The Design Museum has announced that it’s planning to overhaul its permanent gallery spaces in the lead up to its 40th anniversary in 2029.
Design Museum (c) ianVisits
The current collection gallery — titled Designer, Maker, User — was inaugurated in 2016 when the Design Museum relocated to Kensington. It had an expected lifespan of between 5-7 years, but by the time the overhaul starts, it will likely have been in place for a decade.
The museum has now been granted just under £270,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund towards the cost of planning the overhaul, ahead of applying for around £2.7 million to carry out the rebuilding works.
The current gallery also has an inflexible fixed layout, which restricts how they can refresh the displays. One aim of the overhaul is to make the space more flexible, allowing for the addition of new acquisitions and the adjustment of layouts as needed.
Tim Marlow, Director and CEO of the Design Museum, said: “Next year marks a decade since moving to our landmark home in Kensington. We have achieved many of our goals since then and the museum has evolved into an institution that is helping to set the cultural agenda, not least through record-breaking exhibitions. Expanding and improving our permanent gallery for our 40th anniversary is at the heart of our new Transformation 2029 strategy to future-proof the museum for the next decade and beyond. We are delighted to have received this initial support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, and thanks to all those who contribute to the National Lottery we can now develop these exciting opportunities further.”
The launch of Transformation 2029 follows a record-breaking year for visitors to the Design Museum’s temporary exhibitions. The World of Tim Burton exhibition closed in May after welcoming 260,000 visitors, making it the most visited exhibition in the museum’s history. In February, Barbie: The Exhibition finished a run that saw it become the museum’s third most popular exhibition ever with over 144,000.