Exciting news for history fanatics. the Natural History Museum (NHM) is planning to reopen Victorian galleries which have been closed to the public for decades, as part of a huge £550 million redevelopment. In an eight-year-long renovation, the museum wants to restore closed-off rooms to their ‘former glory’.
NHM will open two storage rooms to the public and four halls, including the dinosaur and children’s galleries, will be fully refurbished. One of the galleries, the Origins Gallery, hasn’t been seen by the public since 2004. The herbarium, closed since the 1940s, will also be reopened as a new public reading room.
To make space for the new galleries the NHM will move 28 million specimens – about a third of the museum’s collection – from the South Kensington site to a new storage facility in Reading, which it will start building in 2025.
A big focus of the museum’s makeover will be climate change. ‘Our revitalised museum will be the heart of a global mission to create 100 million advocates for the planet, powered by our scientists’ work to find solutions to the planetary emergency,’ museum director Doug Gurr told the Financial Times.
‘The enormous focus on the climate emergency really matters but is not sufficient,’ he added. ‘Tackling the biodiversity crisis is essential too — and that is even more complex than action on climate change.’
All of the renovations will increase the NHM’s capacity by around 16 percent, meaning the museum will be able to welcome a million more visitors every year.
On the hunt for London’s best museums? We at Time Out have the perfect guide for you. Here are the best weird and wonderful museums and the funnest ones for kids. In other recent London museum news, the Museum of London has recently changed its name and got a controversial new logo.
ICYMI: The Natural History Museum’s gardens have been totally transformed for summer.
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