Science City

SCIENCE MUSEUM
COMPLETED 2019 - LONDON

London Science City Gallery is a new permanent gallery situated on the second floor of the Science Museum. Greenway Associates are proud to have worked on Science City, which opened in summer 2019, and is intended to run for 25 years. Science City invites visitors to explore how science shaped London from 1550-1800, and how London grew from a lively capital city to a global hub for trade, commerce, and scientific enquiry during this period.

OUR ROLE

Greenway Associates provided cost planning, procurement and post-contract cost control advice for the exhibition.

SCIENCE CITY - THE PROJECT

Covering over 650 square metres in The Linbury Gallery, the gallery design creates an abstract city-scape that immerses the visitor in a contemporary interpretation of historic London. The gallery features large semi-transparent steel mesh structural displays, that draw influence from the shapes of the typical architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries. Many have duo-pitched tops and stepped fronts. According to designer Gitta Gschwendtner, “The ghostly mesh houses start off almost black in 1550, by 1800 the Georgian inspired structures are light grey, reflecting the Enlightenment through science.”

The display also spotlights moments of brilliance during this time, such as the observation of previously unidentified planets, the identification of underlying physical principles of the universe, the carrying out of experiments and increasingly precise measurement techniques. Across this time period, science itself changed, and became closer to what we associate with modern science today. The exhibition reveals how science was in fact, at the heart of Londons culture.

SCIENCE CITY - THE DETAILS

Client: Science Museum
Designer: Gitta Gschwendtner
Main Contractor: Factory Settings
Engineers: Webb Yates
QS: Greenway Associates
Area: 650m2
Completed: 2019