In the last few weeks I've been exploring two new (and highly) publicised museum redevelopments: the Ashmolean and the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries at the V&A. Both of these are lottery funded (both by the Heritage Lottery Fund); both are fabulous; both should be fully accessible.
I've written about this issue of accessibility before: one of the key criteria for winning lottery funding is that any building should be accessible to all. To my mind, as someone who used assess bids as well as advise applicants, and now as someone directly affected by access, meeting this criterion should be integral to any building development. An access specialist should be involved with the project right from the start and stay involved to the very end. Sometimes this happens. The proof is in the building itself: does access seem integral to the design or has it been bolted on at the end; is access a concession to getting the cash or a driving force behind the project? You can tell as soon as you enter a building: what kind of doors are there (heavy or light, automatic or manual); what's the signage like (the lifts are always a giveaway - are there Braille buttons? Are the buttons high or low? Is there a speaking guide that tells you which floor you're on?); does the ticket desk have one high counter or a low section? I've always been interested in this. Now, however, I have a particular perspective.
So I was curious to see how each of these lottery-funded developments scored. The new Ashmolean is breath-taking in its conception. I've loved this strange Oxford museum for many years. It's got a wonderfully eclectic and eccentric collection. It has a Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky hidden away at the top of the building (the Kandinsky is one of my favourite pictures and its remoteness means I can stare at it for hours without interruption). It has a rare Stradivarius guitar and the Messiah violin. There's the Alfred Jewel and Guy Fawkes' lantern. There really is something for everyone. The £69m development has created 39 new galleries, added a new rooftop restaurant (these always seem to feature in new lottery developments) and opened up the inside of the museum to create a fresh, light and stunning atrium. The architect, Rick Mather, has done a fabulous job. But where were the access advisors? For this kind of (largely public) money, the public should receive a model of good practice. This isn't. Access is fine, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't feel integral to the design. The cafe has heavy wooden doors, signage is poor, the shop is hard to navigate, the tills are high. Worst of all, some of the artefacts are impossible to see. In the musical instruments gallery, there's a cabinet which is inaccessible from one side. A ceramics display reaches toward the ceiling. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to see everything in the museum. To me, lottery cash means a building must be accessible to all. The Ashmolean isn't.
The V&A presents a different challenge. For one thing, this is only a partial redevelopment: only the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries have been completed. It's been a long time coming: I've been visiting the V&A for years and the hoarding always seems to be there. So I was thrilled to see the new space, a week after it had opened. The redevelopment is not a re-imagination in the style of the Ashmolean. It's more of a re-configuration: pieces have been moved from all over the museum to be presented as a thematic whole. And it's wonderful to see the incredible range and beauty of the collection (and sobering to be reminded of our rapacious past, as I admired a near entire Italian church that had been removed from Florence). But here again, access doesn't seem to have been integral to their approach. Yes, this is a new gallery added on to an old space so perhaps it's unfair to criticise the high ticket desks. However, I was appalled to see that the lifts for the new space weren't finished (and no one knew when they would be ready). So rather than staying within the space (both thematically and physically), I had to wheel out to another lift, go to the sixth floor, pass through the ceramics gallery (well worth a visit but not part of my plan) and then go down to the second floor.
The message I received from both museums was that access was something that had to be achieved, that access was secondary to the experience, that access was required rather than desired. Good access should be so seamless that it's not noticeable: everybody should be made to feel equally welcome. I didn't. To open a new space without functioning lifts summed it up perfectly: the new gallery must open on time even if it means that not everyone will be able to appreciate it fully. After all, most people won't be using the lifts anyway, will they?
