Royal Museum, Edinburgh
- Project: Alterations to Chambers Street Building
- Year of completion: design in progress
- Client: National Museums of Scotland
- Project Value: £21.5m
- Architect: Gareth Hoskins Architects
The Masterplan was initiated by the National Museums of Scotland to review the existing buildings and collections and to suggest alterations to take the Museum and its collections into the 21st Century. This was the first major review since the last phase of building in the 1970's. The original building (built in two main phases from 1859 to 1875) was supplemented later by extensions to the south. The last of these was the education and theatre block built in the 1960's. The main major intervention suggested was to create two new entrance portals at street level (basement level in the museum) forming a reception/support services area, allowing upper level access to be reformed and enhanced by cutting a bold new route from the grand gallery rising to the rear. The main structural issues involved in creating the basement access include heavy temporary works to prop the existing stone barrel vaults and main external elevation prior to inserting new columns, all whilst lowering the existing floor and foundation level. New gallery spaces are suggested at high level to the rear which will be designed to higher floor loadings to allow the Museum to host temporary international-class exhibitions.
