On my recent trip to the UK, I managed a quick visit to the newly refurbished National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Our visit was on a Sunday morning at the height of the Fringe season, on our way to meet some friends for lunch. Having somewhere we had to be, combined with the fact that one of our group was only five months old, meant that realistically this was only ever going to be a lightning trip. Consequently, this review will be of first impressions and a critique of what I did get time to see.
According to this blog post by museum commentator Tiffany Jenkins, the refit took three years and £47 million. It’s proved popular, with visitor numbers passing the 100,000 mark less than a week after opening. Exhibition spaces were certainly beginning to fill up by the time we left.
Arrival and Entrance
One of the changes they have made is to the way visitors enter the building – rather than scaling the prominent steps, you now enter via an adjacent street-level door (although once inside the building it feels more like a basement than an entrance statement).
In her review Jenkins criticised this move, observing that many visitors gravitated toward the more prominent original entrance and missed the new entrance completely. To be honest I’m still in two minds about what I think about this myself – on the one hand, the street-level entrance was much easier to negotiate with a baby stroller, and I can see the rationale for having an entrance which meets universal access requirements. On the other hand, changes to navigation that go against the grain of usual expectations can be disorienting and counterproductive. It will be interesting to see how this settles in – the photo above shows how the steps have already been adopted as an informal outdoor gathering and relaxation space now that they don’t have to deal with volumes of visitor traffic. If this new purpose settles in and gains currency over time, then the street-level entrance could easily become ‘the new normal’*.
Once you pass through the basement you reach the central atrium of the original grand hall – this is where the original entrance would have taken you. This has been left quite open and minimal with only a few key objects – this works well as a space where you can make the psychological transition from ‘street’ mode to ‘museum’ mode. Most of the exhibition spaces run off this central space; this aids visit planning and site orientation. It could do with a bit more seating though:
Exhibitions
We started our visit in the Natural History area, and having a limited time budget this was one of the few galleries I managed to look at properly. (Later I broke away from the group so I could have a whistle-stop tour around more spaces and get more of an overall sense of the place.)
In the animals exhibition, displays were organised by characteristics of animals, eg. flight, adaptation to climate extremes, locomotion, size. This allowed interesting comparison of different animals’ adaptation to their respective environments and ecological niche. These displays were generally well grouped and signposted, so it was clear why certain animals had been placed together.
The introductory signage in each exhibition space gave a good, simple overview of the intended interpretive goal:
However, while I generally liked the succinct and well-layered interpretive text, I think it erred too much on the side of brevity. For instance, in many cases I was left wondering where certain animals were from, and whether they were extinct or abundant in the wild. Such information was all but absent, which struck me as a real gap (particularly as we are used to thinking about animals in terms of where they are from; the displays were not organised by habitat so there wasn’t any conceptual ‘anchor’ in this respect).
There were a few tactile displays, such as this one which allowed you to feel and compare the difference between horns which were made of bone, tooth or keratin:
Next to the Natural History galleries were the spaces dedicated to World Cultures. These were arranged by theme, allowing you to compare and contrast how different peoples around the world approach common aspects of human experience. I watched an interesting video about different wedding traditions, and found a Ghanaian coffin shaped like a Mercedes Benz both fascinating and disconcerting.
Regrouping in the museum cafe afterwards, my partner expressed disappointment that he had not seen anything particularly Scottish during his visit, given that we were meant to be in the country’s National Museum and all. It’s there, but unfortunately the Scottish history and culture displays are tucked away in an adjacent wing. This extension was probably built in the 80s or 90s, but in the layout of the refurbished museum it is a fair way off the beaten track and it was almost by accident that I found it at all. I’m not sure what the original intent was, but in its current configuration it is a confusing rabbit-warren of dead-end spaces.
Few visitors seemed to make it this far, and there was a noticeable thinning of visitor traffic compared to the galleries surrounding the main atrium.
As I said before, I probably only had an hour or so to look around and I’m sure there’s plenty I missed. Plus I never bothered to pick up a visitor map which may have made the extension easier to navigate.
Has anyone else visited NMS either recently or before the refurbishment? What were your experiences?
*Incidentally, I noticed that the National Gallery in London faces a similar dilemma. They have taken the option of maintaining both the original grand entrance as well as a newer alternative at street level. However, the signage was ambiguous and it wasn’t immediately obvious that the street level entrance actually *was* a proper entrance (as opposed to an entrance just for schools or tour groups), so we ended up needlessly lugging our suitcases up the main staircase.
Very interesting read indeed. It’s interesting what you say about the ‘National’ aspect of the museum’s name, and this is perhaps a sign that the recent rebranding has perhaps caused more confusion than clarity. Until the recent refurbishment, there had always been a very clear distinction between the ‘Royal Museum’ and the ‘Museum of Scotland’ since the latter opened in 1998 (designed by Benson + Forsyth, who went on to design an extension to the Museum of Ireland: it was controversial, but on the whole has proven to be very popular). The latter interprets Scotland’s history, whilst the former is Scotland’s museum of the rest of the world – the distinction being very clear. That the whole complex has been renamed the ‘Museum of Scotland’, I think is a mistake – but I guess it makes advertising and overall branding easier.
