer to visit museums
alone. All these factors, and more, make up the visitor’s personal context and
strongly influence the visitor’s museum agendas. (Falk and Dierking 1992: 25)
The museum project team’s redisplay mission is made more difficult by the multitude
of different audience needs and levels of knowledge. And so with this sizeable
matrix, beyond the simple divisions of audience groups, the core exhibition team
members realise that it is not possible to make all displays relevant to all people,
or make everyone happy: ‘you can never please everybody … this museum will be
scrutinised by the sector as well as by its visitors. Some people will love it, some
people won’t love it and I’m relaxed about that because it’s inevitable.’D1
All project team members, across the three case study museums, were aware of
visitors fearing the loss of objects, specimens and collections that were previously
on display: ‘I know that there were some people that came into the museum when
we were closing and said “Oh, it will be a shame if you can’t have all those birds
out” because it was like a three-dimensional record of all the British birds.’A2
This comment, made by a curator on the Great North Museum redevelopment
project, is indicative of responses from several interviewees across the research
cases. It suggests that a small minority of visitors would rather not risk the
museum redisplaying the collections for fear of getting a redisplay that does not
appeal to them, or that contains fewer, less accessible or familiar objects. For
them, the gain does not outweigh the loss. This feeling within certain visitors
– the pessimism about redisplays – can be explained by drawing an underlying
theoretical stance from the social psychology theory of ‘loss aversion’, which is
more commonly associated with economic studies involving risk. Tversky and
Kahneman (2000: 143) demonstrated that ‘choice depends on the status quo or
reference level: changes of reference point often lead to reversals of preference.’
With this in mind, the museum visitors who are reticent to see changes in displays
are making their decisions based on three distinct reference points: the museum
as it stands before the redevelopment, the proposals for the redevelopment, and
redisplays of material seen in other recently redeveloped museums. The education
officer for the RAMM suggested: ‘A lot of [visitors] will go, “Oh isn’t it lovely, it’s
all new and shiny…” and you’ll get somebody who will say “I liked it better as it
was before when it had nooks and crannies and it was charming”, etc.’C3
This aversion to the loss of what was displayed prior to the redevelopment
suggests that existing audiences need to accept change. Helping audiences to
understand the reasons for the redisplay by consulting and communicating with
them throughout all stages of the project broadens the power base to the visitor,
and potential audience, and may help relieve this ‘display loss’. One designer
realised that ‘whatever we did would be a massive change to what was there’,B1
but as a result of the consultation process, people felt included, having had a say in
the way the museum collections were going to be redisplayed.B1, D1, D2
It is not possible to satisfy every visitor in the museum, but museums have
never been able, and possibly never will be able, to do that. By consulting with
audiences and alleviating worries about the new redisplays, museum project
teams have aimed their reinterpretations at a wider cross-section of identified
visitor groups. Summative evaluation and follow-up research in all museums with
redeveloped galleries will show whether the new approaches to interpretation and
consultation with audiences have been successful.
Visitor-centred Goals 77
Enhancing the Visitor Experience
At a time when museums in Britain fight for local government funds and are
pressured to prove they are ‘value-for-money’, it is perhaps surprising that the
HLF, as a key funder, recognises that the rationale behind museum redisplays is
not necessarily an increase in visitor numbers but an enhanced visitor experience.
The KAGM project manager explained that ‘the imperative for the project was
never really to increase numbers. It was more about improving the quality of the
visit, renewing the displays, rethinking our rationale, reordering the building to
create new visitor services.’D2 This response is echoed by project managers across
museums. In addition, the pressure to increase visitor numbers is eased, knowing
‘we’re not going to be judged solely on how many people we get through the door.
It’s about the people’s experience.’D3
Enhancing the visitor experience involved a number of elements, including
improvements to the building and its facilities. It also included making ‘the dwell
time longer’.E1 The idea is that the new museum displays will be ‘uplifted and
refreshed’.B3 Learning from tourism management, providing an enhanced visitor
experience in these museums will have two major effects:
• It can encourage regular and repeat visits and

• Positive word-of-mouth recommendations work in favour of [museums]
since minimal marketing input is required to attract new visitors.
(Page 2009: 365)
Enhancing the visitor experience is not simply about the displays, it encompasses
the whole visiting experience. Page says that ‘understanding the visitor
experience is a key factor in determining the success of a visitor attraction,
and has wider implications for the public perception of specific attractions
as day-trip destinations’ (ibid.: 367). With this in mind, the whole museum
experience is scrutinised, beginning with the ease of navigation to the building
itself (signposting through towns and cities), parking availability and proximity
to the building, and public transport links (Falk and Dierking 1992: 84). The
visitor experience then extends to the facilities provided within the museum,
for example, cloakrooms, gift shops and a café or restaurant. Orientation and
wayfinding materials must be obvious and adequate: ‘all visitors want to know
where they are and where they are going’ (ibid.: 88). The designer for the
KAGM redevelopment, explained how the design company developed displays
that would act as points of reference for visitors:
Because it’s completely symmetrical people lose where they are in the building
very, very easily. And that’s why we use the courts to create so much drama
because then you always knew you’d come in on the spitfire or you’d come in
on the heads [gallery installation] and you could orientate yourself.B2
In order to orientate visitors, museums use statement objects, such as the Spitfire
and the Elephant in KAGM, or the Giraffe at the RAMM. In addition, museums
may use ‘signs, maps, colour codes, distinctive graphics and ideograms’ to orientate
visitors (Hein 1998: 161). Kelvingrove museum implemented colour-coded maps
and signage to help visitors navigate their way around the symmetrical building.
Colours are also used on signs within the museum highlighting that visitors
are within the Life wing or Expression wing. Circulation and orientation in the
RAMM and GNM have been made more straightforward thanks to the removal
of former accretions. Improving the visitor experience, as explained, will not only
engage audiences in the museum, but will ensure that they return in the weeks,
months and years to come. Providing adequate resources, facilities and a sense of
security, familiarity and continuity will complement the improved visitor layouts,
interpretations and displays for a positive visitor experience.
Setting Learning Outcomes
In 2000, as part of a Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)

initiative, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (then the Museums
and Galleries Commission) developed a ‘national framework for learning in
Museums, Libraries and Archives’ (Hooper-Greenhill 2007: 20). The resultant
framework, Inspiring Learning for All, which works in alignment with the
National Curriculum, identified ‘Generic Learning Outcomes’ which would help
museums to ‘provide evidence of the impact’ of redevelopment schemes on the
audience (MLA 2013: 1).
The education officer for the Kelvingrove redisplay project, explained that the
GLOs were rooted in the learning agenda from the start: ‘that was what was so
satisfying about it, that whether you want to call them the learning or behavioural
or emotional objectives they were what were being delivered so it was just
embedded in the whole process really.’C2
However, the learning objectives were not static from the beginning of the
projects. They were developed as a result of project progress. The education officer
for the RAMM project suggested ‘the [development of the GLOs] is an iterative
process because I thought of some learning outcomes, in fact, for the Insect and
Bird galleries, and I need now … to go back and revisit those in light of what is
actually going to go on display.’C3
Reinforcing and/or Challenging Prior Knowledge
Museums are educational institutions, whether explicitly or inadvertently. Many

visitors acquire new knowledge as a result of visiting museums. Similarly, they
may be reinforcing previous knowledge, or have their prior knowledge challenged.
Of course, for each visitor the knowledge they acquire, recall, or amend is unique
Visitor-centred Goals 79
to them. Likewise, the meanings they make from the object and its interpretation
are unique.
Meaning-making in the museum is a process by which visitors create their
own meanings from a combination of museum interpretation, past experiences,
acquired knowledge (correct or incorrect) and emotive responses.
The importance attributed to meaning-making in museums is not explicit
but is inferred by the way in which multi-layered interpretations are planned
and executed in contemporary redevelopment philosophies. Understanding that
objects can hold an infinite number of meanings to a museum visitor can aid
museum and design professionals in the process of redisplay.
The museum redevelopments offered the best opportunity to think about the
objects in different ways, themes that incorporated less obvious connections
between objects. Layers of meaning, or object ‘identities’, ensured the multi-
dimensional biography of the object. These identities – conceptual, factual,
actual, functional and structural (van Mensch 1989: 85–95) – are made accessible
through different media in museums, such as display text, labels, interactives
and guidebooks. Additionally, new technologies are allowing visitors to link to
museum catalogues and external sources, for example, through QR code usage
on object labels and display texts (Kelly 2011).
Also providing opportunity for further exploration, and qualification, of
knowledge are the study centres and hands-on zones within new galleries. Visitors
have the opportunity to consolidate facts learnt in the gallery and question staff
further about those objects in which they are particularly interested.
Facilitating meaning-making in museum galleries should be a visitor-
centred goal from the outset. Museum teams must understand that by providing
interpretive layers, or comprehensive object biographies, the galleries and their
messages will appeal to a wider audience demographic and give repeat visitors
new layers to explore.
Encouraging Engagement with the Natural World
Perhaps the most practical visitor-centred goal, in terms of biological collections,

is the encouragement and involvement of the public in the natural world. Many
museums are ‘trying to use collections to get people to be aware of what’s out
there’.A6 Since the inception of the ecomuseum ideology in the 1960s, museums
have made a conscious effort to promote a sense of community involvement and
conservation of local species (Davis 2011).
One of the main goals of the local natural history gallery at the GNM was
to ‘inspire people to be interested in the natural world of Northumbria’.A2 In
addition, the GNM plays an active role in the continuation of the Exploring Your
Environment (EYE) project. Set up to collect environmental information (EYE
2009: 1), the EYE project forms part of the new local natural history gallery at the
GNM, where ‘there are … one or two computer terminals where people can come
in and input their information directly into the system.’A2 The education officer for
the GNM added ‘what we’re trying to do is give people a virtual toolkit, encourage
them to go out [and observe wildlife].’C1
Within the display Wild about Glasgow, visitors are also encouraged to input
environmental information they have recorded about local flora and fauna by
using a touchscreen computer (Glasgow Museums 2006: 1).
The RAMM is the only museum of the three surveyed that is not incorporating
biological recording within its galleries:
We used to be a biological recording centre here and I spent a lot of time running
that as a sideline … I say more of a sideline, it was actually the main driving
force for the whole of the department at some stage because that was our way
to the public. We ran various schemes like butterfly recording where we’d go
out to the public and say ‘we’re here, we can give you talks about butterflies
and what we’d like you to do in return is to record what it is you see and give
us the information.’ We did that with dormouse and mice, otters and things like
that so there were various schemes. I suppose we still could do it under the aegis
of the Devon Biological Records Centre but it’s more difficult to do that at this
stage because we recognise that we haven’t documented what we have got in the
museum and that’s the priority now.A5
Here the curator makes a valuable point. There is recognition of the value that
biological records centre have in bridging the gap in communication between the
museum visitor and the museum team member. Knowledge and expertise can be
exchanged directly, furnishing visitors with the tools to venture into the outdoors
and survey their local wildlife with the museum member of staff updating
environmental records for analysis. This kind of engagement with museum staff
and the environment can provide visitors with a sense of pride and achievement
whilst ensuring an empowerment through learning. The revision and reintroduction
of environmental record collecting in museums, revived from the 1970s and 1980s
(see Stansfield 1973, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Biological Records Centre
1978, Stewart 1980), and more recently in the 2000s and 2010s, has boosted the
integration of museum visitors into the contemporary museum’s zeitgeist.
Chapter 10
Offering Different Social and
Educational Experiences
Whilst some contemporary museum experiences are varied, immersive and

multi-layered, and promote independent learning, many still provide visitors
with a highly prescriptive, dictatorial experience. All of the case study museums
sought to enhance the experiences of visitors entering the galleries by interpreting
collections through different mediums and layering interpretation. Modern
museum philosophies aim to provide different learning and social opportunities
in galleries by transforming select spaces into collections’ study centres and
hands-on discovery rooms.
Undertaking a programme of evaluation will help to better understand the
museum visitor and the types of experiences that will fulfil the visitor’s agenda
(Chapter 8). In turn, the interpretation of collections has the potential to reach
many audiences.
In this chapter, the results of the data collection analysis are used to explore
the visitor experience in all three museums. In particular, aspects of the visitor
experience are examined to illustrate how each museum is embracing new media
and mediums for interpretation in an effort to improve both learning and social
experiences for visitors.
The Visitor Experience
As Hooper-Greenhill (1999b: 67) reveals, ‘in recent years the museum world has
begun to accept that visitors are not a passive, homogeneous mass of people’;
they are in fact, individuals who possess different learning needs and bring with
them different agendas in which to experience the museum.
In the past, the museum visitor was perceived as a passive learner. Didactic
displays were used to ‘instruct and educate’ the museum visitor (Belcher 1991:
62). But with the advent of the New Museology and research into visitor
learning in the museum, the model of museum experience has become much
more complex (Black 2012, Hein 1998). Kotler and Kotler (2000: 280) produced
a museum-going experience model (see Figure 10.1) which captured three
dimensions of the museum-going visitor experience:
1. ‘Range of visitor experiences’, from visual and sensory to enchantment

(horizontal axis).
2. ‘The level of intensity’ of the visit, for example, immersion or narrative-

centred visits (vertical axis), and
3. The ‘degree of services’ available to the visitor (circling the axes). For
instance, information and hospitality. (Ibid.: 279)
Figure 10.1 Dimensions of the museum-going experience

Source: Kotler and Kotler 2000.© Taylor and Francis 2013
Backing the museum-going experience model, Fraser talks about the need for
a varied and exciting visit to the museum which provides visitors with a multi-
dimensional experience as opposed to the uniform experience of the past. She says
visitors ‘value a far wider range of experiences than the acquisition of cognitive
knowledge or even the aesthetic satisfaction of viewing art and artefacts’ (Fraser
2007: 293).
At the case study museums, the galleries now promote enchantment and learning,
whilst providing social spaces for that learning and knowledge development.
Offering Different Social and Educational Experiences 83
Interpreting Through Different Media
There are many forms of media used in museum galleries to interpret collections.
They range from text panels to interactive games, QR codes to audio guides.
Great North Museum
Interpretation throughout the museum is encountered at different levels, depths and

ranges. Lighting and soundscapes provide ambience and change the interpretations
of the objects on display.D1 The main interpretation in the galleries is accessed
through interpretive benches rather than object labels. Visitors are encouraged to
‘interrogate’ objects, read interesting facts and watch video clips. Speaking about
the Living Planet gallery, one project curator said ‘the way that this gallery is
interpreted is unusual in that most of the information is going to be presented
interactively.’A1 In doing so, visitors are challenged to engage with Information
Communication Technology (ICT) to interpret the collections, a point which will
be revisited later in this chapter.
It is important to provide interpretive variety throughout a museum. The use of
just one interpretive approach renders the museum, and its collections, boring.B1
This understanding of the visitor and their need for a range of museum experiences
is essential for any collection redisplay.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The pre-redevelopment displays exhibited concepts, collections and specimens

using traditional, didactic approaches and there was no awareness that visitors learnt
in different ways: ‘we didn’t really cater for different learning styles so it was very
much on a level … there was no recognition of people who learnt socially, or learnt
through study or learnt contemplatively, or learnt through interaction with objects.’D2
But this one-level approach to collections display was banished from the
museum in favour of new, mixed-interpretation approaches including the Object
Cinema, Environmental Discovery Centre and interactive exhibits within the
galleries (Glasgow City Council 2001b). Within the galleries, visitors can read
an individual specimen label, observe a working beehive or, in the case of the
Discovery Centre, interrogate the collections up close. The juxtaposition of objects
in themed galleries at Kelvingrove presents new narratives and, subsequently,
encourages questioning and deeper thinking.
The galleries range in their intensity from applied learning to the object/
collections approach indicated by Kotler and Kotler (2000: 280). The evaluation
of interpretive approaches was very important in deciding on the format for
displays.A4 Audiences were involved in deciding the level and depth of the museum
experience that was produced during the redevelopment.
One of the key objectives for the Kelvingrove redevelopment was the
improvement of visitor facilities within the museum. The project manager admitted
that the pre-redevelopment visitor services were not up-to-scratch: ‘We didn’t have
an education suite, our café wasn’t very good, we didn’t have enough toilets’;D2 this
has been rectified following the development of a new restaurant and separate café
within the museum, accessible toilet facilities on each floor, wayfinding materials
throughout the museum (signage and leaflets), and the opportunity to purchase a
reminder of a visit at one of the museum’s shops.
Royal Albert Memorial Museum
The museum team were not reliant on one approach to collections interpretation.
In fact, they used mixtures of visual and sensory media, but the education officer
for the project was worried about the lack of social spaces in the galleries: ‘I
do worry, looking at the plans, that we have not created enough social spaces
in those galleries, seating, gathering, group stuff.’C3 Individuals and groups
are encouraged to get up close with specimens and objects from the museum’s
collections, providing another approach to learning in the museum and a more
rounded museum experience (Exeter City Council 2006).
Interactives and Technology in the Museum
Adding to the museum experience, technology has had a large role to play in the
change in collection display and interpretation over the last few decades (Griffiths
1999: 1). Museum teams looking to incorporate scientific concepts or ideas, which
are not easily explained in the minimal word-count ascribed in gallery text panels,
are now offered the opportunity of presenting them in different formats. Falk and
Dierking (1992: 137), however, rightly observe that the use of technology ‘is
effective only when its use is well thought out and the integrity of the content of
an exhibit is retained’.
For this reason, and that of cost, the use of interactives is selective. Interactives
are also used sparingly because of the risk of malfunction:
… we’ve just been really wary about over committing to the interactives …
we’ve developed our storylines and if there is a storyline that we can’t tell
through objects or text or something that we can’t tell that way then that’s one
instance where we would use an interactive but not to get sold down the road to
interactives.D3
One project, which has been particularly selective about its interactives, how many
to include, where and why, is the RAMM: ‘It is a balance between how best to tell
the story or about a particular theme or whatever it is, whether it’s a good place
to use it or if it’s the best way to bring it alive.’B3 In reality, the decision-making
exercise is actually a little more complex:
Offering Different Social and Educational Experiences 85
I went through a really complicated process with our consultant, Sandra

