Pitt Rivers Museum re-opens 1st May 2009

16 April 2009

The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford will re-open its doors to visitors from 1st May, following major remodeling of its entrance and improvements to the Museum’s education facilities and environment. (Please download the listing of special events for 1-4 May here.)

The dramatic entrance panorama from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has been restored and enticing new displays have been created, while still preserving the Museum’s distinctive historical atmosphere. The re-opening will be celebrated with a programme of activities to attract regular and new visitors over the May Bank Holiday weekend.

The £1.5m redevelopment has been supported by an award of £1m from The Heritage Lottery Fund and by generous contributions from DCMS/Wolfson Foundation’s Museum and Galleries Improvement Fund, The Clore Duffield Foundation, The Monument Trust and from other public and private benefactors.

What has changed?

Architects Pringle Richards Sharratt have designed a new entrance platform which allows visitors to enter at the same level as the Natural History Museum. Wide steps lead down into the displays, with shop and reception areas to the side. An integral platform lift significantly improves access for wheelchair users and parents with pushchairs.

The installation of an environmental control system beneath the entrance platform will help preserve the Museum’s collections for the future and improve the atmosphere for visitors.

The 1960s exhibition gallery at the entrance has been dismantled and two new matching columns specially cast to support the overhanging balcony. The display cases, displaced to the Lower Gallery in the 1960s, have been returned to their place at the front of the Museum, increasing the number of objects on display on the ground floor. A massive dugout canoe has been re-positioned and Salama, an East African sailing boat, raised and suspended dramatically from the rafters. More than 5,232 objects from over 29 cases, removed to make room for the builders, have now been decanted, condition-checked, and recanted back into the Museum.

The Balcony on the Museum’s Lower Gallery has been freed-up to form a spacious area dedicated to encouraging learning amid the displays for groups of all ages, as well as providing a new location for family activities such as the monthly Pitt Stops and the popular holiday programmes.

While the majority of the displays have remained the same, there are also eight additional display cases, focusing on painting and decorative styles. They feature many previously unseen artefacts from the reserve collections, all exhibited in the Museum’s characteristic style.

The collection of firearms, originally exhibited on the ground floor, is soon to be redisplayed alongside the other arms and armour collections in the Upper Gallery, which is scheduled to re-open in spring 2010.

“This major redevelopment will allow the Museum to better serve the two hundred thousand visitors we welcome annually. Its completion is a testament to the support of many generous trusts and individuals, and to exceptional efforts by the Museum’s staff, to all of whom I am very grateful” said Dr Michael O’Hanlon, the Museum’s Director. Commenting on the project, Michelle Davies, Head of The Heritage Lottery Fund for the South East, said: "Pitt Rivers is hugely popular, with a treasure trove of collections. We're proud to have supported the redevelopment works which have transformed the experience for visitors and ensured the museum's popularity with generations to come."

Further information on the project and high-resolution images of a selection of newly displayed objects are available on request from the Press Office. Historical images are available and new ones of the interior will be made available nearer the time.

Contact: Imogen Simpson-Mowday
Phone: 01865 613014
Email: imogen.simpson-mowday@prm.ox.ac.uk

A few facts about The Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford:

• The Museum is an international centre for Anthropology and World Archaeology and displays objects from all over the world. The Museum holds around half a million objects of which some 80,000 are on display at any one time.

• The Museum is visited by 200,000 visitors a year.

• The Museum was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave his personal collection of 20,000 items to the University on the condition that a museum was built to house the material.

• Today the Museum is also an active department of University of Oxford supporting research and teaching in archaeology and anthropology.

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