Issue 40 winter 23 web - Flipbook - Page 104
Thackray will
see you now!
Leeds medical museum opens its doors following a multi-million-pound
redevelopment with designs by Simpson & Brown and The Creative Core
Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds has one of the
UK’s most significant medical collections and this spring it
will open its doors to showcase an extensive £4.1million
redevelopment to engage people in the story of healthcare.
Thackray is located on Beckett Street, in the Harehills
area of Leeds next to St James’s University Hospital, in
an area known as the medical mile.
The building was purpose built for the Leeds Union
workhouse in 1861. It went on to become a hospital and
was used by the NHS until 1990. In 1997 the museum
opened, founded by Thackray Medical Research Trust.
In 2015, architects Simpson & Brown were appointed to
develop proposals to improve the visitor experience at the
existing Grade II listed museum building, looking in particular at improving accessibility, visitor flow and circulation routes by creating a more fluid space.
The redevelopment has been made possible thanks to
£1.5m awarded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Other funding has come from, Wellcome Trust, Thackray
Medical Research Trust, Arts Council England, Garfield
Weston Foundation, The Wolfson Foundation and Foyle
Foundation.
Simpson & Brown designed a new atrium within the
heart of the existing building: improving the visitor reception areas, rationalising public circulation spaces and
unlocking the previously unused rear wing of the building
for community use. The design has created a fully
accessible one-way visitor flow around the two floors of
the exhibition space.
The new atrium walls rise up to the first floor exhibition
framing an illuminated suspended installation within the
new double height space.
The atrium walls are newly tiled and carefully colour
matched with the existing teal Burmantofts tiles, creating
a contemporary companion to the adjacent Victorian
stairwell.