Bicknell. We worked out this concept called ‘interpretative pallets’. The idea is
to map your interpretative content for each gallery and to try and balance it for
each gallery so that each gallery has a certain amount of text, certain amount of
image, certain amount of interactivity.D3
Continuing the manager explained, ‘We found that the two galleries which had the
greatest interactivity were the bird gallery and the insect gallery because they are
small galleries but they are packed full of manual interactives and some software
as well.’D3
Whilst one team member admitted ‘there’s nothing worse than going around a
museum and finding the interactives aren’t working’,D1 the Living Planet gallery
at the GNM is reliant on the computer-based ‘interpretive benches’ to provide
visitors with all the information and interpretations about the specimens within
the ‘bio-wall’ (apart from case labelling with common name and binomial). This is
worrying, and something that warrants serious interpretive contemplation:
… you have to be really brave if it’s just done through touchscreen and you
don’t have to have any labels because you always get audiences who are less
comfortable with IT than others, put it that way. You don’t want to put all your
eggs in one basket. And there’s this awful thing about IT that it does occasionally
break down!D2
There were sincere concerns about the reliance on computer-based interpretation

in the museum:
We worry that we’ve got too many ICT interactives because it’s easy to do that
in a way … we keep reviewing them, we keep having meetings, going through
all the interactives, trying to change them to physical hands-on which isn’t
necessarily cheaper but just to give that different learning style because not
everybody is comfortable with touchscreens.C1
The Kelvingrove project team took a strong stance against too many computer-
based interactives: ‘there was actually a deliberate policy for it not to be just a
house for computers … what you will see are low-tech and interpretation-oriented
and that was part of the strategy. We only really wanted things that added value to
the displays.’A3
It is interesting, however, to note the differentiation that Kotler and Kotler
make about visitor experiences in museums: ‘audience research reveals that, for
the majority of visitors, social and recreational experiences are as important, or
more important, than educational and intellectual ones’ (2000: 276).
With the developments in technology, museums are right to take advantage
of the use of new media to portray difficult concepts and ideas to the museum
visitor. New media also engages younger audiences in new learning styles. What
is clear is that museums must consider the overall visitor experience and how
they can provide different social and learning experiences in their museum. As
Kotler and Kotler phrase it: ‘not all museum offerings have to be intense and
immersion-like; what is needed is variety and balance in offerings along with
scope and range’ (ibid.).
Chapter 11
Playing it Safe?
Suzanne MacLeod points out that these monumental redisplay projects are placing
‘new demands and expectations’ upon museums: ‘The complexity of these
projects have not gone unmarked’ she says, as ‘museums and galleries today are
shaped by architects, designers, engineers, funding bodies, regional development
agencies and other interested parties.’ Perhaps the most worrying of all demands
and expectations is ‘this expansion of participants and stakeholders’, which ‘raises
interesting questions about the social relations and plays of power shaping the
contemporary museum’ (2007: 72).
This chapter explores the effect of stakeholders upon redisplay projects, that is,
whether museum teams are pandering to the demands of stakeholders and whether
stakeholder demands are dissimilar to those of the museum. How do stakeholders
ensure that their demands are met? And does this impact on the museum redisplays?
The first step is to identify the ‘stakeholder’. What is a stakeholder? Genoways
and Ireland proclaim stakeholders to be ‘any person or group that can place a
claim on the museum’s resources and products’. They continue ‘this may include
members, employees, board members, teachers, civic leaders, granting or funding
organisations, cooperating organisations, competing organisations, the media,
visitors and others’ (2003: 81). A stakeholder diagram (Figure 11.1) suggests the
kinds of groups and organisations associated with museum redevelopment projects
in order to make it a success.
Many museum professionals agree that everyone is a stakeholder in the
redevelopment project.A2, C2, C3, D1, D2 One curator enthusiastically stated: ‘Everybody!
Absolutely everybody. Anybody who visits, anybody who has donated stuff in
the past, all the staff, all the contractors. Everybody has an input one way or the
other.’A4
But interestingly, stakeholders hold different powers depending on the stage of
the project; there is a differentiation between short- and long-term users:
[There is] a very long list, a very long list! I mean stakeholders in terms of long-
term use are visitors. When somebody says to me ‘who’s the client?’ that can
change depending on who you talk to but I think the stakeholders are the people
who are going to come and use this museum but in terms of now, I suppose
our stakeholders are the two societies who actually own all the material and
buildings that we’re working on, without them this project wouldn’t be moving
forward, the main funding bodies, the HLF because without the HLF it wouldn’t
have started the whole process, that was a core bit of funding that needed to
kick start the whole thing, and helped us to get match funding. The university
because they are spearheading the whole thing, and again, without their support
this project probably wouldn’t have been pushed on as it has been because they
are part of this management agreement with the Tyne and Wear museums and
the private societies. I’m worried I haven’t covered everybody but yes, currently
it is the funders and the societies but when it opens it is the visitors.C1
Figure 11.1 Museum redevelopment stakeholders; © H. Paddon 2013
Agreeing that visitors to museums are the long-term users of the redisplays, it
is also clear that museum visitors are stakeholders at all points of the project.
More emphasis is being placed on visitors, as stakeholders; their input impacts
decisions more than ever before. This is, perhaps, driven by the major funding
body, the HLF. In the Application Guidance document, provided by the HLF to
advise project leaders about the application process, the HLF places emphasis
Playing it Safe? 89
on consultation: ‘tell us about any consultation you have done and how this has
shaped your project proposals’ (HLF 2012a: 19).
As publicly funded institutions, civic museums are responsible for the spending
of incomes generated through taxes (Lang et al. 2006: 6). On top of local and
regional government-controlled contributions, museum visitors are encouraged
to contribute directly to fundraising initiatives. As part of the redevelopment
process, all museums earmark substantial fundraising budgets. Therefore, even
though visitors are considered generally as the users of the redisplays, they also
contribute twice over in economic terms. So, visitors have a strong vested interest
economically, not just socially and culturally.
Whilst there may be difficulties in terms of conflicts of interest, having multiple
stakeholders involved in museum redevelopments can be positive:
… the advantage is that you can use your partners to achieve the funding as is
required in terms of the funding criteria so that is a big advantage to having the
diverse range of organisations, the societies and charities, not that we have but
you can use that as well.D1
Genoways and Ireland (2003: 81) continue to say that the identification of
stakeholders is ‘vital’ as ‘the success of the museum depends on the support of
the stakeholders’.
Each funding organisation has specific criteria which will be used to decide
whether or not to support a project:
Obviously the big one is the Lottery Fund. They are only interested in heritage so
the collections and the building to some extent, although mainly the collections.
ERDF [European Regional Development Fund] they are interested in regional
development so they are looking at, ‘does it generate new jobs? Does it kick-
start other developments in the area?’ I don’t think that we do contribute to that
but the business plan that the client puts together needs to show that it does
that. I think some of the other organisations like [the Clore Foundation] would
be interested in education spaces within the museum. They tend to focus in on
study facilities, classrooms and things in terms of activities that the museum is
doing just to improve education. So yes, that all has to be taken care of.B1
In some cases, the goals of funders are not those of the museum. For one of the case
studies, this meant that funding was pulled from a gallery because the messages
imparted by the museum were not shared by the funders. This incident illustrated
how some funders were engaged in the design of the new displays on an intimate
level. Other funders were less concerned with the minutiae of interpretation in the
galleries and were happy for the project team to develop their ideas independently.
Decision-making for the project is complicated by multiple stakeholders, ‘[the
approvals process] can be quite long-winded getting approval from everybody.’B1
But, it is necessary. Phillips (2003: 160) declares ‘stakeholder communication is
more than good for the organisation. It is a matter of moral obligation. Individuals
and groups who contribute to the organisation should be permitted some say in how
that organisation is managed.’ Although Phillips refers to management, in terms
of companies, this can be applied to the museum redevelopment project process.
Stakeholders should be consulted about the larger, more important decisions
as they will be affected by the resultant outcomes. Some funders will monitor
decision-making through a designated consultant; others will seek organisational
feedback through reports or meeting minutes.
Museums are shifting from institutions that were answerable only to
themselves to institutions that acknowledge they are publicly owned, funded and
consumed. This transition has led to the acknowledgment of the importance of all
stakeholders and the need to incorporate their beliefs and opinions. Museum teams
should carefully consider the funding organisations’ motivations and whether they
impact politically, economically, ethically and/or religiously on gallery messages.
Referring to the incorporation of funders’ messages, and the messages of the
institution, one project manager commented, ‘We have a responsibility to be a
little bit more balanced on how we handle some of these things.’D2
Not everyone will be happy about decisions made, including individual staff
members, but the outcomes must fit with the museum’s mission and ideology.
Museums should not ‘bend the rules’ for economic gain or include overt political
stances within galleries.
The power of the stakeholder in the decision-making process was particularly
obvious in one area of collection redisplay: gallery themes and stories.
Gallery Themes
All three museums took different approaches to the redisplay of their collections,
but they all had the same goal; to provide visitors with an enhanced visitor
experience.
In doing so, visitors, as stakeholders, play a large role in the selection of themes
and stories for gallery spaces. Of the three, Kelvingrove conducted the largest
consultation programme and allowed audiences to choose stories and themes for
inclusion. Speaking about their process, the education officer said:
I think the key thing to note is that [the themes] were consulted very heavily
on. That wasn’t to say that such-and-such a theme got chucked out because the
visitor said ‘Oh no! I’m not interested in that’ but that we had a sense of which
were going to be popular and which not, and again, for the stories as well.C2
Although the GNM project team and the RAMM project team consulted with
audiences, it wasn’t on the scale of the Kelvingrove programme. As a result,
visitors did not have a direct impact on the kinds of stories and themes included in
the galleries at the GNM and RAMM as they did at Kelvingrove.
Playing it Safe? 91
A curator for the RAMM project noted that museums ‘nowadays are more
willing to tackle more controversial issues’.A6 For example, biological collections
can tell stories about hunting (Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum), extinction
(Oxford University Museum of Natural History) and creationism (Leeds City
Museum). But, rather pointedly, one curator spoke of a certain monotony amongst
themes for collection redisplays. These recurring themes, the curator hinted, are as
a result of the limited companies of specialist museum designers:
I think because it’s only a finite pool of people who do the designing, that’s
actually quite an interesting part of it, you see recurring themes. Also, there
are only so many ways to skin a cat! Which also becomes apparent, there are
a lot of things that we share in common and there’s only a finite number of
reasonable ways in which to display those, in which meets both the publics and
the conservation needs.A3
As stakeholders, designers also have power over the style, expression and
appearance of the new displays: ‘it’s a mixture of all sorts, generating a brief for
the themes of the galleries. We have a large part in determining that as well.’B3 As
much as the designers can have a say in the theme/s for a gallery, they should be
led by their client. Another design consultant explained that the Kelvingrove team
knew the content for their galleries and that it was their job, as a design company,
to interpret that content:
Glasgow knew what they wanted, not from a design point of view but from a
content and what they wanted to tell and we were able to influence it a little bit
but not as much … there’s one or two instances in there where I think it would
have been better if we had gone down the route we recommended but then there
are other things where they were spot-on. We have other clients who don’t know
what the hell they want, they come to us literally saying ‘er, building, collection,
what do we do?’ whereas Glasgow were like ‘right in that room we’re having
that, that, that and that. This is what the story is about and this is what we want
to say and with the objects we’re going to say it.’C2
Alternatively, the team at the GNM didn’t have a sound content outline for the
designers but they had determined the concept for the gallery when they went
to the company with their ideas. Explaining the decision-making process for a
concept, the project manager contributed:
It’s a two-way process really. We didn’t sit down and say ‘right we’ve got all
these collections. What kind of story can they support?’. We did actually come
up with the concept first to be quite honest with you. He later mentioned ‘The
biology gallery is the first thing you see when you come into the museum and
that’s deliberate because we want that gallery to be, the designer’s hate me using
this term, the “wow factor” because it is this huge display of animals and plants
and so on.D1
So are museums playing it safe? Are they simply keeping their stakeholders
happy? In order for any of these projects to come to fruition, museums have
had to welcome external funding and external expertise, and recognise that the
contemporary redisplay of museum collections has changed. The process in which
they achieve the redisplays has also changed and this is due, entirely, to the number
of stakeholders now involved in redevelopment projects and the motivations they
bring to those projects.
Museum decision-makers need to realise that not all stakeholders have the
needs of the museum, or its audiences, at heart and that they may cause a conflict
of interest. These conflicts of interest are, again, inevitable due to the large scale
of the redevelopments and the increased number of stakeholders involved in the
projects. Good communication with partners at the beginning of the project will
ensure everyone is aware of the goals of the project and that stakeholders work
towards these goals with the project teams.
Chapter 12
Conflicting Interests
Conflicts of interest are commonplace in large-scale projects. They can be easily

rectified or redefine relationships. It is the job of the project manager to manage
those conflicts and seek resolutions in a timely fashion. Personal agendas also
come into play and can lead to further conflicts. These conflicts not only cause
changes in the team dynamic but also have ramifications for decision-making and
gallery spaces.
This chapter will explore the relationships between the internal team members
and external partners (designers, architects, and so on) and the implications for
collection redisplay.
Genoways and Ireland state that ‘despite the best of intentions and group
processes, conflict in the museum is inevitable.’ They continue ‘conflict left
unaddressed can lead to a seriously impaired working environment for both those
directly involved and those on the sidelines’ (2003: 67–8). It is the job of the project
manager to manage personal agendas and conflicts within the team, and enforce
the mission and goals of the project. The project manager for the Kelvingrove
redevelopment discussed his role and the importance of conflict resolution:
What happened was that the curators selected things for open display and the
conservators selected them independently, and then they commented on each
other so a conservator might say ‘it can be displayed on open display because
it’s not sensitive organically’ but then the curator might come back and say ‘well
yes it’s not but it’s the only one in the world and therefore I’d quite like it to be
in a case’ so we kind of balanced those things out. Similarly they might come
back and say well these are the reasons why I think it should be mounted in a
particular way and in some instances the curators were involved in stressing the
lines with the conservation team.D2
Projects have many stakeholders (see Chapter 11), but the GNM project manager
juggled a particularly difficult tripartite working relationship between the Natural
History Society of Northumbria, Newcastle University, and Tyne and Wear
Museums. This caused conflict on numerous levels. First, the changing of the
museum name was highly contentious:
I’ll be political here and just say that there have been hard times and, of course,
this is the issue with the name. You know, the working title was the Great North
Museum project. There’s one camp that wants to just keep it as the Hancock
(and the fact that it has the Hancock engraved right across the front there, in the
sandstone). But you know a lot of people say, ‘Well now it’s not the Hancock
and it’s not going to be the Hancock anymore; it’s the Roman museum, it’s the
Greek museum.’ I mean it has to be resolved in the next two or three months
but whatever the outcome is, certain people are not going to be happy. It’s
unfortunate but things move on. And that’s the situation as it is now. I mean,
there are arguments for both, you know? There are arguments for keeping it as
the Hancock because people know it but there’s also an argument to say people
might think it’s just the old Hancock.C1
Ultimately, the final decision to rename the museum was made by the project
management team. All data from stakeholder group consultation was used to make
an informed decision. The project manager for the RAMM redevelopment spoke
about the importance of conflict resolution within the project and his awareness of
the shift in curatorial power:
My role is I act as the intermediary, the buffer, between the curators and the
designers. Because I come from a curatorial background, I think I understand
what the curators are saying and I suppose I can broker that relationship. I suppose
if you just had all the curators, flat level curators, working with designers that
might be problematic.D3
Other stakeholder conflicts have arisen over the course of the GNM redevelopment
project, as the project manager pointed out. Working with the Natural History
Society of Northumbria, the manager explained that the relationship was
changeable and, at some points, a challenge to manage. Whilst the society
supported the project, they also had societal goals which were not always in line
with those of the project:
We’ve got a great relationship with the society and they’ve been very supportive
on this project but as you would expect they’ve got slightly different views
in terms of how things should be displayed. It’s entirely understandable; they
like the more academic approach and with different animals and systematics,
classification and so on and so forth, whereas, of course, we’ve got to try and
balance that between the visitor appeal. It’s not a museum just for the society’s
members so it can be a difficult juggle perhaps to get that right.D1
One project member intimated that the decision-making process needed to take
into account individual group objectives or risk losing them as stakeholders in
the project: ‘that’s another interesting element because you’ve got the two private
societies who want the best for their collections. It’s been an interesting journey
to go on, keeping everybody on board.’C1 The management of stakeholders and
personal agendas is key in redevelopment projects. It is Frost (2001: 111) who
points out the need for stakeholders to compromise on redevelopment projects,
‘to stay within budget and meet the various needs of the collections, the designers,
Conflicting Interests 95
the public, the curators and the educators, compromises often need to be
made.’ Although Frost talks about compromises in order to stay within budget,
compromises also need to be made to satisfy, more importantly, the overall goals
of the redevelopment projects. In satisfying stakeholder goals, project teams may
be compromising their own goals, collections and interpretations.
To this effect, stakeholders also hold personal agendas, which again do not
always fit with the goals of the project: ‘People get hobby-horses. They want their
lesser-spotted woodpecker in the display come what may!’D3 Another admitted, ‘I
am interested in insects and invertebrates so I’ve tried to get as many invertebrates
on display throughout the natural history displays.’A6 Other team members may take
advantage of a lack of direction to pursue personal agendas. One designer explained
that the initial lack in direction ‘allowed us to drive [the design] to suit ourselves
so we might have been interested in the visual aspect of it but because they weren’t
resolved in their thinking we could actually bend their thinking a little bit because we
had a good design idea.’B1 However, the designer continued to admit, ‘you probably
shouldn’t do it like that.’B1 Here, I agree. The designers in this case took advantage of
the situation to drive the design of the galleries. However, if the museum team had a
clearly defined design goal from the outset, the designers could have worked within
the remit of a brief to ensure design concepts were met.
The importance of a strong project manager, or project management team, and
clear project goals, is imperative if personal agendas are not to become major
drivers in redevelopment projects:
If there were really tricky issues then they would come to the project team for
a final decision as to what the way forward was, if there was a conflict in an
approach or whatever. Sometimes there were things where other people were
overruled but the project team measured everything against the wider context
of the project.C2
Early-stage project development is imperative if a project is to be driven by its

own goals. The overriding emphasis of decision-making comes from the audience
and the collections and should be championed by the project manager, or project
management team. These decision-making components should fundamentally
drive the redisplay of collections as opposed to personal agendas.
Working with Designers
For all of the redevelopment project teams, working with external design
companies was a new way of interpreting, designing and redisplaying their
collections. The scale of these redevelopments was, and still is, unprecedented
in Britain and therefore brought about new challenges for the core exhibition
teams and designers alike: ‘I think this is the first time we’ve done a whole
museum. It doesn’t happen very often!’B1
In the first instance, being able to say ‘no’ to designers and design ideas was
crucial for the museum team members. It enabled them to take ownership of their
projects, not simply pass the design element over to the design company. A curator
for the KAGM redevelopment project stated: ‘There were trade-offs … we would
say “oh that’s a gorgeous design idea but in practice it’s not going to work because
of this constraint with the object or because we just can’t physically display it like
that”, so it was a two-way process.’A3
The vast amounts of money from funders like the HLF necessitated the
employment of external exhibition design companies to guide the process and
provide high-end design options. This is a complete departure from the in-house
design of museum galleries in the past, and for some, is unconvincing:
This is the first time I’ve worked with outside designers at all. I think I’d say
that I’d prefer to work exclusively in-house if that was possible but I think that
it’s probably beyond the abilities and capabilities of the people we have here,
in-house designers, especially the sort of money that’s being used.A5
Direct conflict can arise between curators and designers in terms of display
approaches:
[The designers] are used to doing the interpretation whereas we [were] coming
along and saying ‘no, we’ve done the interpretation. This is what we’re after. We
want you to bring your designs skills to it.’ So there was that slight tension to
begin with and not infrequently. It kind of amuses me because from where I was
I could see that we were saying ‘No’ to [the designers] on a lot of things. ‘No.
Sorry, no that’s not fitting what we’re trying to do, no!’ But equally the curators
were also getting told ‘No, what [the designers] have come up with is good. We
understand what you’re saying but no, we’re going with [the designers] vision’,
so the curators I think sometimes think that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t their vision. It
wasn’t what they wanted and that kind of thing … Some people used the phrase,
not necessarily the natural history curators, I can’t remember, but you know ‘it’s
design-led’ but there in the heart of it you could see that it wasn’t. It was about us
always trying to take that view of ‘never mind what everyone else [says], what
is Kelvingrove trying to achieve?’C2
The unbiased view resonates with all of the case study projects. Sometimes team
members can feel ignored or that their opinions are not valued by decision-makers:
Because most of the people on the project team have a relatively small amount
of museum experience, then I mean, they had experience but not necessarily
museum experience, they weren’t necessarily coming up with the right decisions.
And the experienced people who were saying ‘you should do this’ were being
ignored.A4
Conflicting Interests 97
Curators can feel that their powers of decision-making have been stripped away
rather than made equal to other team members. This is often not the case. The
project management teams and project managers take on board the opinions of all
team members and make decisions based on the museum’s redevelopment goals.
This disempowerment, or perceived disempowerment, is discussed in further
detail in Chapter 7.
The relationship between curators and designers can be tense at certain stages
of the redevelopment process and perceived with an ‘us and them’ mentality.
However, at this juncture, it is important to point out that conflict does not always
weaken or shatter a project. As Genoways and Ireland (2003: 68) discuss, a ‘certain
amount of conflict, managed effectively, can actually increase organisational
effectiveness’ or, in this case, redisplay effectiveness.
Resolutions
There are different varieties and frequencies of conflict across the redevelopment
process. They can occur between individual members of museum teams and within
collections’ departments. Conflict can also arise from differences in opinion, ideas
and concepts. As highlighted, conflict most readily occurred between exhibition
designers and museum team members. But not all conflict is unhelpful or
unresoluble. It can in fact bring to the fore issues that hold back progress. It can
also allow resolutions to be reached in a more timely fashion. In all cases, the key
to reconciling differing interests is to manage any potential or real conflict through
resolution. Schellenberg identifies five types of resolution:
1. Disappearance of the object of conflict.

