[PRO] South Australian Museum Upgrade

[PeFe]

This is a proposal from the director of the South Australian Museum, not from the state government.
From the Advertiser

SA Museum director Brian Oldman wants to spend $100 million to energise the tired institution



A $100 million plan to redevelop the South Australian Museum, including the building of a new glass-covered courtyard on its front lawn, is being proposed by its director Brian Oldman.

Mr Oldman also wants to reorganise much of the museum to create more space for bigger exhibitions, better displays and to get more of the institution’s four million artefacts on more regular display.

“I think it would help us do more, bigger exhibitions, we could get more things on show, we could offer more facilities on North Terrace,’’ he said. “It would literally put our doorstep out on North Terrace.’’

The proposed covered courtyard would fill in the space between the museum’s two wings as its original design had envisaged. The museum’s 1877 design was never completed as the still-nascent colony of South Australia ran out of money.

“Now is the opportunity to perhaps complete that vision,’’ he said.

It would take the museum’s front door almost all the way to North Terrace and would also allow for a 1000 square metre exhibition space to be built below it.



Mr Oldman said the entire plan could take more than 20 years to complete and funding would be sought from all sources including the state government and philanthropic donations.

Arts Minister Jack Snelling agrees the Museum is in need of refurbishment but said funding it would be the issue.

“Certainly it is well overdue for a significant redevelopment, no doubt about that,’’ he said.

In the longer term, what they have planned looks great and has my support but we just don’t have the funding for it at the moment.’’

For that reason, Mr Oldman, who took over the museum in 2014, will tackle the project in small bites, starting with the interior of the museum, which he admits has seen better days.

“It’s a bit like going around a house that has not been decorated in 30 years and you think ‘it’s a nice house, but it needs updating’,’’ he said.

The World Mammals collection on the ground floor, which has been there for about 40 years, will be dispersed to other parts of the building, including the twitching tail of Nathan the Lion.

That space will be used by what Mr Oldman referred to as the “Treasures of the Museum’’.

More details and artist impressions of our “museum of the future” in SA Weekend

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... e71a857747

[Patrick_27]

Well about time a plan of some kind was put together! Whilst I understand that $100m is a big ask for our government (at-least in the current climate), this falls in line with the same lacking interest shown when it came to funding a complete upgrade of Victoria Square. There is a lot of unnecessary expenditure made by this government that could go toward funding these kinds of projects (at-least to some extent)... When you consider that the tourism dollar is important to SA, the short-term and long-term employment a project of this scale would provide, I find it sad that there is no consideration for prioritising these projects. After all, if it weren't for the fact that the government are trying to find public uses for the old RAH site, I don't even think that a concert hall or contemporary art gallery would get a look into.

One thing I think that could be done with this is (in the short-term) to free up space is moving the aboriginal historic components of the museum into a space of their own (perhaps somewhere within the old RAH site) and combine this with Tandanya.

[crawf]

There is a lot of unnecessary expenditure made by this government that could go toward funding these kinds of projects (at-least to some extent)..

Anything specifically?. No an attack, just curious.

[[Shuz]]

EPAS. The salaries of about 10,000 excess public servants from a pool of 100,000. Just to name a couple of wasteful expenses.