Architect to progress £58m Liverpool museums redevelopment

A new firm has been appointed to lead the architectural design of a £58m transformation of two museums in Liverpool.Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios) has been appointed to progress redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum.The design firm will develop the proposals for the Dr Martin Luther King Jr building and the Hartley Pavilion.It will see the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building become a prominent new entrance to the International Slavery Museum. The building will be multi-functional, serving as a space for community collaboration, events, and learning and participation activity too.The Hartley Pavilion will benefit from improved circulation for visitors with enhanced commercial facilities, including a shop, café, events spaces and a dynamic temporary exhibition space.Through the redevelopment, the national collections of both museums will be elevated.Continuing to lead on the exhibition design for both museums is Ralph Appelbaum Associates, who were appointed in 2022.Laura Pye, director of National Museums Liverpool, said: “To be bringing two such visionary designers with international reputations to the project represents the bold ambition and thinking behind it. We are delighted they’re keen to embrace this as a co-production project which we feel will create something truly ground-breaking.”Partner, Kossy Nnachetta, who has been with the practice for 10 years, will lead the FCBStudios team, supported by Geoff Rich and Peter Clegg.Nnachetta said: “FCBS are excited and humbled by the invitation to join the NML team and to lead the architectural transformation of these museums. We understand that there is huge responsibility to help create a platform to tell this story, long whispered, yet still awaiting the space to fully express itself; and all the potent, deep-seated emotions it can elicit. We hope to help create something bold and yet beautiful. The result of ‘many hands’ working together with the museums and communities in Liverpool.”FCBStudios will also be working with key members of the University of Liverpool School of Architecture in facilitating the co-production of the designs.The team will include head of school, professor Ola Uduku, the school’s most recent professorial appointment, professor Ilze Wolff, who is also a distinguished South African architect and founding partner of Wolff Architects, as well as EDI specialist, architectural designer, and PhD candidate Kudzai Matsvai.Previously, FCBStudios has worked with National Museums Liverpool, completing the original masterplan for its waterfront sites in 2019. It also supported the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum Project’s bid to the National Heritage Lottery Fund Heritage Horizon Awards programme in 2020.The current project is made possible with £9.9m from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.