"National Army Museum to close for 2 years" Topic

I wonder how the National Army Museum in Chelsea (you know, the one with the Sibourne model, the captured Eagles from Waterloo, and a priceless archive of documents for serious researchers) will celebrate the bicentenial of Waterloo?

And I wonder what it will be doing over the next couple of years during this centenary of World War 1?

Oh, I know, lets ing close for 2 years for "refurbishment". Well done top management – great ing bit of planning there.

Utter s.

I agree with your sentiments entirely even with the bleeps.

What goes on in the minds of such decision makers?

Oh crap! I am thinking about travelling to UK and Europe for the 200th anniversary of Waterloo. NAM was high on my list of must-sees, since I've not been there since 1981 and I understand they've improved the place since then. For example, no Siborne diorama in 1981.

This is, indeed, unbelievably stupid timing. Except that I work for government, where there is no stupidity that cannot be believed.

Yes this is foolish. That is a great museum and I loved my visit to it in London :( Do you think they might move the WW1 to the Imperial War Museum?

Mind you having visited the IWM last summer during its refurbishment I think a shorter total closure rather than a longer partial one might be better in the long run. Visiting the IWM last year was a disaster as all the shiny good bits were locked away so for me it might as well have been shut.

Strange though, that this wasn't done before the 2014/15 celebrations. I can only assume that the IWM is done for the start of the Great war anniversary and the NAM is up and running for the second half of the war centenaries. They probably forgot all about Waterloo….

They are doing the refurb now they have the money, and will close once the IWM reopens.

The govt etc didn't give them the money before, so complain at them not NAM.

No doubt some clever management type with an MBA thought it was a good idea…..

No doubt some clever management type with an MBA thought it was a good idea…

Yeah, someone who didn't even think to consider traffic patterns changing during major event anniversaries!

*facepalm*

Ah!… The MBA…The degree that never was.

A few years ago, I was talking to one of the staff at another of London's Great Attractions, the Imperial War Museum, (The IWM). Which was about to be closed to undergo a period of refurbishment, apparently the "New" director was considering a re-branding exercise with a change of name, and that re-brand would remove all references to "WAR"

The IWM has at least in part re opened… (No I have not dared to go back yet!)

May the good lord preserve us from the well-intentioned idiots of this world.

rabbit

The NAM is great, not only the Siborne model but Picton's top hat and the musket ball that killed him. It beggars belief that it will be closed on the 200th anniversary. How about a petition to the Govt? All we need is 100,000 signatures, then it will be debated in Parliament.

The time to petition was 6 years ago when they were fundraising. It is no good being ratty now. The NAM closed for refurb that it badly needed as soon as the money to do it was their. Delaying two years would have meant they had to raise half as much again….

Fair point…but increased donations from visitors during 2015 might have helped with that.

It was Picton's hat, but not the Waterloo one! The caption said it was Peninsular (odd that!) and the hole was in the wrong place to have killed him…….The ball was right though.

I am just glad to have heard. Everytime I visit a museum, it is the same. La Musee de L'Armee, for years, closed 1814-1870s bit for refurbishment, plus the room with mounted mannekins…….I was livid. Back many times since though.

Funny though. I thought NAM looked like a very modern set up (it is!). What refurbishment that closes it for two years?

The "Musée de l'Armée" in Paris does part refurbishments… almost all the time.
It means it never closes completely (except December 25th, January 1st, or so).
It also means that whenever you go there there's almost always a part of it that is closed… (and I never check before so it's often the part that I wanted to visit)…

I thought something was wrong at the NAM when a few years ago the wonderful 18th Century gallery closed to make way for a children's play area.

As Rapier Mins says; the funding has only recently been made available from the Govt for the commemoration of WW1, so they have a very tight timescale in which to do the refurbishment before the centennial commemorations expire.

