NEW OPENING
massive project. Firstly we had to embark
How many visitors?
on the biggest fundraising campaign Since the Darwin Centre opened in
we’d ever undertaken: we didn’t generate September 2010, overall visitor num-
all the £78m needed, but were success- bers for the Natural History Museum
ful in raising more than £44m ($71.7m, have gone up by 45 per cent. We
50.5m) from external funds. We’re also had 216,000 visitors to the Darwin
very grateful to have had fantastic dona- Centre in the fi rst six weeks of
tions from The Wellcome Trust and the opening. The tours of The Spirit
Heritage Lottery Fund. Collections are booked out, attendance in
The second challenge was moving the The Attenborough Studio is high and our
Will you display other stored items?
70 million natural history specimens in school bookings are at 80 per cent capac- With the Darwin Centre we had the luxury
the museum’s care. There was a build- ity. Evenings are popular too. of creating a whole new building. We
ing on the site that the Darwin Centre Like all visitor attractions, we modelled take people on behind-the-scenes tours
now occupies, and we had to relocate the our visitor numbers by assuming we but haven’t got any immediate plans
specimens that were in that old, decrepit would open on a peak and then decline to do another revelation of our back of
building so we could knock it down and slightly to a steady base line level, but so house storage areas, because the points
work could begin on the new building. To far we haven’t seen numbers tail off at all. of access to the main public galleries in
achieve this, we refurbished our off-site The new Darwin Centre has really cap- the old building are quite restricted, but
storage centre in Wandsworth to accom- tured the public’s imagination. Feedback we’re looking at that in our masterplan.
modate all the specimens temporarily. has been hugely positive and there are
Logistically it was a big job to get them out lots of positive blogs out there about the
What’s the future for the centre?
and then put them all back in again. Darwin Centre, which is great. There are all sorts of things we’ll be doing
to bring our scientists to the fore and we’ll
SINCE THE NEW DARWIN CENTRE OPENED IN SEPTEMBER
be using the centre to promote stories of
the natural world. Later this year we’ll be
2009, OVERALL VISITOR NUMBERS FOR THE NATURAL launching an interactive fi lm based on
HISTORY MUSEUM HAVE GONE UP BY 45 PER CENT AND
evolution in The Attenborough Studio and
opening the grounds up to visitors. We’ve
SCHOOL BOOKINGS ARE AT 80 PER CENT CAPACITY
just opened, but it doesn’t stop there!
MYSTERY SHOPPER - DARWIN 2 AT THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON. LIZ TERRY
T
he fi rst phase of the Darwin Centre scientists who care for
at London’s Natural History Museum, and analyse the collec-
designed by HOK, opened in 2002 tions, by making them
and was initially an awkward addition to and their work part of
the original Victorian building, accessed the exhibition.
as it was by a hodgepodge of winding and To achieve this, archi-
normally crowded linking corridors which tects CF Møller have
shared access with other galleries. opened up some of the
The second phase, which opened last working areas of the
November, resolves this temporary awk- Darwin Centre with huge windows, so visi-
wardness by linking the two phases and tors can see scientists at work and get a
creating a new and dramatic entrance off clearer idea about the equipment they use
the main hall of the museum. and the environments in which they work.
However, on the day I visited, I was Darwin 2 features a vast, white seven-
directed back through the original, tempo- storey cocoon–shaped structure which sits
rary entrance and it took me a while to work within a soaring glass atrium (which doesn’t
out the new layout. I wondered if I’d asked seem to be used for anything in particular.)
for directions from a crusty old curator The cocoon houses the exhibits and is
who’d been lost in the bowels of the build- accessed by an adjacent access tower with
ing and had missed the opening, or whether automatic glass lifts which take visitors to
it was just a matter of old habits die hard. the top storey where they enter by cross-
Now both parts of the development are ing a fl oating glass walkway. From there,
open, it’s possible to see the vision fully the exhibition space is arranged around a
realised. The Darwin Centre was built to series of gently sloping ramps and horizon-
Darwin 2 features a giant white cocoon, showcase the museum’s collection of 17 tal fl oors so visitors wind their way down
housed within a soaring glass atrium million insect and three million plant speci- through the structure to emerge at the
mens and to highlight the work of the many bottom, enjoying the exhibition as they go.
42 Read Attractions Management online
attractionsmanagement.com/digital AM 1 2010
©
cybertrek 2010
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