The London Museum will become the world’s biggest city museum when it reopens later this year
The museum will have three separate spaces, including Past Time(Image: Secchi Smith)
The new London Museum is to begin opening its doors this winter after a decade-long refurbishment of Smithfield’s iconic Victorian General Market.
The world’s largest city museum will welcome visitors to its permanent galleries from November 28, with London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan saying the project “is proof that our city is the cultural capital of the world”.
The London Museum shut the doors to its former home on London Wall by the Barbican in 2022 due to concerns over limited space for its collection. Its move to Smithfield has been years in the making, with both the General Market and the adjacent Poultry Market set to become its new base.
The Poultry Market is expected to open in 2028, and will showcase the museum’s collection stores, exhibitions and learning spaces. The General Market, which has been empty and left to decay since traders moved out in the 1990s, is however set to throw open its doors later this year.
At a briefing this morning (Thursday) London Museum Director Sharon Ament said: “I couldn’t think of a better place to be than in this great building. It’s remarkable, and soon you will see just how remarkable it is.”
The £437 million project has been delivered via a partnership between the City of London Corporation and the Mayor of London, with support from backers including The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Designed by Stanton Williams and Asif Khan, alongside conservation architects Julian Harrap, the General Market will consist of three distinct spaces: Real Time, Our Time and Past Time.
Real Time is to display “big data, shown in marvellous ways”, Ms Ament said, capturing London as it exists today. Our Time is to be the museum’s social hub, with a large space for events anchored by 13 installations.
Activities are planned to run day and night, delivered with partners including Fabric nightclub and Morley’s chicken shop, with restaurants, shops and shows lining the perimeter of the space.
Guest Editors will be invited to orchestrate the uses of Our Time, with its inaugural programme, London Tastes, to be run by Ruby Tandoh and Jonathan Nunn.
Below ground Past Time is to host a series of permanent displays offering “a compelling overview of London’s history”.
Some displays have already been confirmed, including the Whitechapel Fatberg, Banksy’s Piranhas artwork and Charles I’s execution vest.
Past Time, which is located at Roman Street level, is also where visitors will find one of the museum’s most intriguing designs. There, among the galleries detailing the capital’s history, a six-metre viewing window will allow people to watch live Thameslink trains pass by, with passengers similarly able to peer into the refurbished site.
Ms Ament said she likes to think of Past Time as “an all you can eat wedding buffet that you cannot consume in one go, so you have to keep coming back. It’s object rich, and very illuminating in terms of the histories of London”.
Speaking on the refurbishment of the General Market, Paul Williams, Lead Architect at Stanton Williams, said: “It’s not just a container for objects, but it’s a space where people get to interact with each other, and an arena for public life. This museum, it sort of has everything. It’s got a building that in its own right, even without the objects, is going to be hugely uplifting and moving.”
Deputy Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman at the City of London Corporation, said with more than two millennia of history, “London’s story must be told. And we’re telling it here in the Square Mile.”
Describing the site as a “must-visit destination”, he said: “The museum will hold over 7 million objects in its collection, 7 million connections to our past, and to the lives that have shaped it. Nothing anywhere matches what visitors will see and experience in the London Museum.”
Sir Sadiq paid particular tribute to the sign from the first ever Morley’s shop which will be on display once the museum opens.
“This is not just a museum about London,” he said. “It’s a museum shaped by Londoners. And it’s the latest proof that our city is the cultural capital of the world. I’d encourage all of you to come to Smithfield and experience it for yourselves.”
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