Longlist announced for £100 000 Art Fund Prize

The Wedgwood Museum, which tells the story of the historic ceramics company which recently went into administration, is in the running for this year’s Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries.

The Stoke-on-Trent museum, designed by architect Hulme Upright Manning, is up against nine competitors for the £100 000 prize, including the Sackler Centre at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, designed by architect Softroom, and the Ruthin Craft Centre in Wales, designed by architect Sergison Bates.

Also on the list are: The Braid arts centre in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, designed by Consarc, with exhibition design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates; The Centre for New Enlightenment at Kelvingrove in Glasgow, created by a team led by Dutch design group Northern Light; the Scotland, a Changing Nation gallery at the National Museum of Scotland, by Haley Sharpe Design; and the National Trust Museum of Childhood in Derbyshire, designed by Lathams.

Completing the lineup are: the Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham, designed by Patel Taylor Architects; the Rotunda in Scarborough, by architect Buttress Fuller Alsop Williams and exhibition designer Event Communictions; and the Outside the Box programme at the Museum of Reading.

Film-maker David Puttnam, chairman of the judging panel, says, ‘This year’s long-list will take the judges across the length and breadth of the country, and there really is something for everyone.’

The judging panel also features Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy and journalist Mary Ann Sieghart.

A shortlist will be announced in April and the winner will be unveiled on 18 June.