Project.
Shetland Museum and Archives
- Location
- Lerwick, Shetland Islands, UK
- Client
- Shetland Island Council
- Expertise
- Architecture
- Acoustics
- Interior Design
- Landscape Architecture
- Completion
- 2007
- Size
- 3,500 sq m
- Cost
- £11.6m
An important new cultural hub and major new visitor attraction.
The new museum is inspired by traditional ‘lodberrry’ buildings, and utilises old boatsheds. It contains, at its heart, the archive repository and search room, a flexible 125 seat auditorium, a 90 seat restaurant with panoramic views specialising in local produce, an iconic 3-storey boathall, a 200 sq m gallery space for local and visiting exhibitions, curatorial and conservation spaces and the museum itself.
Brief
- To create a new building to house both Shetland’s museum and its archives and tell the story of Shetland’s history with a maritime theme a building to echo and reflect the architecture of Lerwick
Results
- Has five times the previous display space and three times the previous archive study area allowed the return, from Edinburgh, of many priceless artefacts from Shetland’s Viking past GIA Award (2007), Wood Award 2008 (Gold Award) and also shortlisted for most prestigious award Arts Fund Prize (formerly Gulbenkian award) 2008