FAITH MUSEUM WINS AT BUILDING BEAUTY AWARDS

November 2024

Faith Museum for The Auckland Project named 'Britain's Most Beautiful New Building', picking up the Grand Winner and Building Award at the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust's Building Beauty Awards 2024. The awards were presented by His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester at a dinner in London on 21st November.

The Faith Museum is an extension to the Grade I listed Castle and is sited along the line of a medieval retaining wall of the original castle complex. It houses an exhibition of faith in Britain and an environmentally controlled art store.

The Royal Fine Art Commission Trust Building Beauty Awards were launched in 2021 and celebrate the best buildings, engineering structures and urban landscaping schemes that add beauty to Britain.

Further information available here

Natural History Museum Progress

March 2017

Below are some from the Natural History Museum site showing the scaffold ‘tunnel’ going up at the Museum. This is the framework required to lift, manipulate, and move the blue whale skull into position in a few weeks.

Though the main hall has had a sperm whale in it before, this was only around 15m long. In contrast, the blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed, is about 30m long once assembled.

Unfortunately, due to the various extensions and alterations to the Museum over time, the skull can only come in via the front doors. And – much like a very large, very heavy, very valuable sofa – it’s a case of squeezing it in at strange angles.