La Musee d'Armee is a vastly bigger complex – each of the three wings is bigger than the entire NAM, with entirely separate entranceways. Thus they tend to close one wing at a time, while the very compact NAM does not have that luxury.

I was at the La Musee d'Armee last week. The whole thing was open. And I was so impressed by what I saw.

Whew, I was glad to be able to visit NAM last October. Didn't get to see IWM though since I knew about the closure for WW1 centennial, and my trip's schedule was already packed tight.

On a related note, on that same October trip I also went down to Portsmouth, and only to find out the RN museum had closed an entire wing – the main one that covers everything 20th century and on – for a new exhibit. Even my wife was disappointed.

Even HMS Victory was in the middle of a refurbishment cycle and had most of her top deck closed off and I didn't get to see the spot where Nelson was shot. Most of her top masts were taken down too.

Well said by you all, and you have said it all- And I am bothered because my first trip to London to visit my brother will be smack in the 'refurbishment'.
I believe this can all be explained by my simple, yet globally applicable 'Stupid People Theory'. This theory is stated:

Human Beings, as an evolving species, are both highly aware/intelligent and unaware/unintelligent at the same time, due to the evoloution of the species, the difference being both a product of the environment in which the organisims are developed, and the environment in which they are nurtured.

Awareness is defined as 'an understanding of the dynamics that shape the world of a particular humans experience', and intelligence is defined as 'the capacity to both learn and plan based on that experience'.

Unaware/ unintelligent is defined as the inability to do either of the above.

Successes by the species are produced by the former, and failures by the latter.

Examples of the aware/intelligent include all SAS officers and Steve Coogan.

Examples of the unaware/unintelligent include most American network television producers and any North Korean 'leader'.

And the Douche Nozzle that signed off on the refurbishment.

Love your examples, so precise. Works for me :-)

WB,

The Musee d'Armee has had wings closed successively over a rolling programme of upgrades for the last decade or so. As mentioned above, each wing was closed for a couple of years for upgrades, while the other wings remained open. This is essentially no different to what the NAM is doing, as explained above. The whole thing is open now, though two of the three wings of the Musee des Plans-Reliefs (in the attic) were still closed when I was last there last year.

The Musee d'Armee is the best war museum I have been to outside the Australian War Memorial. The French have done a fantastic job.

I heard some time ago that the final phase of the Musee de l'Armee refurbishment programme would be the opening of galleries covering 'les petits soldats et musique militaire' but I've heard nothing about it since then.

@Wargamer Blue.

Try the Army Museum in Vienna(Fantastic place) I took my ex-wife there while we were on honeymoom!! :)

When we visited Paris on a family holiday some years ago the bit of the Musee d'Armee showing the Napoleonic section was closed! I could have cried.

Not on the same scale as the Musee d'Armee (where is?) but a great place in its own right and still pretty large, is the Spanish National Army Museum in Toledo.

Great exhibits and fabulous combination of modern architecture into existing historical buildings.

NAM annouced:
"A further programme of outreach activities is planned for 2015 to commemorate the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo."

Q: Are National Army Museums inversely proportional in size to the number of wars they have participated in (& won)?

BTW the refurbished Bavarian Army Museum at Ingolstad is also well worth the trip.

Never liked the NAM anyway! Nor most museums with modern/recent refurbishments. A great display of a "standard" Brown Bess. Well, I know what a "standard" Brown Bess looks like. I want to see the oddballs! Museums were much better when they had everything they could possibly put out on display. Seems to have gone the way of the dodo and good lighting and lots of space for easy maintenance seems to be the order of the day.

marhallken…I sympathise…..M de L'A is brilliant but does not tell you what is closed….till you have paid to enter. At its best, it is unbeatable. Brussels Museum is good…..although tends to concentrate on their history after Belgium actually existed of course!

