Wellcome Collection development project, cross section Credit:(c) Wilkinson Eyre Architects
Spiral stair, Wellcome Collection development project Credit:(c) Wilkinson Eyre Architects
24th October 2012
Wellcome Collection today unveiled a major £17.5m development project, creating new galleries and spaces to meet overwhelming demand. The venue welcomed its two-millionth visitor this summer, shortly after the fifth anniversary of its opening.
Stirling Prize winning architects Wilkinson Eyre will transform the venue, bringing new areas into public use and linking the layers of Wellcome Collection activity with a dramatic new spiral staircase and interconnected galleries. The development, due for completion in summer 2014, aims to create a truly interdisciplinary and curiosity driven cultural destination dedicated to inspiring wider and deeper engagement with the connections between medicine, life and art.
Visitor numbers in the five years since Wellcome Collection opened demonstrate a real hunger for innovative science-based cultural experience that is currently underserved. This year has seen the venue’s most popular ever exhibition, Brains, bring a 20% increase in footfall, and the busiest summer since opening: talks and events are routinely over-subscribed. Wellcome Collection was originally designed to accommodate 100,000 yearly visits from the ‘incurably curious’. Over the last year the venue has welcomed 490,000 people to its critically acclaimed programme of events and exhibitions, the world class Wellcome Library and a unique range of event spaces for hire.
The development will open up 30% more gallery space and double the capacity for public events.
A major new thematic gallery will hold in-depth exhibitions over a year-long period, with a mixture of semi-permanent displays and exhibits that will be conceived and developed during the run of the show. A dedicated youth events studio will offer an activity space for 14-19 year olds to engage with and produce work that contributes to the Wellcome Collection programme.
Central to the project, the Wellcome Library’s iconic Reading Room will be transformed into an innovative public space, bridging the gap between the Library’s research community and the public and opening its extraordinarily rich collections to new audiences. This new space will sit at the heart of the building and be curated with events and displays of books and objects from the collection, combined with state of the art technology exploiting the Library’s ambitious digitisation programme. The research Library will also grow, offering scholars and readers an outstanding environment for study, with an expansion of its rare materials room and new spaces for desks and open-access shelving.
The Hub at Wellcome Collection, a new space for interdisciplinary research, will catalyse research and public engagement collaborations between the brightest minds across specialisms, with grants being made available for group residencies. An events series, Spotlight, will also be established, offering a forum for experts from different disciplines to come together and debate key topics and policy issues affecting medicine, science and society.
Major works on the development will begin in summer 2013, with completion scheduled for summer 2014. Wellcome Collection plans to remain open to the public throughout the build, with a flexible programme of events and displays.
Clare Matterson, Director of Medical Humanities and Engagement at the Wellcome Trust says:
“The phenomenal success of Wellcome Collection over the last five years is a wonderful affirmation of our conviction that adults are interested and inspired by complex themes that make connections across science, history, art and health. Each part of our new development adds to the legacy of Sir Henry Wellcome’s intellectual curiosity, his research and collections. Our new galleries and spaces will surprise and inspire our visitors with new connections and ideas and respond to the debates they provoke.”
