Works have begun on a complete redisplay of its galleries and the currently “confusing” layout
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery has moved into the fourth phase of a ten-year “Voices of Leicester” masterplan, which will now see it focus on works to fix the “confusing layout” of its gallery.
Since 2019, the attraction’s operator Leicester Museums and Galleries has been carrying out the masterplan. This next phase, its fourth, is expected to take 18 months and will focus on parts of the building now almost 200 years .
Repair, conservation, and preservation take place on the building’s original and later walls, roofs, chimneys, and skylights above the art galleries.
This work is funded by Arts Council England’s Museum Estate and Development Fund, a funding programme specifically for the repair and conservation of Museum buildings.
The works will also change the layout of the gallery, which said was sometimes “confusing”.
“Visitors regularly tell us how difficult it is to find their way around parts of the building, with its winding corridors and narrow points. To solve this, we’ll be creating a new internal public entrance into the art galleries, creating new doorways between them, and removing changes in floor levels, improving physical access for everyone,” it said.
The current art and design displays will be changed and updated, with a mix of “old favourites” and new artworks from the museum collection, that are explained and explored in better, more modern, ways, for all visitors, it said.
Also to be added is a new café to the front of the museum, with its own kitchen and additional visitor toilets, and a new reception and museum shop.
The major building work and redisplay of the art galleries is scheduled to be complete by late 2025.
Concurrently with this development work, Leicester Museums and Galleries said it will also continue working towards Phase 5 of its masterplan, set to start around 2027.
This will, if external funding is secured, see the creation of a brand new “Story of Leicester” gallery which will be co-produced with local people, and will create a “major modern Natural World and Environmental gallery”.
