23 Nov 07

Michael Palin and Dr John Hood officially opened the new extension on 22 November. Credit: Rob Judges

Michael Palin and the Vice-Chancellor Dr John Hood officially opened the new £8 million extension of Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum at a ceremony on the evening of 22 November.

The new extension provides major new research, teaching, and public facilities, as well as enabling the Museum’s staff to work on site alongside the collections. It includes a new conservation laboratory, library, and purpose-designed collections management facilities for visiting researchers. It also features an exhibition gallery along with a lecture theatre and seminar room, which will be available for wider public use when not required for university teaching.

Michael Palin, a Patron to the Museum’s Friends, said: ‘I have always loved the Pitt Rivers’ wonderful eclectic displays. In an over-regimented world, they engage and stimulate the curious, and encourage a genuine spirit of discovery. The Museum’s new extension will now provide the public facilities and the teaching and research spaces equal to the importance of the collections.’

In his speech Michael Palin praised the utilitarian nature of the everyday objects on display at the Museum and the way they show the universality of human experience in coping with common problems such as shelter, transport, and clothing. The Museum displays objects typographically, grouped by form or purpose, rather than by geographic or cultural origin. The unusual layout was developed by General Pitt Rivers, who founded the Museum in 1884.

The official opening will be followed by a public Celebration Weekend with family activities on Saturday 24 November and talks and tours on Sunday 25 November.

The Museum can now develop programmes which combine different levels of learning on one site, expanding its schools and community work, and drawing public and University interests more closely together. The Museum holds around half a million objects of which some 80,000 are on display at any one time, and attracts nearly 200,000 visitors per year.

The Museum also took the opportunity to formally announced Phase II of its development plan, supported by a £1m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

When both are complete, the two phases will transform the Museum’s capacity to serve all its visitors, whether from the local community, tourists, scholars from home and abroad, or members of indigenous communities who come to see the cultural heritage for which the Museum cares.

Announcing HLF's latest grant for the Pitt Rivers Museum, Sheena Vick, HLF South East Manager, commented: ‘The award will enable this much loved museum to welcome visitors in a new way, with a transformed entrance area and education spaces. Works will restore the original view that visitors would have seen when they entered the Museum from the Museum of Natural History, reinstating the identity of this remarkable attraction and providing improved access and education opportunities.
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The new project will improve the Museum’s public entrance and restore the original vista of its galleries, including the spectacular Totem Pole. The 1960s exhibition gallery at the entrance will be dismantled and the original display cases will be returned to the front of the Museum. The space created by the removal of these cases from the first floor will be used as an education area for schools and family activities.

The new entrance will also improve facilities for visitors by providing an information point, new staircase, and platform lift for wheelchair and pushchair access. The installation of an environmental control system will help preserve the Museum’s collections.

The Museum needs to raise substantial partnership funding to match the HLF award. The Museum’s Director, Michael O’Hanlon, said: ‘We are absolutely delighted with the award from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Thanks to the generosity of DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund and others, we have also made an excellent start on raising the necessary partnership funding.’