Rebirth of Victorian-era museum to create new 'world-class' attraction revealed

New-look for Paisley Museum takes shape ahead of reopening

It has been a striking town centre landmark for more than 150 years.

Now the lid has been lifted on a multi-million cultural project to create a new “world-class” Scottish visitor attraction.

When Paisley Museum reopens next year it will be reinvented as a modern-day museum – complete with a sleek red glass-covered entrance, digital displays, exhibition galleries showcasing more than twice as many objects as before, a landscaped garden, indoor and outdoor event spaces, and a.café-restaurant boasting indoor and outdoor seating.

Kirsty Devine, director of the Paisley Museum Reimagined project, on the site of its new extension.

All levels of the Victorian-era museum, which was last open to the public in 2018, will be connected to a new “west wing” extension opening onto the garden, which will allow open previously hidden views between Paisley High Street and Scotland's oldest public observatory, which is being restored and reopened as part of the project.

It will explore the town’s globally-significant heritage as a weaving and textiles hub, drawing from its unrivalled collection of “Paisley pattern” shawls, as well as textile production equipment, the museum’s extensive archive of ceramics, astronomy equipment and fine art.

The new-look museum, which will offer full “step free” access inside and outside the building, will also be the culmination of a long-term vision to breathe new life into Paisley town centre by investing more than £100 million across four separate projects.

Originally proposed as part of a cultural regeneration strategy for Paisley a bid to become a UK “city of culture” was being developed, the full programme will also see the rebirth and reinvention of its town hall, arts centre and library over the next year.

The new 'garden gallery' extension to Paisley Museum will look out new green spaces being created beside the cultural attraction.

However the scale and ambition of the museum’s reinvention alone has prompted those spearheading the ongoing work to describe it as “Scotland’s biggest cultural heritage project.”

The Scotsman was invited on a guided tour of the construction site a year ahead of the rebirth of the museum, which was originally funded by Sir Peter Coats, the Paisley-born thread manufacturer and philanthropist, and opened in 1871.

Work is well underway on the new entrance hall and the adjacent west wing, which will include a garden gallery overlooking the landscaped green spaces which are currently taking shape. Restoration work is also being carried out at the Coats Osservatory, which was originally paid for by Thomas Coats, Sir Peter’s brother, and opened in 1883.

Painstaking work is being carried out to preserve and restore the original building’s architectural features, while the project will see public access open up to many of its rooms and spaces for the first time, while the museum will be filled with much more daylight than before.

Kirsty Devine is director of the Paisley Museum Reimagined project.

Nearly 1300 objects will be going on display throughout the museum after its ongoing transformation, with the whole site hoped to become “a cultural hub of discovery, skills development, creativity and innovation.”

Project director Kirsty Devine said: “The came out of the cultural regeneration strategy The Untold Story, which really explored the opportunities to look at the cultural richness of the area.

“We started developing the project in 2017 and have been working with our architects and exhibition designers for the last five years.

"We’re now about half-way on site through the build process, which will be completed later this year, when we will begin the fit-out work.

An image of what the new 'garden gallery' at Paisley Museum will look like.

"A lot of the key changes we’re making will be to the building itself. It will be much more open and accessible in future, with a number of new spaces. The project has been a real opportunity to look at our entire collection and bring a lot more of it out on display.

"We will have more than double the number of objects on display and I think people will be really surprised to see the scale and quality of the collections that we have – everything from fine art and ceramics to world cultures, social history, science and technology.

Renfrewshire Council is meeting more than half the cost of the Paisley Museum Reimagined project, which is also backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Scottish Government.

Ms Devine said: “We felt there was also an opportunity to rethink and redefine what a museum is. We were very clear from the start of the project that if we were going to do that really well we would have to work with local communities.

"We worked with 70 organisations to ask them what they want from a museum, how we interpret the stories we tell and what kind of experience they want to have here.”

Architect Amanda Levete, whose firm is leading the design work, believes it will “show the world how an ambitious cultural project can have a profound impact on a community and its identity.”

Paisley Museum will boast a new main entrance when an extension and refurbishment is completed next year.

Ms Devine added: "I think the project is going to be really culturally and architecturally significant in Scotland. We spent a year writing a brief before appointing AL_A as our main architects. They spent months with us working through all of the requirements of the brief before developing the design.

“I think the scale and ambition of the project is really obvious as you move around the various spaces,

“We sometimes refer to the new extension onto the side of the historic building as the power pack, as it is sort of re-energising the galleries. It will give the museum a cafe for the first time, which will look into the amazing new garden that is being created. People will be able to come here if they want to meet their friends and have a coffee or sit in the garden and read a book.

“The museum plays a really critical role in the lifeblood of Paisley. It’s not just a building at the end of the High Street. It’s very much part of the town’s wider cultural offer.

"We’ve really tried to work with local people to make sure that this is going to be a building that they feel ownership of.”