RFA wins brief for £150k show at Coventry Transport Museum

Coventry Transport Museum has appointed Richard Fowler Associates to design a £150 000 permanent exhibition about the decline of the city’s car industry since the 1980s.

Halifax-based RFA claims that it beat about four other consultancies in a creative pitch to win the contract two weeks ago.

The museum gave RFA a detailed brief put together with help from a group of design students at Salford University, whom the museum had approached for ideas.
One idea that made it into the brief is for the gallery to be papered in blown-up images of newspaper reports about factory closures (pictured).

‘Part of the brief was to get the message across that some people blame the demise of Coventry’s mass car manufacturing sector on the unions, while others blame it on management, so we needed a design that gave the visitor the opportunity to decide for themselves what went on,’ says CTM chief executive Gary Hall.

The exhibition will also feature a range of interactive installations. Hall reports that the museum is still in the process of selecting an interactives specialist.

The show’s current working title is Ghost Town, after Coventry band The Specials’ song about the city’s industrial decline.

RFA has worked for the museum before, completing the Motorcycle Gallery in 2006 and the Boomtown Galleries in 2007.