The Museum Redisplay and Fit-Out project will re-energise Coventry Transport Museum and enable it to reflect the depth of Coventry’s part in pushing back the frontiers of transportation manufacturing whilst at the same time stimulating interest in emerging new technologies in the industry.
It will be a much enhanced, ground breaking museum that will use the importance of Coventry as a centre of innovation in world transportation to stimulate learning and enthusiasm in the designers and engineers of the future.
The overall project will create a Museum which is lively, exciting and engaging to existing and new audiences that educates and inspires people through the story of Coventry and its importance in the world’s automotive heritage. To achieve this, there are two key elements:
At the Transport Museum: To significantly upgrade five exhibition galleries, relocate the museum shop, create a new museum entrance/orientation space and create new education spaces.
At the adjacent Old Grammar School: To restore the Grade 1 Listed, 12th Century Old Grammar School to create new event and education space together with limited exhibition redisplay for the Museum.
This project is much more than a museum redisplay; it will effect a ‘step change’ in quality and reach of heritage learning and community participation programmes in Coventry and provide public access to the Old Grammar School for the first time in a generation.
The new galleries will re-energise the museum to create a world class experience built around a nationally significant collection. It will showcase the rich story of the transport heritage of Coventry in innovative and inspiring ways, presenting a holistic view of transport through the ages alongside social history. It will deliver a greatly improved visitor experience, engaging visitors in science, technology, engineering and maths based learning for all age groups in an interactive setting.
The project will tell a Coventry story with international significance. The British motor industry started in Coventry and the Museum’s collection and content form a uniquely complete story of manufacturing and the motor industry in a city that supplied the world with many of its most famous vehicle manufacturers.
This is a transformational project which will see Coventry Transport Museum become a beacon for best practice in community participation and heritage learning.
