London’s Natural History Museum is preparing for its biggest move in 140 years, with a focus on sustainability. The museum’s expansion programme begins with the renovation of the historic Victorian building in South Kensington. The museum’s four existing galleries, including the popular Dinosaur Gallery, will soon be under construction, with the museum set to reopen in 2031 to celebrate its 140th anniversary.
The Gallery of Origins and the former general herbarium, closed in 2004 and 1948 respectively, and now used as storage spaces for collections, will be converted to accommodate new exhibition spaces. This redevelopment will allow the opening of a new permanent gallery entitled “Repairing our broken planet” which will open in 2025, it will be free.
In addition to the renovations to the historic site, the museum will be undergoing a major relocation. A third of its collections will be transferred to Thames Valley Science Park, a university science centre in the west London suburbs. The move will free up two exhibition spaces at the museum in South Kensington (an increase of 40%) and protect the collections, which are exposed to deterioration in the current storage rooms.
Skeleton of a blue whale on display in the Hintze Hall of the Natural History Museum in London, 16 August 2017
This new place is much more than an annex of the museum, it is a new center for research, conservation-restoration and digitization of the collections. It is expected to open in 2027. It will house 28 million specimens from the collections. It will be possible to see the molecular and micropaleontological collections, sediments from the seabed as well as 445,000 objects transferred from the South Kensington library. A biobank with genetic tissue samples and a research laboratory will complete the museum’s infrastructure.
The modernization plan also includes a vast campaign to digitize the collections. More than 138 million objects spanning 4.6 billion years are currently being digitized; currently only 6% of the collection is digitized, or 5.4 million specimens, according to the latest estimates from the National Museum of Natural History. Digitizing collections limits interactions with physical objects and thus prevents damage to the objects. It also allows scientists to find content more easily and with greater precision. “This programme will enable researchers from the UK and around the world to use the museum’s collections to find solutions to global problems by helping scientists tackle climate change (…)”explains Michelle Donelan, the former Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. The museum’s digitization of butterflies, for example, helps diagnose environmental changes.
The Natural History Museum, London.
The total budget for the renovation plan is €650 million (£550 million). The government has funded £201 million for the new research centre and the relocation of the collections. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has funded £155 million for the collections digitisation programme. The museum will launch a £150 million fundraising campaign from sponsors to complete the renovation budget.
The Natural History Museum welcomes several million visitors each year. The museum’s collection is one of the world’s largest scientific collections, with 80 million objects in total and over 50 billion digital data downloads. The collection spans multiple disciplines, from botany and zoology to palaeontology and mineralogy, as well as a substantial library, archive and art collection.
