Museum of London

Museum of London
Middlesex
The Museum of London
Type:	Museum
Location
Grid reference:	TQ32158158
Location:	51°31’4"N, 0°5’48"W
City:	London
History
Address:	London Wall EC2
	Built 1976
By:	Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya
	Museum
Information
Website:	museumoflondon.org.uk

The Museum of London documents the history of London from prehistoric to modern times. It stands in the City of London, on Aldersgate Street and London Wall, with a part of the actual London Wall within its precincts.

The museum is close to the Barbican Centre and is part of the Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 1970s to redevelop a bomb-damaged area of the City.

The museum is a few minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral, overlooking the remains of the Roman city wall and on the edge of the oldest part of London, the City. It is primarily concerned with the social history of London, its region and its inhabitants throughout time. It is the largest urban history collection in the world, with more than six million objects.

In March 2015, the museum announced plans to move from its Barbican site to nearby Smithfield Market. The move, contingent upon raising an estimated £70 million, is planned to be complete by 2021.

Description

The Museum's collection is an amalgamation of the collections previously held by the Corporation of London at the Guildhall Museum and of the London Museum, which was located in Kensington Palace; this amalgamation was agreed in 1964. The Museum of London Act, allowing for the merger, was passed in the following year.

The museum was opened in December 1976 as part of the Barbican Estate. The architects were Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, who adopted an innovative approach to museum design, whereby the galleries were laid out so that there was only one route through the museum – from the prehistoric period to the modern galleries.

The museum comprises a series of chronological galleries containing original artefacts, models, pictures and diagrams, with a strong emphasis on archaeological discoveries, the built city, urban development and London's social and cultural life, with interactive displays and activities for all ages. Fragments of the Roman London Wall can be seen just outside the museum.

The Lord Mayor's Coach on display in the Museum

The museum had a £20 million redevelopment which was completed in May 2010. This was its biggest investment since opening in 1976. The re-design, by London-based architects Wilkinson Eyre, tells the story of London and Londoners from the Great Fire of 1666 to the present day. The transformation includes four new galleries. The new City Gallery features large street level windows along London Wall and provides an illuminated showcase for the Lord Mayor's State Coach, which takes to the streets each November for the Lord Mayor's Show.

The Galleries of Modern London increased the museum's exhibition space by 25 percent and enabled the display of 7,000 objects. Star exhibits include a reconstruction of Georgian pleasure gardens, the foreboding wooden interior of the Wellclose debtors prison cell, an art deco lift from Selfridges department store and the puppet stars of BBC children's TV Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben.

The "Expanding City" gallery covers the period 1660s to 1850. "People's City" addresses 1850 to 1940s, including a " Victorian Walk" with recreated shops and public buildings, and sections on the West End, Suffragettes, First World War and Second World War, and everyday life.

The Fatberg exhibit

The new galleries place a renewed emphasis on contemporary London and contemporary collecting. "World City" is the gallery which tells London's story from 1950 to the present day. Fashion looms large here – from formal suits of the 1950s, through to the Mary Quant dress of the swinging 1960s, hippy chic in the 1970s and the bondage trousers and ripped T-shirts of the punk era. Fashion comes right up to date with a pashmina from Alexander McQueen's 2008 collection.

The Sackler Hall contains an elliptical LED curtain where the work of up-and-coming young filmmakers is screened in a bi-annual Museum of London Film Commission, in association with Film London. A temporary exhibition space, "Inspiring London", features a changing programme of displays on the theme of creativity and inspiration.

Related museums

Museum of London Docklands

Main article: Museum of London Docklands

In 2003, the Museum of London Docklands (formerly Museum in Docklands) was opened in a 19th-century grade I listed warehouse near Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs. The Museum of London Docklands charts the history of London as a port, beginning 2,000 years ago with the Roman trading post set up on the banks of the Thames and following London's expansion into the biggest port the world had ever known. In November 2007, it opened the capital's first permanent gallery examining London's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, "London, Sugar & Slavery".

Museum of London Archaeology

Main article: Museum of London Archaeology

Once part of the Museum of London, the Museum of London Archaeology became an independent charity in November 2011, though the two museums continue to work together.

Pictures

• 
  Sculpture marking the spot of John Wesley's conversion outside the doors of the Museum
• 
  A part of the Paleolithic exhibit
• 
  Paleolithic artefacts from Swanscombe
• 
  Paleolithic bear skull from Swanscombe
• 
  An artefacts from Roman London (3rd century A.D).
• 
  Detail on a 19th-century London lamppost in the Museum's "Victorian Walk"
• 
  Interior of a Selfridges lift from 1928

Proposed move

In March 2015, the museum revealed plans to vacate its Barbican site and move to the General Market Building at the nearby Smithfield site. Reasons for the proposed move include the claim that the current site is difficult for visitors to find, and that by expanding, from 17,000 square metres to 27,000, a greater proportion of the Museum's collection can be placed on display. The cost of the move is estimated to be in the region of £70 million and, if funding can be achieved, would be complete by 2021. Plans for the vacated Barbican site include it becoming a permanent home to the London Symphony Orchestra.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Museum of London)

• The Museum of London
• Museum of London Docklands