The International Slavery Museum has been awarded £200,000 from the Wolfson Foundation to support the museum’s major transformation plans. The funding will go towards the museum’s symbolic new entrance, a powerful statement on Liverpool’s historic waterfront that will announce the International Slavery Museum to the world.
Opened in 2007 on the third floor of the Maritime Museum, the International Slavery Museum has never had its own front door. A new Entrance Pavilion, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and due to begin construction early next year, represents a defining moment for the museum.
Laura Pye, Director, National Museums Liverpool, said: “We’re thrilled to be putting this generous award from the Wolfson Foundation towards the International Slavery Museum’s new Entrance Pavilion. As an emotive focal point of the new museum, it symbolises not only the struggles and resistance of the enslaved people whose stories we tell in the museum, but also decades of work from the local communities who have championed the development and raised the profile of the museum from a basement gallery to now, the only museum in the world dedicated to transatlantic slavery and its legacies. We are delighted to be partnering with the Wolfson Foundation at this landmark moment.”
Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said: “There could be no more important task for a museum than to articulate the history and legacy of slavery in a clear and compassionate way. We are pleased to support the transformation of the International Slavery Museum, appropriately located on Liverpool’s waterfront. The transformed museum will allow visitors to engage with these vital issues – and to connect local histories to global stories that continue to shape our world.”
Led by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios), the significant redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum and the Maritime Museum will sensitively respond to the existing Grade I-listed buildings: Hartley Pavilion and Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building (previously the Dock Traffic Office).
A monumental new entrance for the International Slavery Museum will be worthy of its position as the only national museum in the world dedicated to transatlantic slavery and its legacies. This bold and striking intervention on the historic landscape responds directly to community stakeholder feedback for designs to feature not only an accessible front door but one that also claims its rightful place on Liverpool’s waterfront.
A new contemporary link bridge will connect Hartley Pavilion and the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building and create a ‘pause-point’ with panoramic views across the docks, where visitors might consider how the stories within the galleries relate to the place they currently stand.
International Slavery Museum will become a home to the National Centre for Teaching Black History. The re-developed second floor of Dr Martin Luther King Junior Building will be dedicated to the learning outputs and outcomes of the centre, and its programming will connect with collections and representation across all National Museums Liverpool’s museums and galleries.
Ralph Appelbaum Associates are leading on the exhibition design for both museums, and the project will see new galleries, as well as shared spaces for community uses, research, learning and events.
Maritime Museum will see significant regeneration and enable the museum to show a more comprehensive and coherent vision of Liverpool’s maritime story. A new entrance will create a more welcoming arrival for visitors, new galleries will explore conflict, global connections and migration, while the popular ‘Titanic and Liverpool’ gallery will be revitalised.
The redevelopment of both museums is the cornerstone of National Museums Liverpool’s Waterfront Transformation Project.
Find out more: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/waterfront