I managed to get into the press tour of the new £35 mill. extension to the Liverpool Museum today. Now known as the World Museum Liverpool, its really impressive. Its built round a central atrium with a glass roof, there’s a new ground-level entrance (no need to climb those 39 steps any more!) with a new cafe and shop. The Treasure House Theatre is a groundbreaking feature, it seats up to 80 visitors, mainly aimed at school parties and family groups who can watch shows and re-enactments of some of the stories surrounding the collections.
There’s a large area all about bugs. The huge spider pictured here actually moves above your head, but only slightly, it had to be toned down a bit as it was just too frightening.
There’s a good sized room housing a Buddhist exhibition which is excellent, unfortunately the Tibetan chanting wasn’t turned on. Pictured here is the Bodhisattva of Compassion with 24 arms.
There seems to be loads of interactive areas where visitors can actually get hold of things, take out boxes of insects, plants, fossils from the drawers to get a closer look through the microscopes. There are boxes of costumes from different cultures that children and adults can dress up in.
Many will remember the gloomy small fish tanks in a corridor that was the aquarium in the old building, now there’s a big bright blue aquarium with large tanks including one that has marine life from the Wirral and Anglesey coastlines.
There’s even a Fair Trade Shop!
It opens to the public on Friday 29th April, it looked like there was still a lot of small jobs to finish before then but the builders and staff are working hard for something they’ve been looking forward to for a long time, good luck to them. It will be open 7 days a week from 10.00 to 17.00
www.worldmuseumliverpool.org.uk
Heritage Lottery Fund (they provided £32 mill of the £35 mill cost)