Have you seen the N.A.M. (I do not mean a certain SE Asia country) website, ? I have just posted something as a comment about what bull…t they are speaking. I love an interactive, blue sky thinking, ongoing, interface, embracing, stakeholder-participant, engagement dialogue as the next bloke (well maybe not after 38 years in our UK NHS)…..but.

I blame our rebel colonists for what they did to the English language and to management newspeak (mind you Orwell was not a US citizen, I do admit). At least my lot had a war of independence and then did absolutely nothing for at least 60 years, other than export our offspring.

Mserfarin, do you know about the "outreach" (that phrase again) museum in Leeds which houses Siborne's second diorama? The larger scale figures from the charge of the Union Brigade?

Actually NAM was never brilliant for Napoleonics. Let's face it, there is not that much preserved worldwide, (or at least in NW Europe) surprisingly. They had an eagle, some very good mannekins, "The lock off the Gates of Hougoumont" (odd that), a hat worn by Picton but not the hat etc etc. Many a regimental museum could rival it for that period. I truly believe it will emerge transformed…I really do.

Have you seen the saucers……..(Grace Slick)?

Museums were much better when they had everything they could possibly put out on display.

If you want to see walls of muskets, then type "musket" into Google Image Search. The whole point of changing out exhibits every ten years or so is to have a standardized and efficient method of updating instead of swapping out objects and text panels one at a time. That way, (1) the museum can apply the latest in educational theories and museum trends and most recent research on the subject; (2) the objects can be taken out from display and placed back into storage since objects deteriorate over time from light exposure and gases and particulates from the outdoors; (3) exhibit materials that get worn down over the course of a decade or so can be replaced with fresh materials like new text panels and fresh plexiglas or intact glass. They cannot display everything at once because that leaves nothing to swap out, and everything suffers from light damage. And many more reasons. Museums are educational institutions, and have to be updated like textbooks. Old exhibits are interesting for a study of historiography, but otherwise do not help. If their goal is to introduce military history to school children, that would be better facilitated through an intense explanation of the common materials, not a wall-to-wall display of hundreds of guns with no context or information. Sure, it does not look too good to close during an anniversary but it has to be done unless they do rolling refurbishments of one room at a time. Which is not always permissible, as there could be newly discovered asbestos or a pervasive pest problem requiring complete closing. There is always an event having an anniversary, so they just have to suck it up and get working.

I liked the National Army museum – and it was on my must list, whenever I was in London, especially one of the Guards barracks was or still is – nearby and I could them watch drilling for the Queens birthday parade, which I found very entertaining.

As having done a bit reasearch in the past, I hate it when museums hide some of their best stuff in the "reserves" – which you can access only by special permission.

I agree that museums should be educational institutions but for me they a graveyards of treasures

Chelsea Barracks is no more… :( Being beasted about in barrack dress, woolly pulley and bearskin cap was … fun?

I'm of the old school: Lots of stuff with little tags telling what they are. interpretation is what parents are for. Those big placards with lots of words tend to end up parroting whatever the current morality is rather than providing appropriate historical context.

Chelsea Barracks is no more… :( Being beasted about in barrack dress, woolly pulley and bearskin cap was … fun?

If you couldn't take a joke and all that Ben ;-)

Back on topic, as has been mentioned earlier, the NAM has to rely on external funding for this sort of project. Indeed it was a lack of funding that scuppered plans for the National Army Museum North in Catterick garrison. Recent popular (and hence political) interest in the Great War has freed up long sought after lottery money. So it's not that the NAM has poor timing, but that it is taking advantage of a fleeting opportunity for funding. Again as has been mentioned, plans are in place for WWI celebrations and activities being planned for the Hundred Days anniversary next year. Still why let the truth get in the way of a good old character assassination of the NAM management.

As an aside, I wonder how many hooves Marengo had. The NAM claim to have the full skeleton, but I know that one hoof is used as a snuff box in St. James' Palace Officers' Mess…

I actually quite liked there being a children's play area because being right next to the cafe and the shop it was a good place to dump the wife and kids to amuse them long enough for me to have a walk round.

