Project : SeaCity Museum Client : Southampton City Council Completed : 2012
A museum that use the historic fabric of the building as part of the exhibition narratives
Urban Salon were museum designers for Southampton’s new HLF funded £15 million SeaCity Museum. As the museum was housed in the city’s grade 2 listed former magistrates court, our challenge was to creating an immersive exhibition within the historic fabric of the building.
Our design used the historic fabric to bring to life the exhibitions’ narratives. For example we told the story of the British Titanic Inquiry through an audio-visual show within the old courtroom and co-ordinated skylights in the existing building to create a view up to the buildings clocktower to enable visitors to compare this with the Titanic’s tunnel.
The design was commended in the FX International Awards and AJ Retrofit awards for its innovative and sensitive integration of the historic fabric of the building into the narrative of the exhibition.
