Urban treasure
The Museum of London was relaunched this week. Felicity Owen reports
On the south-west highwalk of the Barbican above St Martins le Grand stands an ungainly building like a pillbox ready to repel invaders. Inside, however, is one of Britain's largest and most colourful muse- ums boasting reputedly the world's most comprehensive urban collection: the Muse- um of London. It was designed in 1970 by Powell & Maya of Festival of Britain Sky- Ion fame.
The museum unites the contents, mainly archaeological, of the former Guildhall Museum founded in 1826, with those of the original London Museum created in 1912 on the initiative of several establishment figures, notably that eminence grise Vis- count Esher. Given royal patronage, this attracted a happy assortment of gifts and bequests — from fine and decorative art to clocks and carriages — which after the sec- ond world war were squeezed into a corner of Kensington Palace. Judicious acquisi- tions have subsequently strengthened the social history aspect of the combined col- lections, their aim being to tell the story of the capital and its people from prehistoric times to the present day. Although com- mended at the opening in 1976 and named Museum of the Year in 1978, attendances have been dwindling. Great hopes are now pinned on the livewire new director, Dr Simon Thurley, who has a five-year plan to meet the challenge.
Thurley is a Tudor specialist who made his name at Hampton Court working for Historic Royal Palaces. Rather like Roy Strong in the Sixties, he brings a fresh eye to the museum world, and also manages to infect his staff with his enthusiasm. By means of three major exhibitions a year, Thurley intends to make Londoners aware of their own museum, which was relaunched this week with the stunning and imaginative show London Bodies — curat- ed by Alex Werner and based on a scholar- ly book — which runs until 19 February.
From the museum's cache of 6,500 skele- tons, osteo archaeologists have used mod- ern techniques to reconstruct the faces of our forebears beginning with Roman times, laying the myth that present-day physique is necessarily superior, an adequate diet being the key factor. Whatever his origins, the Londoner is shown to be a great sur- vivor through famine and overcrowding, disease and tooth decay being the great levellers. Thurley has also introduced a series of mini exhibitions, Capital Concerns, chang- ing every six weeks to highlight a current topic — recently the arrival 50 years ago of SS Empire Windrush bringing 400 immi- grants from the Caribbean to work in Britain was celebrated; and special displays relieve the characterless foyer, brilliantly coloured diaphanous costumes from the Notting Hall Carnival being followed now by Mark Cazalet's dramatic paintings of gasholders.
It is salutary to find that the first modern man came to the London area from Africa some 100,000 years ago — a reminder that the museum is uniquely qualified to appeal to today's multi-cultural community. The permanent collections include excellent reconstructions of the Roman city that declined from 410 AD to admit the Angles and Saxons whose timber buildings have left few traces, but who obligingly in their pagan years took their jewels to the grave. Early maps and paintings are from the 16th century and there is a splendid model of the Great Fire of 1666 that erased the dis- ease-ridden old city.
On the lower floor, the Georgian devel- opment of the West End is well portrayed by the new generation of British artists, while the City's solid virtues are epitomised by the Lord Mayor's coach which still per- forms its annual duty. Notably absent is the history of London's river, this vital subject having been relinquished to the forthcom- ing Docklands Museum opposite Canary Wharf. From the Victorian period on, the displays become increasingly bitty, interest- ing exhibits jostling for attention when a minimalist Serota-type presentation might be more effective. That the ubiquitous Ford 8 car of the 1930s is so popular sug- gests visitor exhaustion, and a revamp will include a fast-track circuit of exhibits.
The museum has an extensive collection of London views in all media, and Thur- ley's opportunist hand can be seen in the recent expensive acquisition of the Rhinebeck Panorama of London dated about 1810. With a future exhibition in mind, he has commissioned a present-day panorama by Ben Johnson — a daunting millennium project. He is also backing the London Arts Café, a charity run by the museum's indefatigable Fine Art curator, Just one more — honest.' Mireille Galinou, in her spare time, to pro- vide a forum for urban art. Events and exhibitions will be centred on the muse- um's Terrace Gallery: after a successful opening with the Cities in Watercolour, the next project is Homelessness being pre- pared in association with Crisis for March.
As the government has announced that museums and galleries are places of educa- tion rather than entertainment, the muse- um with its active events programme is giving an impressive lead. Already there is a waiting list for schools; and many exhibits from a Roman dining-room to a Victorian grocery are ideal settings for actor/inter- preters who encourage audience participa- tion. With so much pressure on staff, scholarship is at risk but, with two new curatorial posts, the director is confident that exhibitions backed by conferences and lectures will lead to in-depth research.
On the archaeological side, Thurley has arranged for London University students to work on the thousands of boxes of excavat- ed material looking for minuscule clues to the past, and hopefully the inadequate warehouse in Hackney will attract a Lot- tery grant.
Angered by two successive government cuts in the Corporation of London's fund- ing, the City fathers' enthusiasm for their cultural establishments appears variable. The museum is fortunate to be part-funded by the Department for Culture as the capi- tal's museum, with a matching contribu- tion, decreed by Act of Parliament, from the Corporation as its local museum. The combined grant, £9.2 million this year, is increased by admission charges and trading activities to give an income of over £14.6 million. The Archaeological Service, employing a third of the museum's 300 staff and paying its way on a turnover of some £5 million, is the leading excavation specialist that benefits from the current plague of redevelopment.
At the nearby Barbican Centre the imag- inative John Tusa sees the whole culturally evolving area — from the reopened Sadler's Wells in the north to St Paul's Cathedral and, after the completion of the millennium footbridge across the Thames, to the Tate at Bankside and the Globe Theatre in the south — as one great mar- ketable commodity. The Guildhall Art Gallery will reopen in the spring in a hand- some new building, its permanent display of paintings complementing the Guildhall Library's holding of some 30,000 prints, newly on an image database. Thurley is determined that the Museum of London should become the proud estab- lishment that its name deserves. With admission seven days a week only £5 per person (families £12) a year to include all exhibitions, he is gambling on visitor num- bers gradually returning to around 500,000. His new chairman of trustees, Rupert Hambro, a banker and treasurer of the National Art Collections Fund, is a good augury.
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