Museum gains a historical Insight

The National Museum of Photography Film & Television is launching what it claims to be a unique facility that will allow academics, researchers and members of the public to handle archived historic material.

The Insight facility opens on 30 November. The entrance, branding, graphics and touch-screen facilities were designed by Imelda Kay, then the museum’s head of design, who has since left to set up K Studio. The facility has been built in what used to be the Kodak Gallery and part of a former car park.

It is made up of a central area with four study cubicles off it and a large operational space.

The temperature-controlled stores for large and small objects house artefacts and technology that encompass the history and development of photography, cinematography and television, including three million photographs.

Kay says the brief was ‘to create an exciting place’ and that the photo montages that decorate the entrance are designed to ‘fill you with anticipation’.