Refurbishing the East Hall of the Science Museum, London

Abstract

Although designed by Sir Richard Allison in 1913 as the first major public building in London to be constructed of reinforced concrete, the First World War intervened and the Science Museum was not finished until 1928. The elegant low-key design, which for decades acted as a neutral foil to the often complex exhibits, has perhaps not always been fully appreciated in recent years for its positive qualities, and the crudely insensitive post-war installation of fluorescent light-fittings at ceiling level within each bay of the three floors opening into the daylit central space of the East Hall has seriously damaged the overall effect of what had once been a harmonious and coherent, if not particularly exciting, ensemble. The self-evident need to clean up the lighting and hopefully regain some of the lost overall coherence came to be addressed at the same time as the perceived need for a grand gesture to mark the Diamond Jubilee of the Opening by King George V in June 1928, as well as the demand by HM Government that the Science Museum increase its revenue, not least by levying entry charges. The Property Services Agency (PSA) was already installing new lifts in the south-east corner of the building and upgrading the staircases, and the museum itself upgrading display areas in the East Hall zone, when the Director, Dr Neil Cossons, called in Gordon Bowyer & Partners around Easter 1987. The outline design brief had been prepared by the retiring Head of Exhibitions, Michael Preston, and a !Z3/4 million budget was envisaged. Almost indecent haste, inadequate funds and mixed motives are never the most satisfactory basis for such a complex operation, and fundamental questions still hang over the basic design criteria. Apart from the perceived need to modernize the displays in the East Hall, the other parameters were, and remain today, ill-defined. On the one hand, in order to maximize future income, the displays must be as attractive as possible to an unsophisticated audience. On the other hand, however, what are the numbers of visitors likely to be after entry charges have been imposed, and what proportion of regular visitors will reduce their frequency of attendance? On the basis of the experience gained from other British national museums where entry charges have already been introduced, it has been calculated by the Institution of Professional Civil Servants that the Science Museum will lose some 40 percent of its three million or so visitors, and a reduction of well over one million visitors per annum cannot but have a relevance for the overall design and visitor services to be provided. From October 1988 entrance charges will have been levied, and it will be some months before their full impact can be judged adequately, but the circulation problems posed by the severely overcrowded Exhibition Road Entrance Hall would be greatly alleviated by a massive reduction in attendance figures, and there is no guarantee that following the introduction of entry charges either the