2. Victory for one of the parties.
3. Compromise.
4. Conciliation and
5. Irreconcilability (Simmel 1955, cited in Schellenberg 1996: 66).
The first resolution is not necessarily under the influence of the project manager, or
the team or stakeholders, although Schellenberg (1996: 66) does state that ‘issues
of dispute sometimes do go away by changes of one or the other party, or even
by accident.’ This type of resolution is not one taken by choice; rather it is the
circumstance of the situation.
During the redevelopment process, project managers typically use a
combination of resolutions 2, 3 and 4. Victory, as dubbed by Simmel, may occur
because one party (or stakeholder) has more power, or a more powerful argument.
However, victory can also come if another party willingly recants their stance.
Psychologically, yielding ‘before the other has conclusively made its case, is
felt by the more powerful one as a sort of offense; it is as if it actually were the
weaker of the two and the other had for some reason yielded without having had
to’ (Simmel 1955: 115).
As compromising suggests, each of the stakeholders involved will give up
something in order ‘to reach a common ground’ (Newell 2005: 139). Conciliation
can be used to end a conflict, ‘leaving the objective sources of conflict aside and
focusing on the subjective sources’ (Tidwell 1998: 63). Perspectives, emotions
and beliefs (subjective sources) are put ahead of the design, object, or architecture
(objective sources) of the argument, for example.
Irreconcilability suggests that those issues that cannot be resolved are not
resolved. However, irreconcilable conflicts are usually dealt with by a reversion
to another resolution type: victory for one stakeholder. The project manager
will make the decision, meaning one stakeholder will ‘win’ and the others will
seemingly ‘lose’. If the issue is particularly contentious, the museum Board may
arbitrate the final decision.
The swift resolution of issues undoubtedly helps to maintain positive working
relationships and aids scheduled project progress.
Chapter 13
Harmonising with Architecture
Whilst the facades of local and regional British museums remained unaltered for
many years, as a result of protections granted by listed building status (Mynors
2006), the interiors of Victorian and Edwardian institutions have been changed, in
some cases beyond all recognition, from their original architectural and experiential
visions. Museum architecture has been altered, distorted and misshaped whilst
galleries were subjected to changing design trends characteristic of the decades of
the last century.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) recognises both the importance of
redisplaying and reinterpreting collections in gallery spaces, and supports the
need to conserve and preserve the museum buildings in which they are displayed
and housed. In most instances, approximately one-third of the monies awarded to
redevelopment projects is and has been used to ensure the restoration of buildings
to their original state. Restoration work is undertaken on plumbing, electrics and
roofs as well as original architectural features. This investment in returning the
museum building to its original design attempts to accentuate the architecture and
intended aesthetics. It also aims to harmonise the architecture with the collections
exhibited.
This chapter considers how aspects of museum architecture, including
circulation routes, visitor access and off-site storage, play a pivotal role in the
contemporary display and interpretation of collections.
Legacies of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
It is widely acknowledged that new-build museums of the twenty-first century are

designed and built with today’s museum audience in mind (Soren 2001, Zeiger
2005). Audacious, inspired architectural designs invite visitors in and create
interesting spaces in which to exhibit collections (see Jamieson 2009, Reed 2002
and <www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk>). Striking architectural designs were also
highly coveted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when new museums
were being built in Britain. Early museum architects, such as Etienne-Louis
Boullée, felt that museum architecture should invoke strong visitor reactions.
Michaela Giebelhausen (2005: 43–4) explains ‘[the designs] were daring and
unfettered architectural visions: their sheer vastness was truly sublime; it inspired
awe and dwarfed the human presence.’
Drawing from a variety of different architectural styles, museums of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries include, but are not limited to, Spanish
Baroque, Greek Revival, neo-Gothic and neoclassical designs. The world-

famous Natural History Museum in London (NHM), designed by Alfred
Waterhouse, is an outstanding example of the German Romanesque architectural
style. The use of terracotta features heavily in the cladding and ornamentation
of the Romanesque architecture (Cunningham and Waterhouse 2001, Girouard
1981, Thackray et al. 2001). The Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM) was
influenced by the Greek Revival style. Plinths, Doric columns and wide steps
are design features used by John Wardle Junior, the museum’s architect, to
create a sense of Greek classicism. Municipal museums with diverse collections
drew from other European architectural influences. For example, Kelvingrove
Art Gallery and Museum (KAGM), opened in 1901, was modelled by Sir John
William Simpson and Edmund John Milner Allen in the Spanish Baroque style.
The imposing edifice creates a sense of drama and, as with many museums of the
period, alludes to being a ‘cathedral of knowledge’. Similarly the Royal Albert
Memorial Museum (RAMM) exhibits features of the neo-Gothic style popular
in Victorian Britain. Designed by local architect John Hayward and opened in
1869, it was built to house multiple institutions in ‘the hope that each would
nurture the other’ (Exeter City Council 2003: 3).
Whilst the distinctive museum buildings in British towns and cities are
regarded as highly significant and part of the cultural fabric, their architecture has a
substantial impact on the process and outcomes of collection redisplay projects, and
asserts that ‘given the close relationship between the architecture of the museum
and its symbolic meanings and display paradigms, change is always fraught with
difficulty’ (Giebelhausen 2005: 59). Attempts by consecutive generations of
museum professionals to ‘change’ their museums have left many contemporary
professionals with inherited problems. These include partition walls, which can
cause disjointed circulation routes; unsightly suspended ceilings, which have led
to problems with lighting; incoherent electrical and plumbing work; the change of
use of gallery spaces, and the general removal and destruction of original features.
The importance of these period buildings is exemplified by their listed
building status, which seeks to preserve the original architectural features and/
or the building’s historical significance (see Cadw 2005, English Heritage
2013, Historic Scotland 2013, NIEA 2008). Whilst this is essential in ensuring
the integrity of these buildings, it also creates some barriers to access. Access
can mean many things in museums – physical, intellectual, emotional, and
so on – and it can affect objects, collections, staff, visitors and the museum
space (see Chapters 6 and 8). In the context of architecture, the main issue is
physical access to and around the museum building. For visitors with a physical
disability, the first barrier to access may be navigating the entrance. Heavy doors,
narrow doorways and staircases can all act as impediments to access in museum
buildings. Listed building status, whilst preserving the architectural integrity
of the buildings, can complicate, or even halt, progress in achieving access for
all. Because access acts as a big driver in the redevelopment of museums and
Harmonising with Architecture 101
the redisplay of collections, redevelopment teams must work together with a

number of external agencies to ensure reasonable measures are taken to both
permit inclusivity and maintain the building’s structural design.
Whilst at first glance the redevelopment of any Victorian or Edwardian
museum in Britain seems too unwieldy and complex, as well as seeming to
impede the progress of museum display and interpretation for the twenty-first
century, restrictions and difficulties actually force museum teams to embrace
the architecture and focus on how to work with it, not against it. Reverting to
the original architectural visions allows teams to reconsider gallery layouts,
collections storage, visitor circulation routes, interior vistas and the relocation
of large objects.
Original Visions
Approximately one-third of museum redevelopment budgets are spent on the

restoration of the building, and new buildings. Within their initial funding bids,
museums make clear their intentions to accentuate the original architecture. For
the RAMM, the aim was ‘to reveal the original clarity of the existing building’
(Exeter City Council 2004: 5). Similarly, the GNM project team developed an
aim which was to see the restoration of the listed Hancock Museum completed as
part of the redevelopment project (Tyne and Wear Museums 2006). And finally,
the Kelvingrove New Century Project (KNCP) (2001: 7) planned to ‘restore the
building to as near its original condition as possible and introduce new displays
in ways which respect the architecture’. Where period architecture exists, the
overarching idea behind many contemporary redevelopment projects is to ‘make
the original … architecture sing again’,C3 whilst working in harmony with the
multi-disciplinary collections and modern display furniture.
The removal, or stripping-back, of accumulated accretions during twenty-
first-century redevelopment projects brings back the splendour of the buildings,
allowing them to sing. Redevelopment teams are offered the opportunity to
work creatively and cleverly with their buildings. Competition between the
collections on display and the intensity of the architecture is being alleviated
by innovations in display furniture design. At KAGM, the commissioned design
company developed an intelligent display system:
All the dimensions were taken from the actual proportions of the interior of
the building so we took all the ceiling grids, the skirting, the dado, the door
heights… everything. We worked back and found the original scale that the
Victorians had used to give the proportions to the galleries and we used that for
the displays… so you wouldn’t be able to put your finger on why the displays
all look like they sit in those galleries … It’s because they are all lined up with
the ceiling grids and they are all the right proportions for the building. It looks
like it belongs.B2
Architecture has a prodigious influence on the decision-making aspect of

redevelopment projects. The RAMM project manager acknowledged, ‘The nature
of the architecture is such that we would want to enhance and capture it and make
the best use of it. That has had an effect on the displays; it’s been one of the
deciding and defining factors in the way that we display things and the whole
interpretation approach’.D3
This effort to make the collections and the museum building work together
harmoniously has provided new opportunities for collection interpretation, gallery
design, story development and exhibition themes. Accepting change in the form of
a reversion to a building’s original integrity inevitably means altering a museum
space to accommodate changes, the consequences of which, in these cases, have
considerable impact upon the audience, collections and museum staff.
In order to successfully marry the return of the museum building to its original
state with the prioritising of access and visitors, museums have had to change.
Many British institutions have made, or are making, the critical decision to restore
private areas, such as laboratories, storage facilities and offices, to the public
spaces they were intended to be – earmarking them for the purpose of display
and formal and informal learning facilities. The knock-on effect of this decision
is twofold. First, museum architects and designers are given the opportunity to
work together to create a renewed synergy within the museum. Sinuous visitor
circulatory routes and framed vistas are reinstated, gallery placement is considered
carefully in light of project themes and collections, and museum project teams are
offered the opportunity to create fluid displays incorporating overarching themes.
The second effect, which is equally if not more radical, is the resultant removal of
on-site collection storage to off-site facilities.
Making Private Spaces Public Once More
The opportunity for entire-museum redevelopment does not happen regularly. In fact,
in most cases, local and regional museums have not had the opportunity to develop
displays and interpretation holistically since the museum’s inception. Consecutive
redisplays of collections throughout the last century have been piecemeal and, as
explained above, architecture altered to accommodate faddy fashions. The last
century has also witnessed the loss of gallery space as public spaces have been
made private. These private spaces were used to house staff, collections and
private facilities, such as laboratories and research areas. Redefining themselves as
institutions with clear access and inclusivity frameworks, museums have reclaimed
these private spaces, making them public once more. This in turn has created larger
areas for display and interpretation of collections; as the project manager for the
GNM, explained, ‘we’re adding maybe 40 per cent of display space to the museum
so it’s quite a big change in terms of floor space for exhibits.’D1 This reclamation of
space for public use has also given rise to the re-establishment of visitor circulatory
routes and, subsequently, improved visitor orientation within museum buildings.
Movement Through the Museum
Research into visitor circulation in museums has revealed much about museum
visitor characteristics and behaviour (see for instance, Ambrose and Paine 1993:
220–28, Klein 1993, Royal Ontario Museum 1999). Complex circulation models
have helped to inform museum professionals about likely routes visitors will take.
Although this tends to focus on circulation around individual galleries, circulation
should also be considered on the museum-level – around the space in its entirety.
Many local and regional museum collections are displayed and interpreted in
multi-storey buildings. Circulation studies commissioned at Kelvingrove reported
that of the one million visitors to the museum before its closure for redevelopment,
two thirds of the visitors never went upstairs.D2 This is symptomatic of many
museums. What is not as certain is the reason behind the failure of audiences to
explore upper storeys. There are a number of suggestions: the material on display,
museum fatigue, lack of time, and so on. In an attempt to counter this ‘division’
between the museum storeys, Kelvingrove designed the new galleries and
circulation routes around information gathered from front-end evaluation surveys:
‘We knew that people didn’t go upstairs so instead of [the museum] being split
vertically, it has been split horizontally.’D2 Careful consideration was taken when
deciding upon theme locations and the routes visitors would take, overcoming the
‘upstairs, downstairs’ divide.
Acknowledging Lehmbruck’s (1974) typologies of circulation, it is clear that
in opening up the museum, circulation becomes a decision to be made by the
visitor. Museums are passing ownership for certain decisions over to the visitor.
However, museum personnel are also prepared to encourage visitor flow along
specific museum routes (Macdonald 2002: 140–41). In many instances, gallery
placement is tactical, aiming to drive visitors through the museum; as the project
manager for KAGM redevelopment attested, ‘the challenge was to get people to go
to what they wanted to see as quickly as possible, whilst at the same time routing
them past things that we wanted them to see, much like a department store.’D2 Falk
and Dierking (1992: 149) sensibly assert that ‘those exhibits closest to the front
door will get the most exposure.’ By placing the more appealing collections, or
well-known objects, farther from entrances, visitors are subtly ‘encouraged’, as
the project manager posits, past new objects and through ‘less-visited’ galleries.
The architecture of museums of this period was designed to encourage flow
and facilitates circulation by creating vistas, framing objects, providing entrances
and exits, and suitable places to pause and admire. The education officer for the
RAMM redevelopment project expressed angst about the lack of opportunity to
pause, ‘I do worry, looking at the plans, that we have not created enough social
spaces in those galleries; seating, gathering, group stuff.’C3 The importance of
gallery placement, therefore, should not be overlooked when planning a museum
redevelopment or evaluating the merits of alternative visitor circulation routes.
Many redeveloped and redeveloping museums choose not to prescribe
visitor routes through galleries, allowing visitors to decide on their own viewing
order. This move to non-prescriptive viewing of objects and narratives has a

two-fold effect. It can offer the opportunity for self-directed learning – ‘dipping
in and out’ of learning experiences, narratives, object biographies, and so on –
but it can also deter some visitors, particularly those who expect the museum to
direct their learning and activities within the institution.C3 Deciding upon a non-
prescriptive approach is not simple. One curator from the GNM project discussed
the differences between the non-prescriptive and prescriptive approaches to
collection display and interpretation: ‘I think it depends on the individual …
whether they feel quite confident throwing themselves into a situation or whether
they need that beginning and end.’A2 This decision to move to non-prescriptive
routes and pathways, through both the museum and galleries, works in unison
with the move to flexible displays, an aspect which will be considered in more
depth in Chapter 14.
For the museum teams, one of the main challenges to the reintroduction
of free-flowing circulatory routes around the museum galleries is the creation
of non-prescriptive narratives. An education officer suggested that one of the
main issues was the unpredictability of viewing orders: ‘the key principle of
the interpretation was that whether it was an element as small as a label or
a graphic for the whole story you couldn’t make the assumption whatsoever
about where people were to come at it from.’C2 In all non-prescriptive galleries,
hierarchies of text and other interpretations must make sense to the visitor,
who is unconstrained in the routes they take and decisions they make about the
information they assimilate. Similarly, the concept of haphazard, randomised
information intake, whilst moving around the gallery, means that an overarching
theme needs to be identified in whichever text or interpretation format the visitor
happens to come across. The designer for the GNM project explained that the
interpretation in the galleries at the museum were designed so that ‘you can
come in at any point and, hopefully, the text is written so that you can pick up
what the whole gallery is about from any piece of text.’B1
Another advantage of the non-prescriptive viewing concept is that it allows
visitors to return to stories and narratives if the museum, or gallery, is particularly
busy. At the KAGM, ‘there are a few stories where [the viewing order] does
matter’, explained one member of the curatorial team, ‘but for the majority you
can go wherever you want, which is really good when the place is busy because
sometimes you can’t get to the one you want to see first!’A4 In creating gallery
spaces that allow for ‘dipping in and out’ and ‘picking and choosing’, museums
are not only catering to the needs of their first-time visitors but also their repeat
visitors. The RAMM’s new narrative approach and collection interpretation mean
that ‘the galleries don’t have a specific order; you can read them in any way.’D3
This non-prescriptive routing appears to be a characteristic trait of the twenty-
first-century approach to museum learning as museums move from didactic
displays, where the visitor is controlled in their learning and the information they
have available to them, to constructivist learning, where the visitor will take away
from the experience as much or as little as they want.
By opening up private spaces and making them public once more, museum
teams are presented with more options to create free-flowing circulatory routes.
This has also enabled the improvement of visitor orientation. Sympathising with
members of the public, one member of staff at the RAMM exclaimed, ‘we were
pretty certain that people in the old building did get disorientated because we did as
well!’D3 Without the interventions predicated by these redevelopment projects, the
case study museum galleries would have continued to be unnavigable, fractional
relics of yesteryear.
Storage Solutions
As a consequence of harmonising with architecture and making private spaces

public once more, collections are being removed from many main city-centre
museum sites and placed into purpose-built, off-site storage facilities.
For the positive observer, the removal of invaluable collections from damp,
insufficient storage spaces within the museum, to purpose-built, climate-
controlled, satellite facilities (Cassar 1995: 125) is one of the most significant
sector achievements over the past century. The physical benefits for the objects
are exponential. Around the world, larger institutions store their collections
in purpose-built facilities, for example, the US Smithsonian Institute stores its
collection in its Museum Support Center, while Museums Victoria (Australia) are
developing a major off-site access and storage facility. Some museums, including
the British Museum and Leeds City Museum, also store their vast collections off-
site in purpose-built storage units.
Making way for public space, by reclaiming private work areas or, as one
museum worker put it, ‘[freeing] up the building for display’,E1 means that the
amount of display space gained in the case study museums is between 30 and 50
per cent.
For some, the removal of collections storage from the main museum site is
highly contentious: ‘given the opportunity, I wouldn’t have an off-site store. I
think that every effort should have been made to actually develop the whole site,
have everything on one site; that would have made a lot of difference.’A5 But why?
This move to store collections off-site, particularly for the curatorial staff,
immediately produces a psychological and physical barrier between the collections,
displays, audience and the museum professionals. In the harshest sense, the move
to store collections off-site exacerbates the already-difficult relationship between
the curator and the audience. Anecdotally, curators tend to lock themselves away
from view in offices ‘behind the scenes’; they surround themselves with objects,
and fail to interact with fellow colleagues or with visitors. Of course, this is an
outdated misconception but one which could, in fact, become reality in today’s
museums. New off-site storage solutions put pay to the team spirit encouraged
and nurtured during the long process of museum redevelopment. Communication
skills are lost as curators revert back to ‘type’.
Lord and Lord (1997: 63) profess that ‘the role of the curator in the twenty-first
century should be integral to the success of the museum in achieving its public
mission.’ In the case of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, the collections’ move
to an off-site storage facility meant a move for the curators away from the main
museum building to an industrial area on the outskirts of Exeter. Now, working
away from the main museum site, in order to undertake their duties of collection
care and management, curators are physically further divorced from the museum
and its audiences. The once-observed ‘front and back’ divide in museums (Forgan
2005: 578) between the curator and the audience can be reclassified as an ‘in-
house and out-of-house’ divide. After completion of the project and the dispersal
of staff to various sites – either based at storage facilities, the museum, or in other
office buildings – the museum ‘family’ is functionally broken-up (Morris et al.
2009: 134).
In light of the fact that museums are now placing their collections in off-site
storage facilities, where should a curator be stationed? With the collections, is the
obvious answer, but if we are asking curators to embrace change, accept change,
and work more closely with museum visitors, and their colleagues, are these off-
site storage facilities not creating new problems? As a result of harmonising with
architecture and making private areas public once more, collections storage has
been reassessed and moved off-site and, for the case study museums at least, it
looks doubtful that there will ever be space within the main museum site to store
these collections in the future. Strong leadership and new approaches to working
are needed to ensure curators don’t become divorced from the museum.
Conclusions
In accentuating the Victorian and Edwardian buildings, left as legacies for today’s
society, museum redevelopment teams have been offered the opportunity to rethink
the use of space within the museum. In doing so, they have improved physical
access to museum buildings, created new circulatory routes and developed off-site
storage facilities.
Museum teams of the modern era are working together to create institutions
that enhance and support Britain’s Victorian and Edwardian legacies. Perhaps, as
restrictive as these buildings may seem to many practitioners and ‘developers’
today, the same problems may be faced by the museum teams of the future
when redisplaying collections in contemporary-style museums such as Te Papa
Tongarewa in Wellington, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow and the National
Museum of Australia in Canberra. Collections and visitors must remain the
mainstay of any decisions made when redeveloping museum architecture.
Chapter 14
Designing for Flexibility
Although habitually unintentional, the lifespan of a ‘permanent’ gallery display

