The main target at the heart of a 15-year masterplan comes to a triumphant end today when the National Museum of Scotland reopens.
Three years in the making, at a cost of £47.4 million and featuring more than 8,000 objects and 16 new galleries, the epicentre aims to immortalise Scotland and the world's great inventors, proudly placing most of the artefacts on display for the first time.
“The intellectual and collecting impact of the Scottish diaspora has been profound,” reckons Sir Angus Grossart, the chair of the group’s board.
“Our collections tell great stories about the world, how Scots saw that world, and the disproportionate impact they had upon it.”
Grossart calls the reopening, managed on time and on budget, a “tremendous achievement” which will “liberate the strengths” of a vast collection. Much of it is Victorian, and many of the star exhibits form a real cabinet of curiosities.
The dusted-off Grand Gallery was inspired by the Crystal Palace in London when it was unveiled in 1866, and a four-metre long Tahitian bowl, a six-foot railway signal tower, the world’s oldest surviving colour television and the Nobel Prize awarded to Sir Alexander Fleming promise to make it an entertaining one.
Three years in the making, at a cost of £47.4 million and featuring more than 8,000 objects and 16 new galleries, the epicentre aims to immortalise Scotland and the world's great inventors, proudly placing most of the artefacts on display for the first time.
“The intellectual and collecting impact of the Scottish diaspora has been profound,” reckons Sir Angus Grossart, the chair of the group’s board.
“Our collections tell great stories about the world, how Scots saw that world, and the disproportionate impact they had upon it.”
Grossart calls the reopening, managed on time and on budget, a “tremendous achievement” which will “liberate the strengths” of a vast collection. Much of it is Victorian, and many of the star exhibits form a real cabinet of curiosities.
The dusted-off Grand Gallery was inspired by the Crystal Palace in London when it was unveiled in 1866, and a four-metre long Tahitian bowl, a six-foot railway signal tower, the world’s oldest surviving colour television and the Nobel Prize awarded to Sir Alexander Fleming promise to make it an entertaining one.