Dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum
Client: Natural History Museum, London.
Project: Dinosaur Gallery.
Collaborators: Imagination (Design), Ron Heron (an Archigram Architect), NHM Team.
This was our very first museum project, back in 1993, developed with lead architect Ron Heron and the design agency Imagination. It remains a landmark in the history of museum design and is only now being redisplayed after more than 25 years.
Our interpretation strategy started with a simple question: “Are dinosaurs like creatures living today?”
The best minds and latest research came together to tell this story with technology and animatronics, alongside accessible writing and graphics.
What was put before the public, including the first Iguanadon fossil ever found, changed the narrative about dinosaurs told in modern museums.
This benchmark in museum interpretation is still the Natural History Museum’s star attraction and has been visited by over 70 million people.
Tim Gardom also co-authored the ‘Natural History Museum: Book of Dinosaurs’, reviewed here in the New Scientist (1993), now in its 5th edition and published in over 20 languages, it was ‘approved’ by the Arkansas Educational Resource Initiative for Evolution and Arkansas Paleontology hereis 2015.
The world famous Dinosaur Spine walkway
The gallery changed the way institutions and educators talk to the public about dinosaurs
Dramatic, new ways of understanding dinosaurs emerged
Animatronics brought the animals to life
Using interactives as a tool for natural history storytelling
Linking the worlds of the present and the distant past
The NHM Dinosaur book, still a bestseller after 20 years