often overwhelmingly exceeds a decade with little or no change to the objects,
themes, or interpretation. In all cases, this ubiquitous affliction is caused by the
lack of funds with which to re-exhibit collections. Funding is difficult to procure
regardless of museum status, collection size, type, or need.
The wave of redevelopment – the redisplay renaissance – has been undoubtedly
catalysed by the HLF, as discussed in Chapter 2. Whilst this is long overdue, the
fact still remains that following the multi-million-pound redisplays, many galleries
will doubtless remain unchanged for decades to come: ‘the problem is that many of
these permanent displays end up literally being just that, with inflexibility built into
not just the display architecture but the display themes and rationale’ (Fitzgerald
2005: 136). When developing a display philosophy, contemporary redevelopment
teams need to be aware of this, and the implications of their decisions on future
collection interpretations.
Whilst the HLF does not specify longevity or flexibility as a core category
with which to judge Heritage Grant applications, it does expect applicants to have
considered how project outcomes will be sustained (HLF 2012a: 11).
In light of this fact, it may seem obvious that new museum designs should
incorporate options for flexibility within the galleries, in terms of display
architecture, themes and rationale.
The research conducted into the redisplay of collections at the three case study
museums revealed that only one of the museums truly embraced flexibility within
their new display philosophy.
The project completed by the KNCP team deliberately factored in flexibility
within its themes and display solutions, learning from past experiences of funding
uncertainty. Kelvingrove’s project manager explained, ‘we wanted to move away
from a redisplay of the museum predicated on that 25-year capital investment
cycle, so previously we would redo it and then we’d wait 20 years and change
it again, to having a more flexible approach.’D2 Another project team member
concurred: ‘the whole ethos of Kelvingrove was that the display spaces should be
adaptable.’A4 Any story within a gallery could effectively be replaced by a different
story as long as it fitted with the general theme of the gallery.C2 The themes were
selected to reflect the collections and account for elements of flexibility.
Theme and story flexibility were also features of the RAMM display
philosophy: ‘We’ve always said that flexibility is a really important part. We want
the flexibility to be able to change things, so not have design that fossilises your
galleries so that you can actually change interpretation quite easily.’D3
Conducting thorough collection audits from the outset enabled the team at the
RAMM to select themes that could, in future, see stories easily replaced. In direct
contrast, the GNM project manager explained that their show-stopping gallery of
biology left little room for renewing stories: ‘The interpretation of stories is quite
structured so you pull something out and the whole story can collapse because you
pull that out. I suppose in some respects that might be a disadvantage to the way
that we’ve approached interpretation.’D1
What these case study museums highlight is the need to consider flexibility
within a new display philosophy. Selecting themes that narrow opportunities for
reinterpretation, or new exhibits, is not preferable if galleries are still expected to
span two decades.
In order to support changing stories and themes, the physical aspects of display
may also need to include flexible elements. For example, display furniture may
be modular, object labels can maintain formats throughout the museum galleries
for easy updating, interactives can be updated by museum staff and audio-visual
presentations present up-to-date facts.
Cases, by their nature, allow for a certain degree of flexibility; objects can
be replaced and cases can in some instances be moved from gallery to gallery.
However, the team at the KAGM wanted their design solutions to be as flexible as
possible: ‘with the budget constraints and this brief, [the museum team] wanted
80 per cent of the displays to be flexible displays so we designed a set of modules
and then we combined them in different ways to create different sorts of spaces.’B2
This would provide museum staff with the ability to reach redisplay targets they
had set themselves as part of their sustainable project outcomes: ‘we aim to change
10 per cent every year but that would be based on evaluation so over a ten-year
period we could change the whole museum.’D2
Not only was the modular system less expensive, easy to reconfigure and
permitted realistic story renewal possibilities, it also anticipated the scarcity of
future funding for museum redisplays: ‘I think that was one of the wisest bits
about the flexible system, is that getting pots more money for further redisplay
when you’ve just had a massive one is going to be a challenge.’A3
The single biggest drawback was that by implementing the modular system
throughout the museum, ‘custom solutions were lost.’A3 Many galleries had to rely
on colour schemes and interpretive text to differentiate between themes and stories
within and between spaces.
In the case of the RAMM, a modular system was not adopted, but the project
manager explained that:
Things like the case, obviously you would keep. You would expect your cases
to last a lot longer than [ten years] because they are expensive bits of kit. Things
like the interactives might only last four or five years especially if they are
software-based ones. The technology moves on so quickly and then the chances
are they are going to be obsolete in five years’, ten years’ time.D3
Designing for Flexibility 109
At the other end of the scale, the interpretation for the GNM was heavily
structured, not really allowing for changing stories or themes. Additionally, the
physical structure and prescriptive design of the galleries imposed a real lack of
flexibility in the space.
So in order for museums to present contemporary displays to a justifiably
demanding public, stakeholders need to be aware of the cost implications
to redisplay these collections, the importance of continued funding post-
redevelopment and the time needed to deliver large-scale projects.
The worry for all museums across Britain is the availability of funding in the
next decade as policies, governance and priorities change:
I can’t see us having another pot of money like this to spend on redoing all the
galleries on the same scale for another few decades at least so I would imagine
that what would happen in the future is that galleries would reach their sell-by
date and people would then look at them as discrete pockets.D3
Clearly, there is a strong possibility that the collection redisplay process will
revert to being a piecemeal affair. This is not preferable. This method of redisplay
led to the disjointed displays in museums prior to the current swell of HLF
redevelopments.
The flexibility built into galleries will help to ensure dynamic presentations
and changing displays and goes some way to alleviating stagnation.
Although not all museums should, or will, follow the extremely flexible
philosophy predicated by the KAGM project, museum galleries would benefit
from long-term plans for continued refreshment of interpretations and replacement
of stories when planned in the contemporary era. Project teams should consider all
possibilities for longevity, when future funding is so indeterminate.
Chapter 15
Displaying Biology in the
Twenty-first-century Museum
Before you can explore biological collection display in the twenty-first-century

museum, it is important to understand the nature of collecting and display in
the preceding centuries. Tracing the elements of museum displays and the
interpretation of collections helps reflect and better understand the collectors and
collections, the changing role of the museum, the shifts in ideas about education
and entertainment (Asma 2001: 37–8), the role of the public and the reflected
societal and political values of the times (Bennett 1995: 41).
Collections of biology have been assembled and displayed in private homes
and institutions, and public galleries and museums, for many centuries. Thus
modern-day collections are often an amalgamation of rare, extinct, common, local
and exotic specimens. These specimens record the changes and revolutions in
our knowledge of nature and the environment, our outlook on collecting and the
prestige attached to the collections themselves. Biological displays within these
private homes and public institutions have evolved over time from early collections
of the ‘absurd, curious and monstrous’ (Yanni 2005: 14) to the nineteenth-century
contextualisation of animals in provocative dioramas, for example, William
Bullock’s The Royal Tiger, finally culminating in modern, hands-on, interactive
presentations of biology (Davidson et al. 1994: 223–38); Asma (2001: 3) goes
so far as to say, ‘collecting and displaying natural history specimens is a more
complex and dramatic activity than most museum visitors appreciate.’
Whitehead (1970, 1971), in his essays, neatly divides the history of displaying
zoology in ‘museums’ into six main categories. Each of the categories he identifies
across two-and-a-half millennia exudes a distinctive, characteristic flavour.
Early Biological Collecting and Display
The earliest known collections of biological material can be traced to the Graeco-
Roman Period (up to 400 AD) when the ‘museum’ consisted of an ‘assemblage of
natural or artificial objects, usually for the purpose of study but occasionally for
mere prestige’ (Whitehead 1970: 51). Within this period, the philosopher Pliny
asserted that nature was created for man and that it should be recorded, analysed
and investigated. This period has been labelled the ‘foundation of collecting’.
Pliny also suggested that a collection should be amassed and held in one place ‘in
order that its constituents could be examined’ (Schulz 1994: 176). His attempts to
collect and understand nature were made through experiencing that very nature.
Combining the detailed examination of collections with a person’s personal
experiences with the natural world was an attempt to understand and interpret the
created world (Findlen 1996: 4).
The pre-Renaissance period (that is pre-1400) expanded this notion of
collecting biological specimens for observational studies. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, various descriptive and illustrative picture books were
produced. The picture books, known as Bestiaries, were ‘a collection of short
descriptions about all sorts of animals, real and imaginary, birds and even
rocks, accompanied by a moralising explanation’ (Arnott and Beaven 2005: 1).
Exceptional bestiaries, such as the Aberdeen Bestiary (1200) and the Harley
Bestiary (1230–40), established the observational natural history studies of the
era (Whitehead 1970: 51). From these early periods rose the Renaissance, Pre-
Linnaean and Linnaean periods.
Biological Displays from the Renaissance Period to the Linnaean Period
Granted, the Renaissance comprised collections of ‘absurd, curious and monstrous’

specimens, but it is also regarded as the period that launched the ‘concept of the
scholar’ (Schulz 1994: 175), a nuance from the simple observations made during
the pre-Renaissance period. Men such as Conrad Gesner of Zurich and Ulyssis
Aldrovandi of Bologna epitomised the birth of Renaissance zoology (Stansfield
et al. 1994: 7). Both men collected and displayed objects in their own private
museums, often referred to as ‘cabinets of curiosity’ (Whitehead 1970: 51).
Collecting, during this period, was performed as a social activity by the elite for the
elite; ‘through the possession of objects, one physically acquired knowledge, and
through their display, one symbolically acquired the honor and reputation that all
men of learning cultivated’ (Findlen 1996: 3). Throughout this time, the collection
of nature was also regarded as a way to maintain ‘some degree of control over the
natural world and [take] its measure’ (Findlen 1996: 4). The concept of collections
for the ‘public good’ was yet to be founded.
The pre-Linnaean period of 1600–1750 sees the growth of the ‘cabinet of
curiosity’ or ‘wunderkammer’. Two of the most renowned cabinets of curiosity
were those amalgamated by Oleus Worm (1588–1654) and Fredrick Ruysch
(1638–1731) (Asma 2001: 68). Although primarily thought to be a disorganised
presentation of specimens, it is clear from Worm’s catalogue that some cabinets
were indeed organised to separate ‘natural and artificial objects … the former
subdivided into fossils, plants and animals’ (Whitehead 1970: 52). These
organisations and divisions were classified through measuring ‘differences by
comparing visual structures’ (Hooper-Greenhill 1992: 17) and thus the display of
collections became more significant. The period also sees the growth of scientific
activity and detailed observation, due to the invention of the microscope and the
founding of scientific societies in the search for knowledge (Whitehead 1970: 56).
Displaying Biology in the Twenty-first-century Museum 113
Collectors, such as Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection eventually formed the
core of the British Museum (ibid.: 52), and Elias Ashmole, whose collection
proceeded to form part of the earliest public museum in England, the Ashmolean
in Oxford, were moving towards the ordering and organising of collections; a far
cry from the earlier amateur displays of pure aesthetic arrangements (Asma 2001:
113). The organisation and display of specimens came to underpin the movements
of the next age, the Linnaean period.
The Linnaean period (1750–1850) was named after the ‘father of modern
taxonomy’, Carl Linnaeus. His work was highly regarded, particularly his work
on type specimens and his encyclopaedic Systema naturae (Linnaeus 1758) which
‘enabled the collector and the museum worker to find a logical place for each new
specimen’ (Whitehead 1971: 155). Natural history only truly became a discipline
at the end of the eighteenth century, when naturalists like Buffon and Linnaeus
styled themselves as a new generation of thinkers (Yanni 2005: 2). Linnaeus’s
work was facilitated by naturalists and explorers like Captain Cook and Joseph
Banks, who collected specimens from the New Worlds, bringing them back in
return for large sums of money (Asma 2001: 194).
One of the most formidable biological collections was that of William Hunter,
forming the core of the modern Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. His collection
displays were ahead of many other museum displays of that period because they
‘set out to achieve a methodical comparison, not merely of animals but also of every
separate organ in different species’ (Whitehead 1971: 157). The emphasis was now
on understanding the appearances and surface traits of specimens by comprehending
why ‘things came to look as they do’ (Hooper-Greenhill 1992: 17).
Within this period, other private museums, with a focus on collecting and
displaying biology, were established, such as William Bullock’s Museum of
Natural Curiosities in 1795, which Bullock eventually moved to London Piccadilly
in 1809 (see Figure 15.1).
Here, in Bullock’s Museum, collections of 15,000 biological specimens were
displayed according to Systema naturae (Bullock 1813: iii). Although Whitehead
(1971: 158–9) perceives that ‘the museum was purely for entertainment, showing
a collection of oddities to its members’, Bullock’s own catalogue of 1813 presents
a different story:
In adapting the Ediface which Mr. Bullock has just completed for the present
collection, by displaying it advantageously for the Study of the Naturalist, the
Instruction of the Curious, and the Amusement of those who are delighted in
viewing the Beauties of Nature … he has endeavoured to render it worthy of the
British Metropolis. (Bullock 1813: iv)
Susan Pearce (2008: 26) states ‘the critical feature of Bullock’s natural history
and Pantherion exhibitions was the solution he found to the problem of creating a
display that united essential popular attraction with genuine scientific endeavour.’
Bullock was attempting to make his museum inclusive, with universal appeal.
Figure 15.1 William Bullock’s London Museum; © Crown Copyright: UK

Government Art Collection
In addition to the vast collections of biology on display, Bullock also attempted

to break new ground by creating dioramic presentations featuring large zoological
creatures. Here a passage details the exhibition of quadrupeds in the museum:
One department of the Museum (the Pantherion) completed with much labour
and great expence, is entirely novel, and presents a scene altogether grand and
interesting. Various animals, as the lofty Giraffa, the Lion, the Elephant, the
Rhinoceros, &c. are exhibited as ranging in their native wilds and forests, whilst
exact Models, both in figure and colour, of the rarest and most luxuriant Plants
from every clime, give all the appearance of reality; the whole being assisted
with a panoramic effect of distance and appropriate scenery. (Bullock 1813:
Preface)
This description, which demonstrates Bullock’s attempt to stage the animals in

their ‘native wilds’, is one of the first records of dioramic displays in the country.
Thus, over the course of two millennia, the museum developed from a
collection of objects displayed haphazardly for the individual’s pleasure to
collections of objects investigated for knowledge advancement. Additionally,
people like Bullock realised the potential power of ‘museums’: to entertain and
educate a variety of audiences. We now take this forward into the modern period.
The ‘Modern Period’ of Biological Collections Display and Interpretation
Many of the Britain’s local and regional museums were founded and built in the
modern period, with many originating from literary and philosophical or natural
history societies, for example, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, World Museum
Liverpool, Manchester Museum, Montrose Museum, Perth Museum, Swansea
Museum and Whitby Museum.
The Victorian Era
Victorian galleries of biology were full of specimens, arranged in serried rows,

wooden chests of drawers, vertically challenging cabinets, corridors and even
hung from ceilings. A great range of local and exotic taxidermy was presented
alongside collections of wet-preserved specimens, and skeletal remains were
articulated, including whale skeletons. The Victorian gallery was a place of
wonder and ‘edutainment’. Within the early modern period, a number of natural
history display modes became fashionable, and widespread, throughout museum
galleries. This was also a period that witnessed the advent of the diorama.
The Diorama The diorama, developed ‘to provide vision “in the round”, created
the illusion of a realistic view, built either full-scale (as in many animal habitat
groups) or to a reduced scale, affording a type of “peep-show”’ (Belcher 1991:
141). These Victorian installations, placing animals in naturalistic scenes, ‘sought
to bring exotic environments alive for the museum visitor’ (Davis 1996: 44).
Whilst many commentators make mention that the diorama was developed in
the twentieth century, Wonders (1990: 90) asserts they were a ‘continuation of a
tradition established by the early nineteenth-century dioramas and panoramas’.
The art of the diorama was most keenly advanced in Sweden and the United States
in the 1890s. In 1893, Gustaf Kolthoff displayed some 4,000 specimens in a highly
detailed, intricately painted setting in his Biologiska Museet, Stockholm (Kemp
2000: 92–3). At a similar time, in the United States, Carl Akeley was collecting,
taxidermically preserving and arranging exotic specimens in diorama for the
American Museum of Natural History (Quinn 2006). In the following years,
diorama-fever swept through North America and many parts of Europe. Seen as a
‘great form of non-literary communication’ by many, the diorama, large and small,
was a mainstay of any biology gallery in the early to mid-twentieth century.A3
However, tatty and ‘outdated’ diorama were beginning to wane in popularity by the
later part of the twentieth century. With the advent of the new biological collection
displays in museums, museum managers have taken the bold step of dismantling
many diorama, a highly contentious move in the eyes of curators (Paddon 2009b).
Sadly, what is clear about remaining diorama in the contemporary museum period is
that ‘few natural history museums acknowledge either the artistic or historic value
of their exhibitions’ (Wonders 1993: 229). Diorama are display options that tick
the inclusivity box, as little or no interpretation is needed. Non-English-speaking
audiences can interpret a habitat scene and instantly understand something about
the wildlife presented. Unfortunately, the practice of dismantling dioramas is too
common nowadays (for example, the Zoological Museum at the University of
Helsinki, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the Rowland Ward Gallery
at the Natural History Museum, London); once dismantled, the diorama’s artistic
integrity is lost forever.
Live Biology Another important addition to the Victorian gallery was the use
of live animals and plants to allow for detailed study and up-close investigations.
An article, written by Lomax (1899) for the Brighton Meeting of the Museums
Association, records the use of living plants as a form of exhibition in the Brighton
Museum. This display mode; including plant tables, live bees, reptiles and other
organisms, was labelled vivaria or a vivarium. The Museums Journal and various
other museological journals and texts chart how museum teams have cyclically
embraced and rejected vivaria as a form of display in biological galleries. Today,
vivaria are making a comeback; recently redisplayed galleries of biology, such as
those at Weston Park Museum in Sheffield and the Australian Museum in Sydney,
incorporate vivaria within their exhibitions.
The 1950s to 1970s
The interpretation and display of biology remained largely unchanged until after
the Second World War, when, influenced by ideas from the United States, museum
professionals began to think about what new experiences they could offer their
audiences. In the United States, curators wanted to do away with taxonomic
displays and dioramas, so they began to integrate live animals and interactive
exhibits into the galleries of biology. For instance, Boston Museum of Science
installed ‘a miraculous, revolving, push-button exhibit with thirteen cages for live
New England snakes’ in one of its galleries (Washburn 1950, cited in Rader and
Cain 2008: 157). In Britain, museum staff began to consider ways to integrate
these exciting elements to displays with their galleries. They also moved away
from the taxonomic and dioramic displays and developed new exhibitions based
on themes; for example, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a move to focus on
conservation (for example, the World Wildlife Fund was established in 1961 in
Britain and Greenpeace was founded in 1972 in Canada).
The 1980s to the Present Day
Over the last three decades, redisplays of museum collections in Britain have
been piecemeal, often carried out with little or no audience research to underpin
redisplay decision-making. Limited budgets were pledged by regional and
local authorities, or perhaps an independent sponsor, for example, British Gas
(sponsors 1990–2003) and Shell’s (sponsors 2004–2008) sponsorship of the
Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition exhibited at the Natural History
Museum (NHM), London. Limited budgets had knock-on effects for the type of
displays, and thus interpretation, afforded; for instance, new technologies were
rarely seen in local and regional museums. Dwindling budgets and diminishing
interests meant that natural history collections suffered immensely. Curatorial
redundancies due to financial and institutional pressures meant that these, often
aged, collections were left without proper care and attention for many years.
Others were even worse off: collections were either separated and sent to other
institutions, or worse still, disposed of completely (Pettitt 1997). Many museum
buildings were also jeopardised as monies to secure their future were lost to other
projects or sectors of local and regional government. Exhibitions and displays
of biological material, where curators and collections still existed, were heavily
influenced by personal agendas, as were collecting policies and collection research
programmes. Many displays were produced on low budgets with limited audience
research. These galleries soon became outdated. In these respects, many local and
regional museums in Britain had been in a sorry state for many decades.
Sidelining and Undervaluing Biological Collections
An emergent theme from the interviews conducted with the curatorial team
members was that of undervaluing and sidelining biological collections. To
many curators, their perception is that biological collections are less important to
museum directors while other subject collections are elevated or given more floor
and cabinet space. Charles Pettitt (1997: 94) asks ‘why [does] society consider
spending several million pounds for a painting is a public benefit, while a few
thousand pounds to maintain a natural history collection is seen as a drain on the
public purse?’ The inability for museums to place a price on their collections of
biology as opposed to collections of art, archaeology, ethnography, and so on, may
be part of the reasoning (Blackmore et al. 1997).
Preferential treatment is mentioned in museological texts but in all cases, it refers
broadly to the treatment of people, that is, trustees or donors are given preferential
treatment (Alloway 1996: 161, Dubin 2006: 488, Haas 2007: 71, Moses 2008:
48), but no authors mention the preferential treatment of one collection type over
another. With museum collections competing for space, money and, often, the
ardour of the museum manager, biological collections have, in more recent times,
tended to be undervalued and sidelined: ‘I think [natural history] went through
a stage, I’m not sure if this is still the case, where natural history galleries were
seen, by management generally not members of the public, as being unfashionable
and out-of-touch.’A6 Directors should take an objective view and measure museum
collections against cultural, historical, educational, medicinal, artistic, commercial
criteria, not simply by monetary value (Pettitt 1997).
Whilst biological collections compete with other museum collections for gallery
space, the gallery spaces themselves are at threat from other encroachments: the
demand by the public for modern facilities and further demand by directors and/or
local governments for income-generating provisions. Talking about this issue in the
museum’s history, the project manager for the RAMM redevelopment explained
that the curator ‘had to sacrifice [the] Wildlife of Devon gallery. Certainly natural
history, I think, did suffer quite badly because you were just left with one gallery
that was a bit of an eclectic mix of the most popular specimens really.’D3 The
gallery was removed and replaced by a café – a move which was economically
driven but was also seen as enhancing the visitor experience. This is the case in
many museums across Britain, limited by their architecture and the lack of space
for expansion.
Iconic Contemporary Biological Displays
Whilst there are many biological collections on display in museums around

