First look inside England's new Titanic museum

On 19/12/2009
In Museum News
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By Peter Law - The Daily Echo

The final plans for Southampton's £15m Sea City Museum can today be exclusively unveiled. The museum, which will reshape the city's Civic Centre forever, is expected to attract 150,000 visitors a year.

The Daily Echo can reveal a dramatic cruise-liner inspired extension which will be the largest museum display area in Hampshire.

Known as "The Pavilion", Southampton City Council hopes it will bring international blockbuster exhibitions to the city for the first time.

The old magistrates' courts will be transformed into two permanent exhibitions, titled "Southampton's Titanic Story" and "Gateway to the World".

Southampton's Titanic story will be told through the eyes of the crew and community to which they belonged.

"We have taken time to research other commemorative displays and museums to understand how we could take a tragic subject matter and make it engaging, informative and respectful," Caroline Keppel-Palmer, from museum designers Urban Salon, said.

"Our focus is to focus on the human stories surrounding the disaster, rather than the event itself and we also focus on Southampton in 1912 and life in the merchant navy at the turn of the century."