- The Observer,
- Sunday December 2, 2001
The secret blueprint, which could herald similar changes at other national museums, envisages the transformation of galleries into corporate entertainment suites, leasing out of museum space to commercial outlets, and fewer exhibits.
Critics claim these measures will dumb down one of the nation's greatest intellectual assets. However, the report's authors say that their plan is essential to ensure the museum's survival.
They want to create an institute that 'resembles a magazine, not an encyclopaedia', with fund-raising for glamorous new projects a priority, the blueprint says.
But the plan, which has been approved by the museum's trustees, is also highly risky, its authors say. Leasing out sites to shops and cafes may break museum covenants and could be illegal, while the public could be repelled by the replacing of galleries with Starbucks and Burger Kings.
Last week, several leading scientists launched a pre-emptive attack on the plan. 'I think it would be disastrous,' said biologist Professor Lewis Wolpert, of University College, London. 'The Science Museum does not need changing like this. We do not need this corporate nonsense.'
A former Reith lecturer, Professor Steve Jones, of University College, London, described the proposals as dangerous. 'The building itself is a museum piece. It has a powerful architectural and artistic atmosphere that makes it very special. You don't get that in its new annexes, and if you make the whole museum like them, as is planned, the whole feel of the place could be destroyed.'
Yesterday, several major museums, including the Science Museum, Natural History Museum and National Maritime Museum, opened their doors without charging for the first time in 13 years. The Government, which ordered the move, says it will compensate them for lost revenue, although museum directors say past cuts still leave them struggling to compete with entertainment venues such as Legoland and Alton Towers.
'The average person visits the Science Museum only three times: once when they are eight, once with an eight-year-old son or daughter, and once with an eight-year-old grandchild,' said one director. 'We have to improve that average if we hope to get more funds from the Government.'
The museum's problems were highlighted by one of the report's authors, Heather Mayfield. 'We lack major facilities. For example, we have no site to present touring international exhibitions,' she said. 'Under the new plan, we would provide one.'
Mayfield said the Science Museum had changed enormously over the past 10 years. 'But unless we keep changing, people will stop coming here,' she told John Wilson on Radio 4 last week.
'These galleries, like the one on weighing and measuring, simply have no place in a modern museum. They have no relevance to the national curriculum. We simply have to get rid of them.'
However, she said that no changes would be made to the museum's main engine hall and its displays of machines which helped to create the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.
Few disagree with her analysis of the museum's problems. What upsets them is the nature of the proposed alternatives.
The centre often gives children their first taste of science: a sight of the Apollo 10 lunar capsule or a view of one of those great steam engines in the main hall. Reducing these attractions could have a serious detrimental effect on the country's already strained science education, they argue.
This view was not shared by Professor Heinz Wolff, of Brunel University. 'I think if they create a pleasant atmosphere, with cafes and restaurants, where young people can wander round, meet and talk, that could work wonders.'