the world, three contemporary displays have been chosen and are examined
and compared here. They illustrate a combination of ground-breaking design
and interpretation from the world’s leading designers and innovative, dynamic
museum teams that have set high standards in the display of biological collections.
Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris
The Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle sits within the Jardin des Plantes
on the south bank of the River Seine in the city of Paris. Founded in 1793, the
museum’s original mission was to ‘store specimens representative of the whole
animal world, for scientific studies as well as for exhibition’ (Lord and Lord 2001:
479). In 1889, the collections were moved to the current museum building, which
had been designed by Jules André and taken twelve years to construct. In 1965,
the museum was closed as damage inflicted during the Second World War had
brought about the deterioration of the building, posing a threat to the collections
(MNHN 2004a: 1).
The much-needed and highly anticipated project to redisplay the museum’s
collection of natural history was unique on many levels. In 1980, two architects,
Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro, alongside film-maker and scenographer
René Allio, were commissioned to guide the redevelopment of the museum
building (Maigret 1996: 19). Together, and in collaboration with researchers at the
museum, they transformed the old galleries to present a spectacular centrepiece
which became known as the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution. Officially opened
in 1994, the gallery (Asma 2001: 170), which boasts 6,000 sq. m. of permanent
display space, opened to a phenomenal response from both members of the public
and members of the profession (Maigret 1996: 20). The ‘larger than life [animal
specimens] tell the astonishing story of evolution: presented in three acts in a
grandiose stage set’ which impressed all visiting audiences (MNHN 2004b: 1).
The ‘acts’ refer to three clear stories presented in the museum. They are: ‘Act
1: ‘the diversity of organisms in the diversity of environments, Act 2: the history of
life and the mechanisms of evolution, and Act 3: humankind, a factor in evolution’
(Maigret 1996: 20).
Several short synopses have been written about the Grande Galerie de
l’Evolution discussing its museological history, the evolution of the project and
the ‘realistic museography’ used to redisplay its collections (Asma 2001, Blandin
2001: 479–82, Galangau-Quérat 2005: 99–107, Maigret 1996, Martin 1997).
Upon the opening of the natural history museum in Paris, museums around the
world with collections of natural history were challenged to rethink their displays.
Fabienne Galangau-Quérat (2005: 99) explains that the Grande Galerie de
l’Evolution was seeking to do something that no other museum had done before:
‘No other museum had yet attempted to show the living world in such a way; so
far the living world had been cut up according to the various disciplines.’ Also,
all museum displays of natural history and biology, at the time, were presented
thematically or in dioramic form (Blandin 2001: 480). Blandin stated that the
principle for the gallery was ‘Allusion and not illusion’ which avoided ‘realistic
museography’ (ibid.).
Here, Blandin was referring to the move away from presenting animals in their
environmental habitats with painted backdrops and modelled vegetation to a new
way of arranging them in a ‘completely symbolic way’ (ibid.). At the time, it was
argued that the new ‘museographical choices … represent[ed] a decisive advance
in the thinking upon museum space’ (Galangau-Quérat 2005: 95).
The movement away from ‘traditional’ forms of display meant that for some
observers, Blandin (2001: 480–81) included, the symbolic arrangement confused
educational associations and removed scientific values. But this didn’t seem to
bother the visitors to the gallery. Blandin (2001: 481) reports that visitor surveys
showed ‘95 per cent of the visitors [were] satisfied’ and 90 per cent had ‘learned
at least a little’ (ibid.). Therefore, displaying the collections as a spectacle of
‘scenographic design’ neither caused learning difficulties for audiences nor
left them dissatisfied (Galangau-Quérat 2005: 101). Visitors described their
experiences of the gallery as ‘magic’, but Blandin, again, brings up the issue of
education and science teaching opportunities: ‘does this magic not present an
obstacle to scientific communication?’ (Blandin 2001: 481) In fact, the brief, for
the designers and architects of the redevelopment, was extremely focused and
complex. They were charged with ‘dealing with the relationships between the
inner space, the collections and the underlying scientific discourse’, a brief which
is now echoed across the world as museums redisplay their collections of biology
(Galangau-Quérat 2005: 99).
An important concept, which Blandin fails to develop, is a possible shift in
museological ideology in natural history museums, which was cultivated by the
redisplay at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. Blandin (2001: 482) states
that there has been something of an ideological revolution in that museums of
natural history are not simply ‘specimen and object museums: they are becoming
idea museums.’ This concept will be built on and further developed during
the course of this chapter. Further to this, he notes that in-depth evaluation of
innovative redisplays needs to be made in order to ‘lead to process improvements’

for future projects (ibid.). These are the processes at the heart of this investigation.
The combination of the philosophical narrative approach, the innovative use of
the museum building, the biological collections on open display and its emotive,
sensory intensity was unparalleled by any prior museum displays throughout the
world. Hence the Parisian gallery set a new precedent for museum interpretation
and the display of biological collections during the 1990s.
Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum ‘Naturalis’, Leiden
The original Museum of Natural History for the Netherlands was founded in
Leiden in 1820. These collections, however, were not made accessible to the public
(Martin 1999: 27); instead they were used for research, some of which focused on
the museum’s ‘type’ specimens. In the late 1980s, development for a new public
museum, ‘Naturalis’, began. Dirk Houtgraaf, in his recent publication ‘Mastering
a museum plan’, uses his experience of working on the Naturalis project to
explain the development of concepts and processes shaping displays in museums.
Houtgraaf (2008: 24) explains ‘the content and its underlying logical structure
were confirmed at an international workshop on the subject, held in Leiden in
1990. The creation of a new museum building, structured around the [core]
concept, started in 1994.’ The overarching core idea, which was to connect all of
the displays of biology and geology within the museum, was based on the Gaia
model and thus aimed ‘to demonstrate that “humankind is a part of that system”’
(ibid.: 23). The development of this core idea involved dividing the ‘galleries into
two parts: exhibits on diversity and exhibits on natural processes’ (ibid.). Visitors
would begin their visit with the diversity galleries and end by learning about the
processes of nature. Fundamentally, visitors would be led ‘from the concrete to
the abstract – from the observation of displayed objects to an understanding of the
natural processes responsible for their existence’ (Martin 1999: 26).
The premise of the museum was predicated on the concept developed by talks
in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Once funding had been secured, a design
development team was established. Martin (ibid.: 28) explains that the existing
museum staff, at the time of the redevelopment, had little or no experience of
collections redisplay. With this in mind, the design development team was
amalgamated with the appointment of new staff, who brought with them project
experience, and existing staff with knowledge of the extensive collections.
The main objectives for the museum and its galleries were set out from the
development’s inception. They were to:
• Explain the biological and geological processes which result in the objects
and phenomena of the natural world.
• Develop displays with sound scientific and educational content which
would also stimulate and excite visitors (and reflect the core function of
museums to display objects) and
• Produce an experience which could compete successfully with other leisure

attractions and activities. (Ibid.)
These objectives were achieved through presentations of collections in five main

galleries. Martin concludes that the architecture is somewhat at odds with the
interconnected concept of ‘System Earth’. Visitors lose concept connectivity
as they walk through the building but he admits that the displays are ‘visually
stimulating and have a directness of communication’ (ibid.: 33). He continues to
reveal that initial surveys conducted after the museum opened in 1998 showed that
visitors spent, on average, three-and-a-half hours exploring the museum displays.
American Museum of Natural History, New York City
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is famed for its
fabulous halls of natural history dioramas (or group habitats), amongst which is
the Carl Akeley Hall of African Mammals completed in 1936. But in 1998, the
museum opened the doors on a new exhibition hall. The Hall of Biodiversity,
which encompasses 11,000 sq. ft, is the ‘first “issues” hall’ that ‘defines and
examines the key issues involved in understanding and preserving the diversity of
life for the health of the planet’ (RAA 2009: 1).
Niles Eldredge, a member of the scientific staff at the museum since 1969,
notes that there were initially problems deciding on a theme. The project team
were charged with the responsibility of developing a theme that hadn’t been
presented in the museum previously and that wasn’t represented in any of the
current dioramas. So,
… the scientists responsible for planning the contents of the Hall of Biodiversity
realised that there was both an opportunity and even an obligation to depict the
natural world, not in its largely gone pristine state, but as it now is: severely
changed by the hand of humanity as population pressures and the exploitation
of natural resources put relentless pressure on all environments. (Eldredge
2002: 515)
It was this contemporary concept, coupled with the exhibition design work of
Ralph Appelbaum Associates, which conveyed the underlying message of
extinction. The designers employed a mixture of multimedia, including light- and
soundscapes, with the specimens to communicate ‘the richness of biodiversity
and [tell] the story of extinction’ (Dernie 2006: 94). Within the hall, the stories are
told through two main display elements; ‘the Rainforest, a replica Central African
Republic environment in the centre of the hall, and, to one side, the Spectrum of
Life, an extraordinary glass wall of light (100 feet long) that shows plants and
animals species’ (ibid.). The space also includes an ‘electronic bio-bulletin board
that views up-to-date news of the planet, such as weather reports’ ensuring the
exhibition remains dynamic, not static (Rosenblatt 1999: 17).
Leading on from the history of museums and the iconic contemporary cases of
biological collection redisplay, the next section within this chapter addresses the
display of biology in the three museum case studies.
Redisplayed Biology Galleries in Three Museums
The previous section within this chapter examined the history of biological
collection display and concluded with iconic displays of biology from the last
twenty years. This section concentrates on the three British case study museums;
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (KAGM), the Great North Museum:
Hancock (GNM) and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM). Beginning
by charting the histories of the biology displays in the three institutions, the section
progresses to discuss the redisplayed galleries in the newly reopened museums.
Previous Display Approaches
GNM Before the closure of the Hancock Museum in 2006, the museum had
three galleries containing biological collections; The Magic of Birds, Abel’s Ark
and Living Planet.
The Magic of Birds gallery was a feature of the first-floor galleried area and
ground-floor gallery. It displayed a vast collection of native species and some
foreign species and illustrated stories of breeding, migration and bird folklore.
Specimens were presented in a mixture of thematic displays, including dioramas,
in both wall-mounted and free-standing cases. This gallery was particularly
important for the Natural History of Northumbria Society members aiding in
ornithological identification.
Abel’s Ark was situated on the ground floor in a long corridor of the museum. In
the 1970s, curators came up with an idea which would incorporate trophy heads and
other taxidermies donated to the museum by Abel Chapman, a game-hunter of the
early twentieth century, into a museum display. Abel’s Ark was a fun interpretation of
a Noah’s Ark boat behind a glass partition which ran down the length of the corridor.
Trophy heads were used to inhabit the Ark’s ‘windows’ and many species of wild,
exotic creatures surrounded the Ark. The display was ‘by far the most popular
gallery’,D1 but particularly appealed to younger audiences: ‘three- to six-year-olds
got a lot from Abel’s Ark because in a way the interpretation was very minimal which
encouraged those lovely conversations that would go on between the adults and the
children.’C1
The Living Planet gallery was opened in the late 1990s to present environmental
issues, using both biological and geological specimens. The collections were
also used to illustrate extinction, endangered species and the importance of being
environmentally friendly. It was popular with school groups and linked well with
parts of the National Curriculum.
The museum also presented live animal exhibits including an active beehive and
tanks housing giant centipedes.
KAGM The natural history displays originally dominated the central court in the
east wing of the building.A4 Wooden wall-mounted cases surrounded the open-
display taxidermies in the centre of the court. The cabinets were used to display
amalgamations of local species in habitat groups under the title Natural History of
Scotland. The curator explained, ‘we had large dioramas looking at different habitats
so you started off with the urban environment which we called Manlands. We then
looked at farmlands, woodlands, uplands and then sandy shores, rocky shores and
the sea.’A4 This thematic approach to displaying habitat groups in a sequence stems
from the 1960s where habitat groups and environmental messages were the design
trends of the period. The designer for the new displays at KAGM explained that the
dioramas of habitat groups were big but ‘tacky’.B2
The natural history occupied two ground-floor gallery spaces – Natural History
of Scotland in the central court and the bird gallery within its own designated space.
Reminiscing about the bird gallery, which was arranged in the 1960s, the curator
talked of it as ‘a very valuable resource for local ornithologists’.A4 As the gallery was
taxonomic in nature, it lent itself to the more knowledgeable visitor. This approach,
however, did alienate a large majority of museum visitors in that labels presented
‘potentially very interesting information … but not in a way that held your attention’,
or was particularly accessible.C2 One curator spoke about the lack of interactives or
activities to engage visitors in learning in the former natural history galleries: ‘there
was no audio-visual or anything like that. As a result, it was just gallery panels and
labels so each of the different habitats would be introduced by the introductory label
and then there would be an object label for each item in the case or an interpretive
key.’A3
Part of the rationale for the redevelopment project stemmed from the fact that the
displays were ‘very tired’, with KAGM becoming a ‘museum of museums’ D2 This,
coupled with a new, innovative display approach, spurred the application to the HLF.
RAMM The World Natural History Gallery, which was constructed during the
1970s and ’80s, was a large room with cases representing animals from every
continent. Specimens were presented using continental themes and Victorian-style
wall-mounted and free-standing cases. The centrepiece of the gallery was an open
display of African specimens displayed in front of a painted backdrop – a diorama.
The gallery also featured a cased tiger, in a natural habitat, carrying the inscription
‘Tiger, Felix tigres Linn., shot in Nepal by King George V in 1911 and presented by
his majesty to this museum 1915’. The groupings of animals in this gallery ‘had a
rather friendly intimacy, a charm, a bit of a personality’, which continued to attract
visitors until the closure of the museum in 2007.C3
Interpretively, the RAMM’s galleries presented individual object labels and
displayed panels of information about the thematic groupings. The galleries had
not used multimedia to present information.
Figure 15.2 Sladen’s Study, RAMM, Exeter; © 2013 Royal Albert

Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter City Council
Adjacent to the World Natural History Gallery, Gerald the Giraffe stood alone
in a transitory gallery space. The mascot for the museum, and very popular with
visitors, Gerald stood in his own gallery since arriving at the museum in the 1930s.
However, the redevelopment witnessed Gerald moving from his original home to
the upper floor of the museum to mingle with other exhibits.
The second of the main biology galleries was Sladen’s Study, located on
the first floor of the museum (see Figure 15.2). A collection of echinoderms,
blastoids, cystids, crinoids, shells and igneous rocks (Rowley 1910: 65), it was
installed in specially designed cabinets and cases in 1903. To this day, the gallery
retains its original labels and in-depth, written interpretation, accompanied by
a modern, interactive computer. When designing the new gallery spaces, the
museum team decided all of the biology galleries should move to the first floor
to incorporate Sladen’s Study. It was untouched by the HLF redevelopment.
New Approaches
GNM From the beginning the museum embraced the idea of two dedicated
biology galleries: one with a global theme and the other focusing on local
biology. The first gallery, Living Planet, displays specimens from across the
globe, and the second, Natural Northumbria, focuses on local wildlife.
Influenced by other successful biological collection redisplays, the museum
project team were clear that they wanted the biological collections to ‘wow’
Figure 15.3 Living Planet gallery, GNM, Newcastle upon Tyne, printed
by permission of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums;
© H. Paddon 2009
audiences. The Living Planet gallery, which is the first gallery you enter from
the main entrance, aimed to present ‘the diversity of life throughout the world’
(see Figure 15.3). The museum project team briefed the designers to create a
visual spectacle which would illustrate the ‘size and scope of the Hancock’s
collections’.D1 In doing so, the design had to allow for the introduction of
‘detailed display stories’ so that visitors could learn about the animals on display
as well as appreciate the specimens aesthetically.B1
After the development of a number of options, the concept of a ‘bio wall’,
which was to span two galleries vertically, was chosen. It was designed to
allow ‘the visitor to move from the spectacle of the front view of the wall (a
celebration of the bio-diversity of life) to more didactic investigation of the
fundamental principles of bio-diversity on the rear of the display’.B1 The wall
would be made up of giant boxes from which nature was metaphorically and
literally escaping.
The bio-wall would be organised into contiguous climatic regions (horizontally)
– polar, temperate, tropical, desert – and habitat lifestyles (vertically) – sea, land
and air. This would facilitate the display of a range of specimens from which
to draw comparisons and contrasts. These comparisons were the basis for the
interpretation of the wall and included the themes:
1. Habitat.
2. Survival.
3. Feeding habits.
4. Adapting to environments.
5. Camouflage and
6. Skeletons and bio-mechanics.
The specimens and themes could be explored through a number of interpretive

media; investigative drawers, interactive databases, images and film, labels and
interactive binoculars.B1 The designers also proposed a light- and soundscape
scheme to bring ambience and a sensory layer to the gallery.
The Natural Northumbria gallery was to be situated in the central display space.
A large void in the floor would enable visitors to gaze down into the Hadrian’s
Wall gallery. Natural Northumbria was divided into four sections which would
tell the story of local habitats using predominantly local native species, including
botany, to explore themes which included farmlands, moorlands and woodlands.
Each theme related to a case study within the region of Northumbria; for example,
the ‘Seas and Coasts’ section focused on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the north-
east coast of Britain. Interpretation in the gallery would take the form of text
panels, computerised interactive maps, manual interactives and specimen labels.
KAGM In a departure from the traditional approach to biological collection

display, the KNCP embraced a more multi-disciplinary approach. Whilst there
were galleries with a heavier focus on flora and fauna, the stories told in the
galleries were often illustrated with objects from other collections.
The Life gallery (see Figure 15.4) houses a display called Animal Superlatives
which is an amalgamation of the biggest, fastest and deadliest animals on the
planet. Specimens are exhibited both on open display and within glass cabinets
with object labels and text panels as the only interpretative tools.
The Scotland’s Wildlife gallery incorporates stories about Scottish wildlife,
ranging from the introduction of foreign species in Aliens, to a famous fish in Life
in a Scottish Loch. Taxidermies are presented on open display in the centre of
the gallery on modular plinths whilst the more delicate specimens are presented
behind glass in a variety of different-sized cases. The gallery has a multitude of
interpretation: visitors can use interactive touchscreens to learn about the extinction
of the Great Auk and then come face-to-face with a specimen, children can crawl
through tunnels under the displays to find hidden creatures, and audiences can
open drawers to investigate species more fully.
The Environmental Discovery Centre is one of three discovery centres within
the museum; the others concentrate on history and art. Each subject-specific
centre offers visitors the opportunity to learn about objects and specimens in a
hands-on environment. Most of the biological collections are represented in the
centre, including botanic collections, and a beehive allows visitors to view the
bees at work.
Figure 15.4 Life gallery, KAGM, Glasgow, © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums
Collection
Figure 15.5 Case Histories gallery, RAMM, Exeter, © 2013 Royal Albert
Figure 15.6 Fly on the Wall gallery, RAMM, Exeter; © 2013 Royal Albert
Figure 15.7 In Fine Feather gallery, RAMM, Exeter; © 2013 Royal Albert
RAMM The reconfiguration of gallery layouts means that the ground- and first-
floor galleries allow for a flow of visitors and an easily orientated visit. Biological
specimens feature in many of the ‘multi-disciplinary’ galleries. The introductory
gallery, Case Histories, on the first floor of the museum brings together the ‘star’
objects from the collections (see Figure 15.5). Gerald the Giraffe will take pride of
place in the gallery and be available for close inspection using the ‘Geraldscope’.B3
The Courtyard gallery is conceived of as a multi-use space in the museum ‘part
gallery, part function hall, part performance/arena’.B3 It incorporates specimens
and objects representative of the museum’s collections within a two-storey wall
structure and acts as a means to ‘celebrate the diverse and rich collections of
RAMM in microcosm’.B3
Located in two neighbouring first-floor spaces, the insect gallery Fly on the
Wall (see Figure 15.6) and bird gallery In Fine Feather (see Figure 15.7), present
issues of evolution, form and human-species interaction. The theme for these
galleries was determined after the thorough auditing of the museum’s collections.
Fly on the Wall is furnished with magnifying glasses to enable a close look at the
specimens on display, whilst In Fine Feather features audio-visual installations to
illustrate scientific concepts such as flight.
The Impact of New Philosophies Upon Biological Collection Redisplay

and Reinterpretation
In an effort to maintain a display ethos similar to that at the heart of their Victorian
origins, the project manager for the RAMM explained:
I don’t want to use the word ‘old-fashioned’ and I don’t want to use the word
‘traditional’ but … we’re not ashamed of being a museum and a lot of people
like us for that …We know our history and we know our strengths and we’re
trying to play to those rather than trying to reinvent ourselves for the twenty-first
century. In a comfortable way, it’ll be an obvious development rather than a new
direction.D3
This confidence about the museum’s display philosophy and not wanting to change
the direction of the museum to suit contemporary trends, reflects the values held
by the museum staff and their visitors. The museum team did not feel the need to
redisplay the collections in a completely different manner. They were ‘being true
to [their] roots’.D3
On the other hand, the Kelvingrove project sought to redisplay the collections
of biology at the museum by integrating them with other collections around the
museum. This integration, as Mark O’Neill championed, would create a dynamic,
flexible, narrative display philosophy as opposed to the single-discipline galleries
of the past (O’Neill 2006: 1). However, one curator did allude to the fact that
‘the visual impact of [the displays] was very key to the project management
team.’A3 And in making that visual impact, the education officer believed the
collections were sacrificed: ‘there is a big push to make it very family friendly
and very dramatic in that sense, but sometimes at the expense of the actual objects
themselves.’C2
Finally, the GNM didn’t lay out a new philosophy as such, more of a concept
for their first gallery – creating a spectacle using the biological collections:
The biology gallery is the first thing you see when you come into the museum
and that’s deliberate because we want that gallery to be – designers hate me
using this term – the ‘wow factor’ because it is this huge display of animals
and plants and so on. The first thing you’ll see is this massive wall of nature
essentially … So it should be quite a dramatic entrance to the museum so we’re
using that as the frontispiece to the museum essentially.D1
The move towards a design-led approach meant that the team was concentrated on
creating a spectacular first gallery with the biological collections – an aesthetically
driven display.
These variances in approaches to redisplay philosophies meant that the
galleries of biology were either more design-led and aesthetic, or collections-led
and focused on the objects – a point which will be investigated further in this
chapter.
Recognising that museums and their galleries have needed to change their
approach to redisplays, in terms of both the manner in which redisplays are
conducted and the methods that are applied to the redisplay process, the interview
participants noted a change in the recent redisplays of biology: ‘there has been an
effort to move away from the traditional style of natural history galleries, which is
a good and bad thing.’A6 Drawing further conclusions, ‘it went from being really
old-fashioned and everything being in lines and rows, to everything being bells and
whistles and now it’s starting to settle down in the middle.’E1 Painfully aware of the
‘bells and whistles’ approach to the last few decades, one project member professed.
‘I think it got a bit designer and I think that’s where you get the big glass cases but
we haven’t told a story. All very clean and nice and the animals are being conserved
but we’ve lost the storyline.’C3 This ‘bells and whistles’ approach is also recognised
by one of the design team; who exclaimed, ‘sometimes it’s an overload of activity
or interactivity and you don’t teach people anything like how to look at the objects;
that would be nice if we got a bit of that back.’B1 Biological collection display has
progressed from the early systematic, taxonomic displays to the more contemporary
interactive, design-led galleries but there is a need to strike a balance:
There has been a meeting between the two … in terms of interpretation. It is

