National Museum of Scotland to unveil radical expansion

A part of the interior of one of the new galleries. Picture: Ian Rutherford

EDINBURGH’S National Museum of Scotland is on the verge of the next phase of a radical transformation which will see thousands of brand new exhibits go on display.

A host of groundbreaking innovations and creations will be showcased in Scotland’s most popular visitor attraction after an extensive new fit-out due to begin within days.

Work to install more than 3500 exhibits drawn from its vast collections will get underway at the Victorian landmark next week under a £14 million project which has been several years in the planning.

Previously closed-off and little-used spaces are being transformed to make way for 10 new galleries which will become celebrations of science, invention, technology, art, design and fashion from next summer.

An interior of one of the new galleries. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Around 40 per cent more floor space has been created for collections which have been largely hidden away from public view before now, as well as a host of new star exhibits.

Wedgwood plates designed by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, the Leith-born artist, an early camera by William Henry Fox Talbot, the “father of photography,” and a state-of-the-art prosthetic limb designed by the firm Touch Bionics will all be on display.

Other highlights are expected to include the Nobel Prize medal awarded to Professor James Black, who discovered beta-blockers and the first anti-ulcer drugs, and Dolly the Sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal.

Outfits created by fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood, Jean Muir and Zandra Rhodes will be on display, along with work created by celebrated Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and long-time Edinburgh painter Anna Phoebe Traquair.