The Holburne Museum Revisited

In Monday's post I mentioned the recent refurbishment of the Holburne Museum had been a controversial one. A walk round the back to this view from Sydney Gardens reveals why that was so.

Personally, I love the new extension. It's bold and exciting. And the glass reflects the mood of its surroundings and thus becomes an ever changing picture. On Sunday after the rain had stopped and the sun came out, the reflection of surrounding trees danced across the new facade.

The preservers of Bath found the thought of all this far too shocking and would no doubt have preferred some kind of faux Georgian style extension to match the monstrosity (in my opinion) that forms the recently opened Southgate Shopping Centre. I'm so pleased the architect stuck to his guns, even though it meant it took 10 years for the vision to become a reality.

I took this picture at the beginning of May just as the finishing touches were being applied to the new galleries and the re-landscaped garden prior to the grand reopening. I've found this interesting piece from The Observer published a few days after I took the photo, which gives you a lot of background to the way this part of Bath was originally developed in the 18th Century plus the author's review of the new extension.

Comments

  1. Hermes21 September 2011 at 15:11

    Haven't been for some years but used to often drop into the cafe in a sort of large shed outside.

    ReplyDelete
  2. VP21 September 2011 at 16:18

    Hermes - the sort of large shed is still there :)

    The museum has a swanky new cafe - I thought it was good but rather overpriced, but then the museum's free, which made up for it.

    ReplyDelete

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