definitely getting more minimalistic and that is based on a lot of the research
that’s taking place; that visitors don’t dwell, they don’t read labels, they don’t
read graphic panels … We need to be careful that we don’t go so far back to
just objects that we go back to that cycle again of Victorian displays, systematic
displays and then we’ll have to go back through that cycle of interpretation.D1
In some eyes, the move towards minimalistic interpretation and a design-led look
has impacted on the specimens: ‘it’s very, very object-poor in a way and it’s much
more about big interactives, big objects, big spectacles’;A1 an increasing number of
contemporary biological displays have ‘less objects’ in them.A6
Contemporary museum display practice has recognised the need for a balance
between a total bombardment of encyclopaedic information and minimalistic,
solely interactive interpretation. The museum cannot stray too far down the ‘design’
path, limiting the number of objects on display and their associated interpretation.
This move in the past led to accusations of ‘dumbing down’ in the museum –
something which all museums wish to avoid. But likewise, museum displays of
biology cannot tell the visitor everything about everything, that is, the exhaustive
approach (Nyhart 2009: 256). The museum should aim to tell interesting stories
with the collections available in an innovative, multi-layered, multimedia way.
This balancing act between the power of the object on display, its interpretation
and the designs for new galleries is often difficult to manage: ‘we’ve got to look
at getting to balance between the visual aesthetics of the gallery but also not
impairing the actual stuff that’s in the cases too much.’C1 Figure 15.3 shows the
final structure for the Living Planet gallery ‘bio-wall’ following the reopening
of the museum. Not all project members would have chosen the highly designed
concept:
If I’d come in at the start I might not have decided to turn the gallery into a wall
because I think it’s given us a lot of problems but I don’t think you can deny that
it will be quite a dramatic structure and yeah, I don’t think the boxes detract too
much. I think what concerns me more is the height of some of the objects in the
display.A1
Although the curator believed the structure would be dramatic, and fulfil the desire
to create a spectacle, the curator admits that the structure likely distracts from
the specimens on display. The two-storey structure creates problems for museum
audiences to view the specimens up close and investigate the animals above
average sightlines. The specimens placed along these sightlines were sitting within
the ‘sacrificial layer’D1 and suggest that the design won out over the specimens.
Display design should not detract from or compromise the collections in any
way:
There was no doubt about it, we needed to redo it. What I hope and what I can’t
tell at the moment, we haven’t got any answers to the questions or models or
anything, is whether the new glass cases and the design approach will have that
heavy-handed, rather like the mass animals in the huge glass case photograph. I
desperately hope we don’t create that effect.C3
The extent to which the designers can affect the final designs of the galleries varies
depending on a number of factors:
1. The rigidity of the design brief supplied by the client team.

2. How well ideas are received by the client team.
3. The concepts for the galleries.
4. The make-up of museum project team members.
5. The cost.
6. The flexibility/practicability of the displays and/or furniture.
7. The confidence/commitment of the designers in pursuing a design.
8. Personal agendas and
9. Lack of content.
Any one of the above identified factors can affect how design-led galleries are. For
example, a loose brief will enable the designers to drive the display aesthetically:
[The lack of a structured design brief] allowed us to drive it to suit ourselves so

we might have been interested in the visual aspect of it but because [the project
team] weren’t resolved in their thinking, we could actually bend their thinking
a little bit, because we had a good design idea which is all right as a way of
doing it, it’s probably not, you probably shouldn’t do it like that. The danger is
that it could become too design-led and we were very wary of that but in places
there was such a void in terms of content that we had to start the ball rolling so
we pushed design ideas around and then showed them how you could tack on
content and that allowed the thing to move.B1
The new approach to the design and interpretation of the biological collections at
each of the museums was met with some disapproval. One of the main arguments
focused on the use of the diorama as a method for displaying specimens. For
many, the out-dated Victorian dioramas were happily discarded and, in the case of
Kelvingrove, strictly prohibited: ‘[the designers] were adamant that they weren’t
going to have any dioramas … and the project management team agreed with them
because they thought dioramas were old-fashioned.’A4 However, some believe the
diorama is an excellent format for delivering alternative learning opportunities.
It is an accessible form of biological display because it explains the animal’s
lifestyle, habitat and behaviour in a non-textual manner; it is implied through the
representation of environment.A3
Studies (Asma 2001: 240–76, Peart and Kool 1988, Tunnicliffe 2007: 10,
Wonders 1993) on the importance of the diorama as a display medium for
biological collections have been conducted, with results showing that dioramas
‘can be accessed and interpreted in different ways according to the highly variable
scientific knowledge, interests and experiences of the visitors and thereby may
be used for developing biological understanding and inquiry processes and
skills’ (Tunnicliffe and Scheersoi 2007: 1). So why would the dioramic mode
of display be omitted from museum redisplay schedules if they are a proven
mode of display for interpretation, accessibility and skill development? One
response has been: ‘I think sometimes [dioramas] work really well if they are
done well. But if they’re not done well, they look appalling.’E1 The possibility of
dioramas looking tatty and poorly executed outweighs the benefits of education
to learning – who wants to look at the specimen which is popping apart at the
seams?: ‘The thing is, with dioramas, you have to do them really, really well,
otherwise they just, within a couple of years, they look really tired and we didn’t
have the kind of money to do that.’B2 Perhaps, for many of the museum team
members, particularly the project managers and decision-makers, the cost of
displaying the biological collections in this manner was the real reason for their
omission as a form of display.
Additionally, the flexibility within galleries, which all of the museums craved
(see Chapter 14), would not have been accomplished if the museum teams had
chosen to incorporate dioramas into their displays.
Material Influencing Design
Collections of biology are varied and wide-ranging. They can contain different
forms of animals and plants, from elephants to squid and seeds to birds’ nests.
Material may also take different formats of display, for example, skeletal, pinned,
taxidermied and dried. Biological material may also hold great scientific interest as
‘type’ or ‘voucher’ specimens, for their associated data or in terms of who, where
and when they were collected. They may also be examples of early preservation
techniques or new forms of display (for example, taxidermies and dioramas). Some
long-standing specimens have made connections with generations of visitors who
have visited the museums (Paddon 2011).
Many factors influence the design of the new galleries, and subsequently their
interpretation, but here, I will explore the nature of the material within the case
study museums and how this influenced decisions made about display.
One of the first observations made by the interviewees was the type of material
within the collections and how that influenced display and interpretation: ‘With
my own example, going back to the insects gallery, the specimens chosen have
very much led what the design is going to look like.’A6 It is imperative that visitors
are provided with adequate mechanisms with which to view collections, for
example, microscopes and magnifiers for up-close inspection of insects. Gallery
spaces become much more intimate and investigative because of the nature and
size of the material on display.
The physicality of an object has a direct influence on its placement and
incorporation within a gallery:
Obviously the size of it is going to influence [the designs]. The giraffe and the
African elephant, they couldn’t think of anything else we could do with them …
Size has got to influence that but hopefully with the design we’ll be able to use
different sorts of media too, so large mammals, small shells, very small beetles,
and each will convey their own story.A5
The fact that museums tend to have large mammals within their collections poses
difficulties in terms of display and storage. Storage facilities within museums
are often unable to cope with large taxidermies and so display spaces are forced
to accommodate them – these objects then must be worked into the theme of the
gallery:
I think maybe with larger objects there’s a tendency just to let the objects speak for
themselves, but where you’ve got smaller things like invertebrates, there’s maybe
more of an impulse to do something with them rather than just presenting them
as you would, say, with large birds. So people tend to want to present butterflies
in swarms rather than just have a nice kind of pinned selection of butterflies in a
square. Or they want to give some sense of how many there are, or how much
biomass is represented by beetles and then present like a great big pile of them.A1
The curator from the GNM redevelopment team also raised the issue of historical
collections. The GNM holds collections which date back to the eighteenth century.
For this reason, some argue that historical mounts are not displayable:
It has historical importance and I think sometimes that doesn’t really lend itself
to display. It’s really nice to put an object on display and say ‘look, this bird was
collected by this particular person and it’s a very rare record’ … but it doesn’t lend
itself to display because it doesn’t give you the impression of the bird; it’s more
of a historical object.A1
There is an omission of historical material because of the aesthetic/narrative

approach adopted in the new biology gallery. The spectacle that the GNM team
members wanted to create would not have been supported by such specimens.
The type of biological material held within the museums also has the power to
influence the themes of the galleries: ‘I think if it was something like skeletal I think
we’d try to theme it. Most of the time you’d say “right, skeletal stuff” you would try
to emphasise the similarities and differences with other skeletal forms rather than
having the skeleton, of whatever it was, next to it.’A5
One designer confirmed they were ‘working with what they had’.B1 They
continued to explain that it was easy ‘to eliminate certain subjects and themes
because they “couldn’t support it”. Having said that, they are buying quite a lot
of material to supplement the collections; pushing the budget even further.’B1 The
designer makes two points here: first, that the museum had to omit themes and
stories because they could not support them with the material from their collection,
and second, that they wanted to retain certain stories and themes and in order to do
so, they had acquired new specimens.
Understandably, all museums need to acquire new specimens from time to time:
specimens to replace those which have been over-handled and cannot be saved by
museum conservation specialists, and those which are available legally on the market
to complete a collection. However, the GNM was forced to acquire specimens for the
sole purpose of ‘populating’ the new displayB1, D1 because the concept was conceived
before consulting with the collections and find out what specimens were available.
The museum was left with ‘gaps’ in the ‘bio-wall’:
There are areas like the desert section which is a very small section because we
don’t really have a large collection of desert creatures and that was something that
came to light slightly later in the process, after we had decided that we wanted
to do a desert section. Obviously we’ve had to try and supplement that with
acquisitions.A1
This suggests that the concept was definitely the major factor in the redisplay of
biology at the GNM and that the collections were consulted secondarily to that.
It then caused problems for the staff as they attempted to acquire new specimens
for the display.
Subjectively, some believe all aspects of biological collections can be
displayed – that is, ‘I don’t think there’s anything that you can’t display’D2 – and
others concede: ‘you cannot display anything which is delicate, fragile and has
to be preserved in a way that isn’t really showable.’A4 Between the two extremes:
There are things that are less easy to display and would require a lot more
interpretation. The herbarium collection is one of them because herbarium
sheets do tend to look like dried plants. They tend to be brown and they are very
difficult to display. They’re difficult to display and to get people interested at
looking at them without a lot of interpretation, so that’s certainly one. Another
one is the spirit-preserved specimens. We are going to have some on display
but they also need a lot of interpretation because they look quite disgusting.
Well some of them, some of them are very interesting!A6
Admittedly, some biological collections and specimens are less easily displayed
than others. Although it could be argued, and it has been, that herbarium
collections, for example, are delicate and were initially preserved for uses
other than display, this should not necessarily stop these collections from
telling potentially interesting, alternative stories in the museum landscape
(Wolstenholme 2006).
As well as telling stories about specimens, museums are encouraging an
interest in wildlife through the reintroduction of live animals in galleries. Two
of the three redevelopments incorporated live animal experiences into their
galleries, and in the case of the GNM, they incorporated live animals into the
two-storey gallery structure: ‘we think visitors will get even more of a surprise
because we’re really integrating the live animal displays with the exhibits.’D1
This revival of vivaria within museums, it is hoped, will add an extra element to
the displays of static specimens.
Telling Stories
Biological specimens have a tendency of being displayed with scientific

information: their Latin binomial, their distributions, their behaviour and native
habitats. But today’s displays of biology have changed. The modern visitor,
whilst potentially interested in the traditional information found on a specimen
label, wants to know more. Telling stories about an object is as interesting to
the visitor, if not more so, as knowing where in the world it can be found. The
galleries in this study chart an overwhelming move to present specimens in a
wider context. As Sachatello-Sawyer and colleagues (2002: 12) express, there is
a distinction between ‘a logical, scientific approach to understanding the world
and a narrative approach that establishes not truth, but meaning in people’s lives’.
This, Roberts (1997: 134) argues, is what can ‘throw “traditional” museums to
the wind’ and provide museums with a way to engage their audiences in bringing
to displays their own experiences and knowledge. Providing a narrative approach
to the display of biological collections can create an environment where the
visitor’s own experiences and knowledge are used to increase their experience
of the museum and its objects. This move has been acknowledged as ‘meaning-
making’ in museology (Falk and Dierking 2000, Silverman 2004).
Providing visitors with more than simple scientific information, the
specimens become multi-faceted, their stories multi-layered and their meanings
multitudinous. The KAGM project manager explained how the narrative
approach allowed for the integration of objects from different collections,
providing interesting juxtapositions and new stories. Speaking about the Arms
and Armoury gallery, the project manager discussed the need to include natural
history specimens due to the influence on Renaissance designs of arms and
armour, ‘so then to not show cockerels and armadillos and lobster just seemed
bizarre.’D2
Similarly, multiple stories and layered information were intended for the
galleries at the GNM and the RAMM redevelopment projects:
The idea is that the galleries aren’t supposed to appeal to experts necessarily,
they’re not aimed at an academic audience but they should contain enough
information, again this idea of layering the interpretation, that somebody who
has come in and wants to understand more about say, the animal life of the
polar region, should be able to get enough interesting information from it
that they’re not going to feel that it’s a display for children, because I really
wouldn’t want that and I don’t think that anybody in the team really wants
that.A1
So, by providing multiple stories about specimens, museum teams are not only
encouraging meaning-making for visitors, they are also engaging the range of
audience segments.
Providing multiple object stories on single object labels gives visitors the
opportunity to learn more about a specimen. For example, ‘here’s an Elk, but
here’s a story about a guy who went and brought home an Elk and this is why,
and these are his contemporaries and you know … a better story.’E1
Furthermore, by embracing the narrative approach, teams can elaborate on
thematic connections:
We want to keep the stories relevant, to have a local link whether that’s
through a person or through a place, but when you start to lose that, that local
link, and you start telling a story that’s not local and not particularly related to
the collections, you ask yourself ‘why are you telling that story?’D3
Storytelling, however, is made more difficult in contemporary museums by the

