New Museum: Temporary Closure

In this video, Western Australian Museum CEO Alec Coles explains why the Western Australian Museum is closing.

Transcript

We’re developing a New Museum for Western Australia here in the Perth Cultural Centre because we want to create a Museum that’s owned, used and valued by all Western Australians and admired by the world.

We believe that WA deserves that, and we’ve got so many extraordinary stories to tell in this State, we want the world to hear them.

We believe this is one of the most significant museum redevelopments in the world today. It’s got a value of over 400 million Australian dollars. So it’s a huge project, and in order to make it happen we’re going to have to close this site and pass it over to a contractor.

That means the Museum will be closed for something like four years. Over that period we have to get all the collections off site so they’ll be safe and won’t be affected by the significant development that will be happening here. It also means it would be quite unsafe for people to visit, so that’s why we have to close it.

But the good news is the WA Museum is not one museum, it is many sites. We’ve got another five sites that will be enhancing their programs – two in Fremantle, one in Kalgoorlie, one in Geraldton and one in Albany. Over that period you’ll be able to visit all those museums and they’ll be doing great things, but at the same time you’ll see the WA Museum popping up in all kinds of unexpected places.

So don’t think for a minute that we’ve gone away, as we plan for a very big future.