Tag: relics

komadori spent much of yesterday at the Science Museum Festival of Innovation at Wroughton. The mix of old the museum’s old — and sometimes not-so-old — artefacts, a small number of exhibitors showing off their new technology, a location with fine views, plus excellent weather all made for a thoroughly enjoyable day.

One other thing that made the festival enjoyable was that it was busy, but not crowded. There was space to stand back and admire the exhibits; the place was bustling but not thronged. As others have pointed out, the event didn’t get a great deal of publicity. An article in the local newspaper, a page on Facebook, a video advert a few twitters from the museum’s senior curator, and that was it. Of more conventional advertising there was, seemingly, very little. That really doesn’t match the event manager’s stated aspirations.

We want people to know that this amazing facility is on their doorstep and it is the first and only time this year that it is open to the public. We want everyone in Swindon to come along and get involved.

In the run-up to the museum’s bid for lottery funding, the museum opened several times in the year. Now that’s passed, they seem to have given up somewhat. That said, if they had really promoted the festival, I doubt they could’ve coped without shipping in staff from other branches of the museum or volunteers. As the museum’s senior curator has said,

stored collections – where there is a will to open them up, there’s a way.

Lets hope they find both the will and the way more often in future, and shout rather louder about it when they do.

I’ve been waiting for the latest artists impressions for the updated Science Museum at Wroughton to appear on their website. They have, apparently, been three months in the making and the director of the museum has great aspirations for them

I hope these images will give people a sense of the sheer scale of the Inspired experience and the serious fun that Inspired visitors will have.

All I can say is they’ll have to be significantly more inspiring than the one picture shown in The Adver, which looks like nothing more than a big, drearily painted store room.

I’m very much in favour of the ‘Inspired’ proposals for the Science Museum at Wroughton Airfield, but as usual the artist’s impression is glossy nonsense: never before have a set of old concrete hangers looked so shiny. In the words of the architect responsible for this nonsense

It looks quite pretty. Swindon could do with more landmark buildings so these plans could be the answer.

Pretty? It’s just infilling between the existing hangars. It will be no more a ‘landmark’ than those existing hangars (which admittedly are visible on the hilltop from the southern edge of Swindon) and according to the artist’s impression will be almost completely hidden by trees. There’s certainly no wow factor here.