limiting of text in galleries. Working with strict hierarchies of text, often self-
imposed, the museum staff must tell stories through the levels of interpretation:
‘I try to stick to 75 words for a main panel and about 30 for a group caption.
But it’s not rigid because, I mean, it depends on what you want to say. But we’re
trying not to overload people with words.’C1
Explaining the hierarchy at the RAMM, the project manager informs:
The big storylines are ‘primary text’ which are 50 words top level text, ST or
‘secondary text’ and the word limit for that those are about 100–125 words,
something like that, which is a sub-story from the primary story. Then there’s
tertiary text which is a sub-story of the sub-story. Those are 200–250 words
perhaps. Down from that, and the final level, is the object label which is written
by the curator and comes with quite a standard object.D3
All of the case study museums recognised that too much information could put
visitors off reading text. Instead of spreading information across two levels – the
display panel and the object label – they have all implemented wider-ranging
hierarchies with increased levels of interpretation. This, it is hoped, will appeal
to a wider audience demographic.
Limiting text in galleries is particularly difficult when trying to explain
biological concepts: ‘there’s an awful lot of quite complex information which
is difficult to render in simple language within a word limit so, if you want to
simplify things sometimes you can take twice as many words to say them.’A1
Likewise, ‘the problem comes when you might have a difficult technical term
so, for example, if you wanted to talk about a geological term you might spend
25 of your 30 words explaining what an igneous rock was.’A4
Curators in the past have, anecdotally, struggled to produce concise text for
their displays in museum galleries. Many take the ‘book on the wall’ approach,
because they consider every fact about the object to be important. However, the
new approaches to limiting text did have positive effects:
We went through the text and basically we were given a brief that individual
object labels should be no more than 30 words. The main text panels were
normally 150 words maximum, so that limited it and it really concentrates the
mind and in most cases it works. I didn’t think it would, but when you’re trying
to get a piece of information over and you’ve only got that number of words
it really makes you think, what are you trying to say, and you cut out all the
irrelevant words and you’ve got something that’s easy to read and gives over
the facts.A4
This new approach is essential given that museological research has proven
visitors don’t read every piece of information presented to them – visitors are
selective. Museum learning has also shown that visitors struggle with ‘museum
fatigue’ (Bitgood 2002, Gilman 1916, Melton 1936). By limiting the text in
redisplays, team members are forced to rethink the information they provide to
the visitor.
The GNM team worked alongside their design consultants to produce a
hierarchy of interpretation but also considered that these might vary according to
the type of material on display. But, when it came to writing gallery information,
all of the museum teams were unanimous that it was best to have an established
tone: ‘there’s a danger of having different voices rather than having one. I think
for the object labels that’s fine, but for the top level you need to establish a tone
of voice that goes throughout the whole visit.’D3
Of course, working to the strict word limits set out within interpretative
hierarchies could arguably lead to the loss of detailed information. For the
expert audience, the level of information may no longer be available within the
gallery. Arguably, when this occurs, the museums have sought to provide access
to further, detailed information in the designated learning spaces in the museum,
that is, the study zones, environmental centres and learning suites. The concept
of the study zone is discussed in Chapter 10.
Mascots
Not only do biological collections influence the design of new galleries; so too,
do specific specimens. Within the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and
the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, there are two notable ‘mascots’. Mascots,
for the purpose of this research, are large animal taxidermies which have been
anthropomorphised and placed on display within their museums for long periods
of time (Paddon 2011). Sir Roger, a large Asian elephant, took pride of place in
the KAGM prior to the redevelopment; he was a favourite with visitors. Within
the new display, he has been repositioned to draw visitors through the main hall
into the Life gallery (Figure 15.4): ‘If you’re coming into the west court, Sir
Roger and his menagerie are framed there and look quite striking.’A3
Prior to the redevelopment project at the RAMM, Gerald the giraffe
dominated his own gallery on the ground floor. But the decision was taken at the
beginning of the project to move him to the introductory gallery, Case Histories,
on the first floor (Figure 15.5). This, the project manager explained, was not
only an aesthetic move but a sensible one: ‘you know you can be as design-y as
you like, but there is a pragmatic thing because there are only a certain number
of places you can put a giraffe!’D3 Even as a pragmatic decision, it wasn’t one
that was taken lightly: ‘the fact that we’ve actually moved him upstairs to a new
gallery … I think is a bold statement on our part, and one that might trip us up
but yes, I think it is significant.’D3
Moving Gerald from his own gallery to the introductory gallery, Case
Histories, on the first floor was well documented by the local press:
It’s the only thing people ask us, well not the only thing, but in terms of media
everyone is asking what’s happening to Gerald. We told them we were moving
him, craning him round the corner, that’s the only thing they want to know
about: ‘you mustn’t let us miss you moving Gerald.’E1
His inclusion in the new displays at the RAMM was unchallenged. Gerald had
become a much-loved character at the RAMM so his removal from display was
not an option: ‘The giraffe is such an iconic object that I don’t think anybody
would have been able to say “right let’s not have the giraffe on display, we’re
tired of seeing it.” There would have been an outcry!’A5
Aside from the difficulties associated with the storage of both Sir Roger and
Gerald as large taxidermies, the public support for the return of their mascots
following the redevelopment projects was overwhelming. These mascots create
a sense of familiarity in museums where everything else may appear as new.
Hein (1998: 161) suggests that people learn and feel safer in an environment
where something is familiar: ‘perhaps the easiest method for allowing visitors
to make connections to museum exhibitions is to make sure that at least some
aspect of the material on display is familiar to visitors.’
Other examples of mascots and their popularity in redisplays are found
across Britain, and indeed the world. Weston Park Museum, Sheffield formerly
known as the City Museum and Mappin Art Gallery, underwent a £17 million
redevelopment project, in 2003, partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Prior to the redisplay, a visitor survey was conducted in the museum to ascertain
what object audiences would miss the most. Snowy the polar bear came top of
the list (Anon. 2008). As a result, a whole new gallery, called Arctic World, was
designed and built around Snowy in the new museum. In an interview, the then
chief executive of the Sheffield Museums and Galleries Trust, Nick Dodd (cited
by Hickling 2008: 1), reported the reactions of the public following the front-end
consultation: ‘the focus groups told us in no uncertain terms that if we got rid of
the polar bear, they wouldn’t be coming back.’
This brief look at mascots illustrates the impact that these popular taxidermies
have on design and display decisions afforded to museums professionals and
design companies.
Conclusions
The display of biology in museums over the course of the twenty-first century
is bound to change. The tremendous investment of time and money in the early
part of the century has rendered galleries of biology dramatically different in their
designs. Exploring the changes in the three case study museums presented in
this section, it is clear that biological collections are not only providing visitors
with varied learning experiences but are also being appreciated for their aesthetic
values as well. With all of the museums wanting to create a visual feast for their
visitors, the galleries host spectacle designs ranging from a floor-to-ceiling wall of
biodiversity to individual galleries showing off large bird collections and an open
display of parading animals headed by the museum mascot.
With the change in design, it may be anticipated that the themes in biological
galleries will have changed dramatically. I don’t think that this is the case.
Museum teams are using the biological collections at hand, with some additional
new material, to tell new, and perhaps more social, stories about the specimens
within larger overarching themes. The themes encompass ideas of biodiversity
and collections in museums. Perhaps it is unfair to think that because a museum
is redisplaying their collection of biology, they will produce a display that
incorporates a radical theme? Museums are more likely to produce radical themes,
or try out new display concepts, in temporary gallery spaces rather than risk
producing permanent galleries which will not be redisplayed for an undetermined
length of time. However, questions arise about the risks museum professionals are
willing to take to produce a display which is truly individual and unique. Building
in flexibility might allow for this renewal of gallery themes in the future.
The themes that museums are tackling range from global to local. All of the case
study museums present narratives based on a range of global, regional and local
topics in combination. For the Kelvingrove team, global topics such as conservation
and endangered wildlife are considered in the Life gallery. Conversely, the team
present local issues, such as invasive species, in the Scotland’s Wildlife gallery.
Similarly, the GNM recreates different local environments using native species of
animals and plants in their Natural Northumbria gallery. At the other end of the
spectrum, the spectacular gallery Living Planet presents a wall of animals found
across the four climatic regions of the world (Figure 15.3). Finally, the RAMM
combines local and global issues in their dedicated insect gallery Fly on the Wall
(Figure 15.6) and bird gallery In Fine Feather (Figure 15.7), and, by considering
themes such as alien species and evolution in isolation. In other multi-disciplinary
galleries, the team combine animals collected from across the world to tell stories
about the collectors who donated to the Victorian museum’s collections.
In terms of display format, the research has highlighted the plight of the
biological diorama. A format of naturalistic display, the diorama has been removed
without trace from all of the case study museums. For many of the team members,
the Victorian display format has lost its charm and presents a falsified, naturalistic
context of the specimens it employs.B2, D2 Adversely, curators and some designers
and education staff believe it is a valuable tool for teaching in the museum and
that dioramas can act as an accessible form of display requiring only moderate
interpretation.A3, B1, D1
Whilst the redisplay projects are about balancing the needs of the stakeholders,
or other factors, many have been quick to anecdotally prophesy the death of the
curator. Maybe it is not a death but a metamorphosis? The curator has been forced
to develop and change their role in the redisplay because of a change in the factors
of display: the audience, the funding, the approach, and so on. To some extent,
this is true; the curator’s role in the redisplay of biology in this context has been
changed evermore. Equally their impact on the design of biology galleries has
been somewhat diluted (see Chapter 7).
One major aspect of any museum redevelopment project is the new approach,
or philosophy, taken to collection display. Thinking about the collections and
the themes they illustrate, museum project teams are developing the galleries in
cohesive, thought-provoking ways. This has, of course, been possible thanks to
the large sums of redevelopment money. Instead of the piecemeal nature of former
redisplays, ‘the residue of past projects’, the haphazard journeys around museum
galleries and the outdated, hessian-backed cabinets ‘jazzed up’ on the smallest of
budgets, these redisplayed galleries in museums are a museum renaissance – a
renaissance in the form of a revival of the collections, a coming-to-life of long-
forgotten collections of biology, an innovative use of skeletons, spirit-preserved
collections and study skins, and a ‘generation Y’ approach to interpretation
and learning. Whilst some well-funded national museums around the world
have afforded large-scale, entire-museum redevelopments, and will continue to
redisplay their collections on a regular basis, small- and medium-sized institutions
in Britain have struggled to do so.
This is a new epoch, a new stage, in the redisplay of collections in local and
regional museums. We can term these gallery interpretations, ‘generation Y
interpretations’.
Chapter 16
Lessons Learnt
For the museum professionals, and design consultants, involved in these once-in-
a-lifetime projects, lessons have been learnt. Speaking with individuals, I posed
the hypothetical question; ‘is there anything you would do/would have done
differently, given the opportunity?’ Many replied that, with the power of hindsight,
they would have gone about certain aspects of the project differently. For example,
one curator explained that the design of the gallery limited access due to the
vertical placement of objects. Another felt the lack of objects in one gallery was
down to the final design and the imbalanced spending across the display spaces.
In an ideal world, there would be a simple redevelopment recipe (process),
whereby the correct combination of ingredients (factors) would result in the
perfect output (gallery/museum). This is not the case. However, there are lessons
to be learnt from the case study museum projects examined in this book.
Project Success
With the changes in the museum redisplay process and the investment of millions
of pounds in redisplay projects, museum teams are under immense pressure to
deliver successful projects to their stakeholders.
A project can be judged a success when it is delivered on time, in budget and
to a high quality. These three components, all being equal, will allow for project
success but if the equilibrium shifts, there will be ramifications: ‘if the amounts of
time and money available for a project are reduced, this will almost certainly limit
the quality of the product. Similarly, to deliver the same quality in a shorter period
will cost more’ (Verzuh 2005: 19).
By imposing a process – the Plan of Work – the HLF has ensured that all
redevelopments can plan and follow a regulated schedule of stages, from concept
to focused design, construction to reopening. Employing a consultant to work with
each museum allows the HLF to control, to a degree, the pace of and spending on
a project, with sign-off at each stage of the project process. Project teams should
familiarise themselves with the process, in its entirety, before embarking on a
project. By doing this, team members will understand each stage and be clear
about the demands on their time. Each stage will need to be mapped carefully; the
museums in this study all failed to meet their opening-day deadline. Unforeseen
circumstances can contribute to this, and are generally down to the construction
aspect of the redevelopments, but to avoid this, museum teams should consult
fully with architects and building contractors to help keep the deadlines on track.
Another important point that some project managers raised was the advice
they solicited from other redevelopment projects. Museum team members visited
newly reopened museums for inspiration and design ideas. Talking to curators,
education officers and project managers who had been through the process, or
were still going through it, they gained clarity about the process, its difficulties and
complexities, and approaches to take to ensure its success.
Major elements in the success of any project are decision-making, teamwork
and communication. These were addressed, with examples, in Chapter 4, and
undeniably shape the project as it progresses, making each redevelopment unique.
Decisions made at the outset of the project emphatically limit options as the
project advances. Teams must carefully consider how a decision about design, for
example, might impact the specimens on display or access for visitors.
Excellent communication is imperative at all stages of the project. This can be
achieved through defined lines of communication. Within the Project Execution
Plan (PEP), the project manager can define the role of each team member and
the direct, and indirect, lines of communication between members, the protocols
for communication and information delivery (for instance, meeting minutes and
project progress updates). While communication might be made between team
members via the telephone, follow-up emails should be sent; written records of
decisions should be made and written précis of any communication is paramount
– conflicts can arise if written records are not documented.
Teamwork will influence the design of the exhibitions and interpretations.
For harmonious working, the project manager must encourage communication
with him/herself, and within the team where necessary. The project manager is
also tasked with motivating the team, managing personalities and styles of work,
as well as team members’ and stakeholders’ expectations, agendas, ideas and
power struggles. The project manager must also ensure that each team member
understands the aim and objectives of the project from the outset, and remind
members of these at all stages.
In addition, the project manager must manage the daily demands of the
project itself. The role is intense. Those employed in the role must understand the
difficulties involved in people, time and budget management.
Whilst the project manager role handles the logistics and team members, the
team members themselves have instrumental roles to play in the development of
the galleries, from the minutiae to the overarching concepts. Education officers
must act as audience advocates, not just for school-aged children, but for all
visitors. It is also their responsibility to offer advice on government policies and
museum-related initiatives impacting redisplays, such as the National Curriculum
and Inspiring Learning for All frameworks. The designers, from external design
companies, become an integral part of the project redevelopment team. They
must interpret the design briefs to the best of their ability, bearing in mind the
multiple factors: the collections, the DDA, audiences, budgets, themes, and so on.
Designers must be led by the internal project team members – that is, the project
manager, curators and education officers – but must maintain design advocacy.
Lessons Learnt 145
Curators, who have experienced the biggest role change within the gallery
redevelopment process, must act as collections advocates. They act as mini-
project managers to coordinate the intricacies of their designated galleries.
Curators will undoubtedly have personal agendas, a specific interest in one area of
their collection or their opinion on the perfect gallery, but these agendas need to
be moderated to fit with the overall goals of the project. Curators need to accept
change and understand that the team is not trying to work against suggestions they
make; for example, a curator’s ideas may not be financially plausible or cater for a
wide-ranging audience demographic. Equally, other team members need to make
full use of the curator’s expertise, ensuring a factually correct interpretation of
objects and knowledge of local collections.
Fundamental to the success of the team is the understanding of your own role
and each other’s roles. From the outset, connections between the team should be
mapped; the PEP can maintain, and revise when necessary, the team structure,
including lines of communication and decision-making protocol.
British museums share many commonalities, none more domineering than their
Victorian and Edwardian spaces. All of the teams have successfully harmonised
modern collection display within the shells of architecturally restrictive buildings.
Success for the KAGM team was designing new modular plinths that were based
on the dimensions of the architecture. Returning to original architectural integrity
has been the mainstay for all of these projects – an opportunity to return private
work areas to the envisaged public spaces has allowed for better visitor flow, easier
navigation and more gallery space.
One of the major issues raised by the curators was linked to the reversion
to original architectural integrity. By freeing up private spaces for public
consumption, the museum stores have been moved off-site, as have many of the
curatorial offices. Of course, rehousing the collections in purpose-built, climate-
controlled stores is warranted and welcomed, but this has come at the expense of
on-site, integrated working. Museum directors need to help sustain relationships
formed between team members after the completion of the redevelopment, and
encourage working between sites (KAGM schedules curators to spend time in the
Study Centre to answer visitor enquiries).
Audiences need to be included in the redevelopment of their museum. This
begins with the definition of key audiences at concept stage through in-depth front-
end evaluation. Visitor groups must be consulted throughout the design stages;
formative evaluation must be conducted. The results of this evaluation should
feed into the decision-making process. And finally, the museum team must not
overlook the post-redevelopment stage; they must conduct summative evaluation.
It may be possible to address issues raised by members of the public and rectify
them with minimal cost or time implications.
Contemporary galleries must cater for different learning styles and the most
effective way to achieve this is through a variety of interpretive modes: computer
interactives, object labels, audio tours, soundscapes, QR codes, teacher packs, and
so on.
What was clear was the passion that each team member had for their project.
The drive to succeed, to produce new displays of the highest quality, was apparent
through the enthusiastic way in which team members spoke about plans. All team
members wanted to provide visitors with a better museum experience by ensuring
that displays were exciting, innovative and engaging.
Lessons from the Case Studies
Many lessons have been learnt about museum project redevelopment as a result
of this study; the main lessons, posited here, will contribute to a successful project
outcome.
Lesson 1: Aim, Objectives and Philosophy
One of the major lessons learnt over the course of this research was the need to
define your aim and objectives from the outset of the project, and use them to guide
the decision-making for the galleries. The aim and objectives should include an
outline display philosophy to ensure clear direction is given to the team members.
The RAMM team defined their display approach, or philosophy, from the
outset stating that they wanted to embrace their Victorian ethos, ‘collections-led,
audience-guided.’
On the other hand, the KNCP team sought to redisplay the collections at the
museum by integrating them through stories and wide themes. The integration was
created from a dynamic, flexible narrative-display philosophy as opposed to the
single-discipline galleries of its past.
The lack of a strong philosophic approach to the redisplays at the GNM left
the project with little direction. Arguably, the museum team wanted to create a
spectacular first gallery with the biological collections – an aesthetically driven
display.
These variances in approaches to redisplay philosophies meant that the
galleries of biology were either more design-led and aesthetic, or museum-led and
focused on the collections.
Contemporary museum display practice has recognised the need for a balance
between over-zealous, encyclopaedic interpretation and minimalistic, partial
interpretation. The museum cannot stray too far down the ‘design’ path, limiting
the number of objects on display and associated interpretation. In the past, this
move led to accusations of ‘dumbing down’ in the museum – something which all
museums wish to avoid. But likewise, museum displays of biology cannot tell the
visitor everything about everything, or take the encyclopaedic approach (Nyhart
2009: 256). The museum should aim to tell interesting stories with the collections
available in an innovative, multi-layered, multimedia way.
A balance needs to be struck between design and collections. The design
should not over-power the collections, or lead the stories and themes of a gallery.
Lessons Learnt 147
Equally, the internal museum team should be open to design solutions from design
companies. Galleries should not become over-designed and costly to the detriment
of the objects. And, designs should fulfil the brief set by the museum team; clear
aims and objectives are paramount from the outset.
Lesson 2: Familiarise the Team with the Process
To aid the smooth running of a project, the project manager must familiarise their
team with the process at the very beginning. This will ensure that team members
are aware of the requirements at each RIBA stage of the process. Project managers
should explain the protocols and policies underpinning the process, as well as
the procedure for signing off at the end of each stage. An overview of the project
process will make team members aware of who is involved in the project (the
stakeholders), the time frame within which they have to work and the goals they
must achieve at each stage of the process.
Sharing this information with team members will build trust in burgeoning
relationships.
Lesson 3: Schedule Regular Team Meetings
Communication throughout the project will be conducted via the telephone,

through email correspondence, or in small group meetings. The results of this
research, consolidated by the literature on successful project management, suggest
that regular team meetings where representatives from each area of the project
team come together on a regular basis is vital (Camilleri 2011). This will enable
the project manager to track and review progress, as well as providing team
members with an overview of the work of colleagues. It also offers the opportunity
for testing concepts and discussing issues.
Lesson 4: Team Member Roles
Large-scale redisplay projects like those witnessed in Britain over the past three
decades are unprecedented. For this reason, museum staff are often unaware of
their roles in the project; many assume previous responsibilities apply. Project
managers should define team roles from the outset to ensure each member
understands their responsibilities and the responsibilities of their colleagues. These
roles should be arranged within a team structure, which can be revised according
to the stage of the project.
Lesson 5: Audit Your Collections to Decide on Themes and Stories
Before making any decisions about design, themes, or stories, audit the museum
collections. Identify the strengths of the collections, consider different themes
for groupings and highlight those with interesting narratives. Museum teams can
come together in the early stages of the redisplay process and map out the possible
connections. A lack of knowledge about the collections will lead to a design-led
gallery, and the acquisition of objects to ‘populate’ cases where themes cannot
be illustrated with the existing collections. Consequently, these types of galleries
cannot be refreshed easily.
Lesson 6: Consider Longevity
This book has highlighted the importance of funding from the HLF and the
permanency of museum gallery displays. Given that little or no change to
interpretation or objects tends to occur within the first decade after a redisplay,
museum staff should consider the longevity of themes, stories, objects and
display furniture. Also, where computer-based interactives and interpretations
are installed, project teams must consider if they can be updated regularly, easily
and at low cost. Longevity must play a role in the design of new galleries, and
may be an element the HLF should consider to a greater extent. The HLF could
stipulate long-term plans for redisplay in all museum redevelopment applications.
Alternatively, the funding body could set aside funds specifically for the updating
of galleries on a decennial basis.
Chapter 17
Final Thoughts
Earlier in this book, I posed the questions: should the HLF force museums to
consider longevity when applying for funding? And invest large sums of money
in local and regional museums on a more frequent basis? The answer is simple:
yes. The average lifespan of a gallery in a British regional museum, and indeed
many museums around the world, is approximately 25 years. Over the course of its
life, the gallery will likely be refreshed with some changes made to the objects on
display, but overall the displays and their themes remain stagnant. Museum staff
will explain that this is due to a lack of investment.
Unfortunately, generations within families can recall visiting galleries with the
same objects, themes and interpretations on offer. Should museums expect families
to want to return to the same objects with the same interpretation? Although there
may be key objects that remain on display at all times in the museum, for example,
mascots or collections with designation status, many visitors would encourage a
more regular redisplay and reinterpretation programme.
In dire need of redevelopment, local museums have successfully convinced
the Board of the HLF, the largest heritage funder in the UK, to award substantial
monies for projects that redisplay and reinterpret invaluable museum collections.
These projects validate the work of the museums sector and highlight their
importance in society. As many of the research participants substantiate, the HLF
has been responsible for the wave of once-in-a-lifetime collections redisplay in
museums. However, the fear exists that substantial funds for redisplay projects
will not continue in Britain. Inevitably, this will mean a reversion to the piecemeal
gallery redisplay of the last century. In turn, this could cause interpretive problems
in museums where there is a holistic theme or one that needs to be reactive to
changing trends.
Indubitably, the HLF Heritage Grant scheme has had a number of positive
impacts on museums:
1. Holistic redevelopment of museum and gallery layouts.

2. Restoration of the buildings.
3. Increased community/visitor involvement in museums.
4. Improved storage conditions.
5. Incorporation of new technologies and
6. Enhanced visitor experience.
The holistic redevelopment of the museum has ensured wayfinding in the

museum is both easier and more logical. Within some gallery spaces, didactic
routes still need to be followed in order for the visitor to fully understand object
interpretations. But in other galleries, the opportunity to create displays where
stories can be read as stand-alone features, where visitors can dip in and out,
is representative of the contemporary redevelopment process. This stand-alone
story concept is one that links directly to the want for flexibility in displays. All
of the case study museums highlighted flexibility as a requirement of the new
galleries.
The restoration of the Victorian and Edwardian buildings has been a positive
feature of the HLF grant-making programme. All of the case study museum
buildings are protected, and efforts were made to retain original structures,
features, paint schemes, and so on. Also during the restoration of the buildings,
services such as electrical wiring and plumbing were updated.
One of the most positive outcomes of HLF funding has been the direct
involvement of the community in the redevelopment process. Implementing an
evaluation strategy that ranged across all stages of the project ensured audience
groups played a role in key decisions. Front-end evaluation allowed visitors to
share their feelings about the in situ pre-redevelopment galleries as well as their
hopes for the new galleries. As the projects progressed, visitors were consulted
about text, interactives, case layouts, audio-visuals, and so on. Evaluating their
ideas with visitors, the museum staff made the process inclusive. Evaluation
is an essential part of the HLF bid process. Museum project teams must show
that the project will ‘consult new and existing audiences in order to develop a
detailed programme of activities to engage people with heritage’ (HLF 2012a:
11). KAGM ensured visitors were further involved in the museum, not just
through the Friend’s group or feedback, but also through projects such as the
EYE project. Longer-term community involvement should be considered by
museums in the contemporary period; projects are a great way to keep visitors
coming back.
As a direct result of funding from the HLF, the three case study museums
decanted the majority of their collections from the original museum buildings to
new purpose-built facilities. This is a characteristic of many HLF-funded projects,
and is intimately connected with the desire to return spaces to their intended use:
display. For the collections themselves, the climate-controlled storage space is
long overdue. However, these storage facilities are a double‑edged sword. On
the one hand, curators are pleased that the collections are finally being housed
in appropriate accommodation. But these facilities are generally located in
hard-to-reach areas of the city outskirts. Logically, curatorial offices have been
relocated to the storage facilities. This has created a divide. Museum staff and
collections have been dislocated from the very museums they have redeveloped.
So whilst the storage solutions are excellent for the long-term preservation and
conservation of the collections, they have uprooted curators initiating physical
and psychological divisions.
The redevelopment projects, catalysed by the HLF, have provided project
teams with the opportunity to reconsider the ways in which collections are
Final Thoughts 151
interpreted. Top of the list for the museums was the incorporation of new
technologies: interactive maps, apps, computer-based games and multimedia
‘object labels’. Technology in the museum needs to be integrated into gallery
designs during the initial design stages. Accessibility and inclusivity are widened
as museums offer alternative learning modes: digital technology ‘can provide
richly authentic learning experiences – activities and resources that are much
closer to those found in the real world’ (Gammon and Burch 2008: 36).
Written into the HLF bid application for each project was the desire to
improve visitor experience. It is a move shared by many museums around the
world; as they redisplay their collections, ‘exhibition design has shifted from
space making to holistic experience making’ (Roppola 2012: 38). Every museum
visitor’s experience is unique; each person brings with them prior knowledge,
experiences and emotions, and interprets objects and meanings in their own way.
Offering different learning and social opportunities, new technologies, layered
interpretations, and access to collections and staff will help individuals to make
their own meaning in the galleries, improving their experience.
Some Pitfalls to Avoid
From the outset of a massive redisplay and reinterpretation project, museum

