Riverside Museum and Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

Riverside Museum and Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

Visitors walk alongside Riverside Museum, Glasgow

Heritage Grants

Anderston/City/Yorkhill
Glasgow City
Glasgow City Council
£21640000
HLF awarded its largest ever grant in Scotland for the creation of a new Riverside Museum and a second phase of the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre.

The project involved relocating Glasgow’s Museum of Transport to a new building, designed by Zaha Hadid, on the Clyde. It also included the extension of the acclaimed Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, in Nitshill, providing high-quality public access to Glasgow’s outstanding civic collection.

The extension of Glasgow Museums Resource Centre was to be used to store around 50,000 objects and 750,000 natural history specimens that were originally stored in the old Museum of Transport, and were inaccessible to the public.

The construction of a new Riverside Museum has created a landmark building on the Clyde, with display space, education workshop facilities, lifelong learning and library facilities, café and retail space.

The museum represents and interprets Glasgow’s internationally important shipbuilding and maritime history and the vital role of the River Clyde and of Glasgow people in that history. It houses more than 3,000 exhibits, in over 150 interactive displays. From massive steam locomotives, to the recreation of a city street during the 1900s, the cathedral-like structure provides a stunning backdrop to showcase the innovation and ambition of what was the ‘Second City of the Empire’.

Glasgow Museum has used this project to further expand its community involvement and audience development. The flexible display of the museum now allows for changing displays, in line with visitor interests and passions, it also provides audiences with the opportunity to be involved in creating and selecting the stories that are told about the objects in the museum.