Darwin Centre and Beyond - Access to Collections and Access to Ideas at the Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is embarking on a range of substantial redevelopment projects over the next five years, and beyond. In 2002, the first phase of the Darwin Centre was opened, giving museum visitors an unprecedented level of access to both the museum’s Zoology collections, and to its curators and researchers. 2008 will see the opening of the second phase of the Darwin Centre Project, one which is more ambitions in scope and builds on the lessons learned from Phase 1. In parallel to the work being carried out on this project, the Museum is also planning a longer-term redevelopment of its permanent galleries while maintaining a yearly series of major temporary exhibitions. In this session, staff from the Museum’s Interpretation and Design department will explore the challenges inherent in developing a museum for the 21st Century, and the approaches the Natural History Museum is taking to dealing with them.