teams need to consider their philosophy wisely. A limiting philosophy will only
allow for certain themes and stories and not lend itself to design innovation,
but equally a wide-ranging, loose philosophy will enable others to drive the
design of the galleries and ‘blow the budget’. Museum teams should aim to
create a philosophy based on their collections, building and the ethos they want
to present.
Similarly, project planners need to be aware that theme selection requires
an in-depth, decision-making process, not to be selected on a whim. There are
implications for the rest of the museum and the longevity of a gallery if the
theme is restrictive or faddy. For example, selecting a theme such as climate
change necessitates a continuous review of interpretation, making sure statistics
are up-to-date.
Project managers, and the Board of Directors, must understand that whilst,
on the one hand, funding from different sources is an excellent coup, it can
also make the management of expectations and decisions extremely difficult.
Museum teams must be prepared for the agendas that some funders will have,
for example, in driving their own messages across in galleries or the design
of interpretation. The project manager should foresee these funding issues and
manage them to ensure conflicts of interest do not arise.
Museums must ensure they do not fall into the trap of replicating the display
and interpretation of collections of other institutions. The more daring the design
of a gallery, the less flexible it will be (as demonstrated by the Living Planet gallery
at the Great North Museum). This is not necessarily a bad thing, if museums are
certain of further funding after ten years. If not, museums risk falling back into the
cycle of piecemeal redisplay on an ad hoc basis. I feel this reversion is inevitable.
The Future
So what does the future hold for museum galleries? With continued support from
the HLF, museum displays and interpretation formats will remain relevant to
their audiences, taking on board new technologies, themes and stories, presenting
objects in innovative ways and engaging audiences mentally and physically with
collections. Long-term plans for the continued funding of inventive installations
should be supported by funders like the HLF, with further backing from
governments.
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Index
Bold page numbers indicate figures, italic numbers indicate tables.
access Arts Council England 54–5

coding of interview data 49, 50 Ashmole, Elias 113
Disability Discrimination Act (2005) Asma, S. 111
55–6 audience groups
and listed building status 100–1 consultation over themes 90–1
acquisition of new specimens 134–5 family as priority 68–9
aims and objectives of projects Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM) 22
20–1, 146 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (KAGM) 27
(KAGM) 23, 24, 35, 146 Royal Albert Memorial Museum
lessons learned 146–7 (RAMM) 29
Royal Albert Memorial Museum audiences
(RAMM) 28–9 acceptance of change 76
Akeley, Carl 115 and biological collections and displays
Aldrovandi, Ulyssis 112 73–4
American Museum of Natural History, circulation as decision of 103–4
New York City 121 as decision-makers 39
application process for Heritage Lottery experience, visitor 77–8, 81–2, 82, 151
Fund 10–11, 12, 13, 14 feedback following reopenings 72–3
architecture formative evaluation with 39, 70–2
Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM) front-end evaluation with 39, 68–70
101 improving experiences of 77–8, 151
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum learning outcomes 78
(KAGM) 101–2 loss aversion of 76
legacies from 19th and 20th centuries natural world, engagement with 79–80
99–102 needs and knowledge of, variety of
listed building status 100–1 75–6
movement through museums 103–5 and New Museology 67
multi-storey buildings 103 previous attitudes towards 67
Natural History Museum 100 reinforcing/challenging knowledge
original condition, return to 101–2, 145 78–9
private areas returned to public 102 as stakeholders 88–9
problems due to 100 and successful projects 145
restoration work through HLF 99, 150 summative evaluation with 72–3
Royal Albert Memorial Museum
(RAMM) 101 background of projects
storage solutions 105–6, 150 Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
and successful projects 145 20–1
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum themes and types of material 134
(KAGM) 23–4 themes in 140
Royal Albert Memorial Museum Victorian era 115–16
(RAMM) 28–9 vivaria 116, 135
Bestiaries 112 biological recording 79–80
biases in evaluation with audiences 71–2 Black, G. 39
bio wall at Great North Museum: Hancock Blandin, P. 119
(GNM) 125, 125–6 Bullock, William 113–14, 114
biological collections and displays
acquisition of new specimens 134–5 cascading of information through teams
American Museum of Natural History, 45–6
New York City 121 case studies, see Great North Museum:
audiences’ relationship with 73–4 Hancock (GNM); Kelvingrove Art
Bestiaries 112 Gallery and Museum (KAGM);
contemporary displays 118–21 Royal Albert Memorial Museum
curator’s role 141 (RAMM)
design or collection-led 130–2, 146–7 Centres for Social Change: Museums,
dioramas 115–16, 116, 132–3, 140–1 Galleries and Archives for All
earliest known 111–12 (DCMS) 54
history of 111–17 circulation through museums 103–5
ideological revolution 119–20 coding of interview data 49, 50, 51
Linnaean period 113–14 communication
live biology 116, 135 curators and designers 44–5
mascots 124, 138–9 filtering information through teams 45–6
materials influencing design 133–5 Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
modern period 115–17 43
multi-layered interpretation 136–7 lessons learned 147
Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, project managers 43–4
Paris 118–20 with stakeholders 89–90
Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum and successful projects 144
‘Naturalis,’ Leiden 120–1 teams 41–2, 147
new approaches in case studies 124–9, theory 42–3
125, 127, 128 community involvement
new philosophies, impact of 129–30, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
141 (KAGM) 34
physicality of objects 133–4 as positive impact of HLF scheme 150
pre-Linnaean period 112–13 computers, use of in displays 84–6
pre-Renaissance period 112 concept design for projects 15
previous approaches in case studies conflicts
122–4 designers, working with 95–7
Renaissance period 112 resolution of 40–1, 97–8
1950s to 1970s 116 stakeholders 93–5
1980s to present 116–17 construction stage of projects 16
sidelining and undervaluing of 117–18 consultation of audiences, see evaluation
storytelling 136–8 with audiences
symbolic arrangements 119 curators
taxonomic displays, move away from biological collections and displays 141
116 changes in role of 59–61
Index 169
communication with designers 44–5 Djerking, L.D. 75, 84, 103

conflicts of interest with designers 96–7 dumbing-down of museology 69
deadlines, meeting 61
as decision-maker, move away from education
31, 38–9 learning outcomes, setting 78
and designers 61–3 national curricula 56–7
and new storage solutions 105–6 educators, role of 63–4
restructuring of staff at KAGM 26–7 Eldredge, Niles 121
as team workers 61, 145 evaluation with audiences
teamwork, impact of move to 65 biases 71–2
curricula, national 56–7 formative 70–2
CyMAL 55 front-end 68–70
prototype displays 71
data analysis 49, 50, 51 and successful projects 145
deadlines, meeting 61 summative 72–3
decision-making themes 90–1
audiences as decision-makers 39 evaluative stage of projects 16
curators, move away from 31, 38–9 experience, visitor 77–8, 81–2, 82, 151
hierarchy of 34–5
importance of 31–2 Falk, J.H. 75, 84, 103
KAGM 33–5 family groups as priority 68–9
local community involvement 34 Farnell, G. 42
model for 32, 33 feedback following reopenings 72–3
and multiple stakeholders 89–90 filtering of information through teams
power in 38–40 45–6
project managers 39 flexibility in display
recording 37 Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
Royal Albert Memorial Museum 108, 109
(RAMM) 37–8 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
and successful projects 144 (KAGM) 25–6, 107, 108
team structure 34 modular system 108
Department for Culture, Media and Sport Royal Albert Memorial Museum
(DCMS) 54 (RAMM) 107–8
design and designers themes and stories 107–8
balance with collections as lead focus groups 70
influence 130–2, 146–7 formative evaluation with audiences 39,
communication with curators 44–5 70–2
conflicts of interest with 95–7 Fraser, J. 82
and curators 61–3 front-end evaluation with audiences 39,
materials influencing 133–5 68–70
objectives for Kelvingrove Art Gallery Frost, M. 94–5
and Museum (KAGM) 24 funders
role of 64 goals of 89–90, 151
selection of 64 see also stakeholders
as stakeholders 91–2
developed design stage of projects 15–16 Galangau-Quérat, Fabienne 119
dioramas 115–16, 116, 132–3, 140–1 Generic Learning Outcomes 78
Disability Discrimination Act (2005) 55–6 Genoways, H. 87, 89, 93, 97
Gesner, Conrad 112 handover stage of projects 16

Giebelhausen, Michaela 99 Hein, G. 139
government policy 53–4 Heritage Lottery Fund
Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM) application process 10–11, 12, 13, 14
Abel’s Ark gallery 122 finite nature of projects 17
acquisition of new specimens 135 impact of 9
aims and objectives of project 20–1, 146 partnership funding 11–12
architectural legacy 100 positive impact of scheme 149
audience groups 22 programmes 9, 11
background of project 20–1 project management 13, 14–16, 143
bio wall 125–6 repercussions from 16
communication procedure 43 restoration work 99
conflict resolution 93–4 success of projects, factors in 143–6
consultation over themes 90 see also individual museums
decision-making 35–7 history of case study museums
display approach 21 Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
feedback following reopening 72–3 19–20
flexibility in display 108, 109 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
history 19–20 (KAGM) 22
improving visitor experience 78 Royal Albert Memorial Museum
interactive displays 85 (RAMM) 27–8
live biology 135 Hooper-Greenhill, E. 32, 42–3, 81
Living Planet gallery 122, 125, Houtgraaf, Dirk 120
125–6 Hunter, William 113
Magic of Birds gallery 122
media used for interpretation of initiatives related to museums 53–4
collections 83 Inspiring Learning for All framework 54, 78
multi-layered interpretation 136 interactive displays 84–6, 151
name of 21, 93–4 interpretation of collections
Natural Northumbria gallery 126 balance with designers as lead
natural world, visitor engagement with influence 130–2, 146–7
79–80 interactive displays 84–6
new biological display approaches media used for 83–4
124–6, 125 multi-layered 69, 79
new philosophies, impact of 130 see also stories and storytelling; themes
omission of historical material 134 interviews, coding of data 49, 50, 51
original condition, return to 101–2 Ireland, L. 87, 89, 93, 97
ownership of collection 20
previous display approaches 122–3 Kahneman, D. 76
private areas returned to public 102 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Project Execution Plans (PEPs) 21 (KAGM)
project management 21 aims and objectives of project 23, 24,
stories and storytelling 136 35, 146
text limitations 138 architectural legacy 100
themes and design 91–2 Arms and Armoury gallery 136
audience groups 27
Hancock Museum, see Great North background of project 23–4
Museum: Hancock (GNM) conflict resolution 93
Index 171
consultation over themes 90–1 Public Libraries and Museums Act

consultation with audience 70–1 (1964) 55
decision-making at 33–5 Lehmbruck, M. 103
designers, objectives for 24 Lindauer, M. 40
Environmental Discovery Centre 126 listed building status 100–1
feedback following reopening 72 live biology 116, 135
flexibility in display 25–6, 33, 107, 108 local community involvement
history of 22 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
improving visitor experience 77–8 (KAGM) 34
interactive displays 85 as positive impact of HLF scheme 150
learning outcomes 78 Lomax, B. 116
Life gallery 126, 127 longevity of displays 148, 149
local community involvement 34 Lord, B. 106
media used for interpretation of Lord, G.D. 106
collections 83–4 loss aversion of audiences 76
movement through 103, 104
multi-layered interpretation 136 MacLeod, S. 87
as multi-storey building 103 Martin, D. 120, 121
Natural History of Scotland gallery 123 mascots
new biological display approaches Gerald the Giraffe 124, 138–9
126–7, 127 public support for 139
new display approach 24–7 Sir Roger 138
new philosophies, impact of 129–30 Snowy the polar bear 139
original condition, return to 101–2 materials influencing design 133–5
previous display approaches 123 McLean, K. 61
prototype displays 71 meaning-making in museums 79
restructuring of staff 26–7 media used for interpretation of collections
Scotland’s Wildlife gallery 126 83–4
services for visitors 83–4 Miles, R. 60, 61
stories and storytelling 104, 136 modular system 108
storytelling approach 24–5 movement through museums 103–5
team structure 34 multi-layered interpretation 69, 79, 136–7
Kendrick, T. 32 multi-storey buildings 103
Kerzner, H. 46 Museum Accreditation Scheme 54
Kolthoff, Gustaf 115 Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) 55
Kor, G. 32, 33 Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle,
Kor, R. 32, 33 Paris 118–20
Kotler, N. 75, 81, 82, 85, 86 Museum of Natural Curiosities 113–14,
Kotler, P. 75, 81, 82, 85, 86 114
Museums and Galleries Commission
learning (MGC) 53
educational curricula 56–7 Museums Archives and Libraries Wales 55
Inspiring Learning for All framework Museums for the Many (DCMS) 54
54
outcomes, setting 78 narratives, see stories and storytelling
legislation Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum
Disability Discrimination Act (2005) ‘Naturalis,’ Leiden 120–1
55–6 national curricula 56–7
natural history, see biological collections PRINCE2 21

and displays and successful projects 143
Natural History Museum 100 teams 63
natural world, engagement with 79–80 prototype displays 71
New Museology and audiences 67 Public Libraries and Museums Act (1964)
Northern Ireland Museums Council 55
(NIMC) 55
Registration Scheme 53, 54
objectives of projects, see aims and restructuring of staff at Kelvingrove Art
objectives of projects Gallery and Museum (KAGM)
O’Neill, M. 40, 129 26–7
ownership of collection at Great North RIBA Plan of Work 13, 14–16
Museum (GNM) 20 Roberts, L. 136
Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM)
Page, S. 77 aims and objectives of project 28–9
partnership funding 11–12 architectural legacy 100
Pearce, S. 113 audience groups 29
personal agendas 93–5 background of project 28–9
Pettitt, C. 117 biological displays, audiences’
Phillips, R. 89–90 relationship with 73
philosophies biological recording 80
new, impact of 129–30 Case Histories gallery 127, 129
selection of, care in 151 conflict resolution 94
physicality of objects 133–4 consultation over themes 90–1
Plan of Work 13, 14–16, 143–4 Courtyard gallery 129
Pliny 111–12 curators and designers 62–3
point scoring 41 decision-making 37–8
policy, government feedback following reopening 73
Disability Discrimination Act (2005) In Fine Feather gallery 128, 129
55–6 flexibility in display 107–8
educational curricula 56–7 Fly on the Wall gallery 128, 129
Public Libraries and Museums Act history 27–8
(1964) 55 improving visitor experience 78
social inclusivity 53–4 interactive displays 84–5
power in decision-making 38–40 learning outcomes 78
preparation and brief for projects 15 mascot – Gerald the Giraffe 124
PRINCE2 21 media used for interpretation of
Pritchett, P. 41 collections 84
private areas returned to public 102 movement through 103, 104
Project Execution Plans (PEPs) 15, 21, 43 multi-layered interpretation 136
project management new biological display approach 29,
advice taken from other projects 144 127, 128, 129
communication 43–4 new philosophies, impact of 129
conflict within teams 93–4, 95 original condition, return to 101–2
decision-making 39 previous display approaches 123–4, 124
Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM) Sladen’s Study 124, 124
21 stories and storytelling 104, 136
Heritage Lottery Fund 13, 14–16, 143 text limitations 137–8
Index 173
World Natural History Gallery 123 success of projects, factors in 143–6

Royal Institute of British Architects summative evaluation with audiences 72–3
(RIBA) Plan of Work 13, 14–16,
143–4 teams
Ruysch, Fredrick 112 benefits of 40
communication 41, 147
Sachatello-Sawyer, B. 136 conflicts 40–1, 93–4
Schellenberg, J. 97 curators 59–63
Shannon, C. 42 decision-making 34
Simmel, S. 97–8 designers 64
size of objects 134 educators 63–4
Sloane, Hans 113 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
social inclusivity 53–4 (KAGM) 34
Spalding, J. 59–60 lessons learned 147
stakeholders point scoring 41
communication with 89–90 project managers 63
conflicts of interest between 93–5 roles in 147
and decision-making 89–90 structure of 61
defined 87, 88 and successful projects 144–5
designers as 91–2 transition to teamwork 40
goals of 89–90 trust in members 41
impact on displays 87 technical design stage of projects 16
multiple 89, 151 technology, use of in displays 84–6, 151
and playing it safe 91–2 text limitations 137–8
powers of 87–8 themes
visitors as 88–9 audit of collection before deciding
Standing Commission on Museums and 147–8
Galleries 53 consultation over 90–1
storage solutions 105–6, 150 controversial issues in 91
stories and storytelling flexibility in 107–8
audit of collection before deciding longevity of, consideration of 148
147–8 selection of, care in 151
biological collections and displays tone of voice 138
136–8 trust in team members 41
flexibility in 107–8 Tversky, A. 76
Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)
136 users, see audiences
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
(KAGM) 24–5, 104, 136 visitors, see audiences
longevity of, consideration of 148 vivaria 116, 135
multi-layered interpretation 136–7
non-prescriptive approach 104 Weaver, W. 42
Royal Albert Memorial Museum Weston Park Museum, Sheffield 139
(RAMM) 104, 136 Whitehead, P. 111, 113
text limitations 137–8 Witcomb, A. 59
thematic connections 137 Wonders, K. 115
strategic definition of projects 15 Worm, Oleus 112

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Redisplaying museum collections

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

ISBN 9781409447078 (hbk)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

List of Figures and Tables vii

Part I: The Process Guiding Collection Redisplay

2 Catalysing Change: The Heritage Lottery Fund 9

3 Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections: Three British

4 Decision-making, Communication and Teamwork: Key Elements

Part II: The Factors Shaping Collection Redisplay

5 Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections: The Key Factors 49

6 Agendas: Museum-related Initiatives and Government Policies 53

7 The Core Exhibition Team 59

8 Shifting Power: The Audience in the Museum 67

10 Offering Different Social and Educational Experiences 81

13 Harmonising with Architecture 99

14 Designing for Flexibility 107

15 Displaying Biology in the Twenty-first-century Museum  111

16 Lessons Learnt  143

17 Final Thoughts  149

2.1 RIBA Plan of Work 2007/2013 mapping diagram; © RIBA 2013 13

1.1 Referencing system for project team member quotes  4

CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild

The Structure of this Book

Chapter 2 offers a synopsis of the catalyst for the recent ‘renaissance’:

Table 1.1 Referencing system for project team member quotes

Code for reference Project role Museum Date of interview

As implied by its title, ‘Lessons Learnt’, Chapter 16 reflects on a variety of

In order to explore the complexities of the collection redisplay and reinterpretation

… enabling development on a major and visionary scale; putting the museum

Aware of the need to provide funding for a variety of heritage-based projects,

Table 2.1 First-round application information required

Information about First-round application Second-round application

Source: HLF 2012a: 10.

Fairbairn Foundation, Friends’ groups, Garfield Western, local and regional

The HLF Application Process

Large grant applications are based on a two-round process. However, before

1. ‘What is the heritage focus of the project?

On approval of the second-round application, projects proceed to stages

Project Management Process

It is important to note a change made to the project process by the HLF. By

Stage 0 Strategic Definition Before any applications are made, museum teams

Stage 1 Preparation and Brief This stage – preparation and brief – firms up

Stage 3 Development Design Drawing from the research and development

Stage 5 Construction The construction phase of the process is the point at which

Stage 7 In Use This is a new stage added by the RIBA to incorporate an evaluative

granted is awarded for discrete projects, not ongoing programmes of decennial

Great North Museum: Hancock (GNM)

Ownership of the Collections

In 2004, an application was made to the HLF, in support of a redevelopment

New Display Approach

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (KAGM)

In the mid-nineteenth century, Glasgow had numerous ‘branch museums’ spread

It was to be accomplished through a number of key objectives. They were to:

New Display Approach

As with most Victorian museums, collections tend to be incomplete and eclectic

1. Attain a quality threshold in keeping with the importance of the building

… we went from being largely dominated by curators in terms of numbers and

Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM)

1. The reinterpretation of the collections to improve access and understanding.

New Display Approach

List of Figures and Tables vii

2 Catalysing Change: The Heritage Lottery Fund 9

5 Re/Displaying and Re/Interpreting Collections: The Key Factors 49

6 Agendas: Museum-related Initiatives and Government Policies 53

7 The Core Exhibition Team 59

8 Shifting Power: The Audience in the Museum 67

10 Offering Different Social and Educational Experiences 81

13 Harmonising with Architecture 99

14 Designing for Flexibility 107

15 Displaying Biology in the Twenty-first-century Museum 111

16 Lessons Learnt 143

17 Final Thoughts 149

2.1 RIBA Plan of Work 2007/2013 mapping diagram; © RIBA 2013 13

1.1 Referencing system for project team member quotes 4