Public view for design at British Galleries

Designs by three consultancies working on this year’s biggest museum project, the V&A’s £31m British Galleries, will be unveiled on Thursday at the galleries’ official opening.

The work includes Casson Mann’s exhibition designs, Rose-Innes Associates’ £500 000 graphics and Oyster Partners’ interactive display work, worth £485 000. Casson Mann refuses to disclose its fee.

Casson Mann won the exhibition design work in 1996 after responding to an Official Journal pitch with 1000 words on how it envisioned the project.

Oyster Partners was appointed in March 1999 to design interactive terminals for the galleries, designed to ‘enrich visitors’ museum-going experiences’, a spokeswoman for Oyster says.

It won a competitive EU pitch involving 50 consultancies, which lasted four-and-a-half months.

Rose-Innes Associates is responsible for designing all graphics in the galleries, which had to complement Casson Mann’s work.

Its three-year design work was won after a three-way, unpaid creative pitch, as well as on the strength of the group’s ‘track record in museum design’, says partner Grita Rose-Innes. Its typographic strategy was to create a ‘timeless graphic language’ as well as incorporate Braille, she adds.

The British Galleries will display over 3000 objects from between the years 1500 to 1900 across 15 galleries over two floors.