Fitzwilliam museum shortlisted for Gulbenkian prize

The University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam museum is one of the shortlisted hopefuls. It recently completed a £12M building development, creating new visitor and education facilities from redundant space. The Courtyard Development, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, has made the museum more accessible, with refurbished galleries and redisplayed collections. It competes against nine other British museums.

Six of the ten shortlisted museums, which cover the length and breadth of the British Isles, owe much to the fast-vanishing heavy industry of the UK. They include a restored pit in south Wales; the new National Railway Museum in County Durham; the reworked Transport Museum in Coventry, home of the motor industry; 19th century Back to Back housing in Birmingham; a new museum based on the fishing industry in Great Yarmouth; and a community project in north Devon centred on the local furniture manufacturer.

Nine of the ten projects have been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, demonstrating how additional funding can transform the UK’s museums and galleries.

The shortlist (in alphabetical order by city/town) is as follows:

• Museum of Barnstaple & North Devon for Shapland & Petter of Barnstaple: 150 years
• Big Pit, National Mining Museum of Wales, Blaenafon
• National Trust West Midlands for Back to Backs, Birmingham
• The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge for its Courtyard Development
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire
• Coventry Transport Museum
• Time and Tide, Museum of Great Yarmouth Life, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
• Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Art Gallery, Lochmaddy, North Uist for its Carn Chearsabhagh Project
• The Foundling Museum, London
• Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, Co Durham

Chair of Judges and Rector of Imperial College London, Sir Richard Sykes, comments:

"This year's shortlist proves again that throughout the country, museums and galleries, both large and small, are alive and well. Not only that, they are constantly looking to innovate, with new and imaginative offerings for the visiting public."

The judging panel for the 2005 Gulbenkian Prize represents a wide range of artistic, scientific and academic interests and comprises:

• Joan Bakewell CBE, broadcaster and writer
• Sir Neil Chalmers, Warden, Wadham College, Oxford and former Director of the Natural History Museum
• Michael Day, Chief Executive, Historic Royal Palaces
• Sokari Douglas Camp, sculptor
• Victoria Hislop, journalist and novelist
• Dr Elizabeth Mackenzie, Vice-Chairman, British Association of Friends of Museums

The four finalists for the 2005 prize will be announced on Friday 18th March. The winner will be announced on Thursday 26th May in London during Museum and Galleries Month 2005.

Last year’s winner was the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh for its dramatic Landform by Charles Jencks – part sculpture, part garden, part land-art. The winner of the inaugural Gulbenkian Prize in 2003 was The National Centre for Citizenship and the Law housed in the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.