The biggest problem people like me have selling this sort of museum to the wife is that "the kids and I will be bored". In my experience, providing something to entertain this type of reluctant visitor goes a long way. Bovington likewise needs a kiddy indoor climbing frame themed on a 1930s multi-turreted tank and ideally an outdoor space too.

A number of UK museums are just rather pointless and unengaging hangars full of machinery, with very little to bring them to life in the way of stories about who lived and fought in them.

Bovington used to have a great outdoors kiddies' play area, with real tank turrets (Chieftain and Conway) siting on the ground for them to play in and some other stuff that is probably now considered an insurance liability… It was all bulldozed to make way for the new arena.

I have no objection in principle to a museum having a children's play area but I do question whether it was right to provide one at the cost of sacrificing access to a key part of the collection; especially given the current interest in the 'Lace Wars'. I'd add that Kids are not invariably bored by museums, especially if they have a good guide i.e., their Dad!

I have just seen that the NAM have been give £11.50 GBP milion
from the Heritage Lottery Fund, for a building for the future project.

Lord Hill

I can find no referance to the NAM closing for 2 years

Can you let me know your source ?

Mac

Spontoon – good lighting is not a priority for museums generally; they mostly prefer to get specially well-paid experience-free arty-twatts to 'design' the lighting with very little regard for either visibility or the damage that ill-considered lighting can do to exhibits. Libraries tend to me much the same I'm afraid.

The entire refurb programme is scheduled to last two years, but bits of the museum wil reopen later this year.

link

Marin

Thanks for that link

Mac

Well, lets face it – the British are such a bellicose nation that it would probably be hard to find a "good" time to close the Museum – but at least the IWM is managing to re-open after their re-development at the end of July this year.

The touring exhibition / outreach programme don't sound very ambitious at a time when interest in WWI (and next year Waterloo) are likely to be at their height amongst the general public – I'd have thought that if you wanted to publicise the NAM more widely around the country now is the time to get all your relevant stuff out of storage and put on display. But I suppose it is a lack of money once again.

I think it is more a question of, "here is the money for the refurb, use it or lose it".

I think it is more a question of, "here is the money for the refurb, use it or lose it".

That seems very likely. When it comes to grants and foundations, they typically do not want the funds to be spent on anything other than the requested usage, at the risk of having to pay back the funds or be blacklisted.

Spontoon – good lighting is not a priority for museums generally; they mostly prefer to get specially well-paid experience-free arty-twatts to 'design' the lighting with very little regard for either visibility or the damage that ill-considered lighting can do to exhibits. Libraries tend to me much the same I'm afraid.

It depends on the institution. Most I've been in use track lighting that is adjusted by staff, but not all. (I'm looking at you, Kimbell.). The fancy, damaging light seems to be primarily from high-cost architects who have no understanding of safe exhibit practices, while smaller museums tend to be more responsible.

Well, lets face it – the British are such a bellicose nation that it would probably be hard to find a "good" time to close the Museum – but at least the IWM is managing to re-open after their re-development at the end of July this year.

Harsh, but fundamentally fair ;-)

DO not fear … Legionary is open for ONE DAY THIS YEAR 2014 … and every year: legionaryshow.co.uk/?cat=23

plans are in place for WWI celebrations and activities being planned for the Hundred Days anniversary next year. Still why let the truth get in the way of a good old character assassination of the NAM management.

Let's wait and see what those "activities" amount to, shall we?
Besides, it's from a researcher's point of view that I find it most disgraceful – in the year leading up to the bicentenary they decide to close the NAM's archive and reading room? Well that's great, thanks. And no, it's not "just another battle/just another anniversary".

They currently vaguely promise that "some access" to the archive is planned "later in the year". Again, I'm not holding my breath.

So, no, I certainly won't be letting those facts get in the way of my opinion of NAM's unbelievable management.