It’s odd that you think the ‘Museum of Scotland’ was designed from the outside in – in fact it is very much the reverse. Perhaps you didn’t spend enough time there – 1 hour is certainly not enough to do it justice! – but the building was designed very specifically around the exhibits. I’ve heard that this is a curator’s nightmare – they like to fiddle with exhibits, move them about and re-interpret them, but from a visitor’s perspective I have to say I love it. What could be more wonderful than the skylight lighting the beautifully carved timber pulpit, or the grand gallery in the centre holding the steam engine, or perhaps the Paolozzi sculptures in the basement holding the archaeological artefacts? I think it a joy.
You refer to the ‘confusing rabbit-warren of dead-end spaces’… I’m afraid I completely disagree. There are few ‘dead-ends’ at all, just many, many ‘rabbit-warrens’ – they lead from one space to another. As someone who has visited the museum several times I think this is wonderful – each and every visit is new. The fact that it is free to visit means that visitors can dip-in and out as they please, discovering something new each time. Most tourists who only have the one chance to visit can take a tour, or as you say, pick up a map – or just wander idly, making their own discoveries. The fact that even though the building is familiar, I still revel in the feeling that I am ‘lost in a museum’ – can there be anything more delightful than truly losing oneself in a museum? A University of Edinburgh professor summed it up in the quote: “This is a building wholly integrated with its function: architecture as narrative … Spaces within spaces, buildings within buildings lead you through Scotland’s complex interlocking story.”
Curators and managers might like their exhibition galleries laid out neatly, with a pre-determined route for visitors to pass through like a conveyer belt, but I don’t. I think it’s also important to point out that the refurbished ‘Royal Museum’ is busier than its younger wing only because it has just re-opened… Until very recently it was very much the other way around, with the upper levels of the Royal Museum in particular virtually abandoned. I suspect once the novelty factor has dropped off, they will balance each other perfectly. When I visited the other week, both parts were very busy – note that the newer wing has a very prominent entrance at a very prominent street-corner. This is the entrance that most visitors see first as they arrive from the Royal Mile.
My conclusion is that I see the Royal Museum as very much a ‘family’ museum, full of noisy kids and school-groups. That’s great, but I love the restricted intimacy of the museum next door. That I’ve heard the NMS will be trialling evening adult events in what I still refer to as the Royal Museum sounds like an ideal compromise.
As for the front doors, I think the only conceivable option is for both doors to be open. I think it a scandal that those doors have effectively been abandoned… It all goes back to my suspicion of managers wanting to steer me along a pre-determined conveyer belt of a route – and I genuinely loathe that! It’s also insulting to the historic building – these doors were designed for a purpose – and there was a certain delight in arriving in the main hall which I’m afraid the noisy and smelly entrance in the basement fails to match. I have no problem in improving access – I firmly welcome it – but it shouldn’t be a case of either/or!
On that note I should end, but thank you again for an interesting read!
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the additional explanation (and defence) of the Museum of Scotland. You’ve helped me understand some things that were puzzling me.
Before the visit, I had had a vague grasp of the concept of the “Royal Museum” and “Museum of Scotland”, but wasn’t sure where they are and how they related to where I was visiting. Now you’ve explained how it all came about, everything makes a lot more sense.
I feel I should probably give a bit more clarification of my ‘rabbit warren’ concept – you are right in that the time pressures I was under meant I wasn’t really able to do this section justice (by this time, I had broken away from my group for some time and was expecting the “Where are you? We need to go!” text message at any minute). My confusion was probably exacerbated by the fact that I didn’t enter the Museum of Scotland section from the ground floor, but rather from the level which overlooks the “Connect” gallery in the older wing. So I think I probably was inadvertently shunted into secondary routes without ever finding the primary one, or getting any real orientation (e.g. I was able to overlook where the steam engine was, but it was less than obvious how to get there and in any case I conceptualised this as being more contiguous with the “Connect” gallery, being the science/technology/industry links with the two (presumably that was a deliberate juxtaposition).
You have also put your finger on something interesting about the pleasure of being ‘lost in the museum’. Whether it is my innate disposition or just that I find it that much harder to ‘just be a visitor’ these days, I have found that I am very strategic in my approach to museum visits. I value clear navigation and signposting as to where I am at in the overall narrative, and use this to select what I want to look at more closely. (I’m usually trying to see as much as possible in a hurry, which encourages such an approach.)
I’m not sure I’m an advocate of the ‘conveyor belt’ per se, but I value clear narratives and have blogged on this issue before. I wonder whether there are two populations of visitors with conflicting needs and tendencies in this need for a ‘narrative’, and if so, which is the exception and which is the rule.
In any case, you are right in that it is such a big museum there is more than can be comfortably digested in any one sitting. From that point of view, it’s great that it is free entry and thus available for locals to dip in and out of frequently (the friends we were staying with in Edinburgh live within walking distance of the museum and I’m sure they will be coming back again!)
Once again, thank you for such a thoughtful response.