Museum of Science and Industry

The redevelopment work at MOSI was inspected by one of its youngest visitors this week, when eight year-old Holly Smallbone of Sale was invited on an exclusive hard hat tour of the site with the Museum's Director, Tony Hill. 

MOSI is open for visitors but its main building is closed due to an £8million redevelopment programme to make better use of the available space and offer improved orientation for visitors. The old access ramps (designed many years ago by Ian Simpson of Hilton Manchester fame) have been removed and will be replaced with an exciting new gallery space, as well as a new and improved interactive 'Experiment' gallery, restaurant, learning and conference facilities.

Holly visited the Museum during the Easter holidays and wrote a letter to MOSI management to thank them for a great day out, but she also requested that the building work was done outside school holidays due to the disruption it caused.

MOSI Director Tony Hill wrote to Holly to explain the extent of MOSI's main building redevelopment, and his regret that due to the scale of the project it had to extend over school holidays as well as term time. He invited her to see for herself the work going on in main building and to attend the opening event in the autumn.

Tony said: "I was delighted that Holly accepted my offer to look round the main building redevelopment work. We are proud to keep MOSI open for business during the building work but I'm very conscious that it is disruptive and I think Holly spoke for a lot of our visitors. Once the work is finished we will be able to offer far improved facilities and galleries which we hope people will agree are well worth the wait and the patience."

Holly said: "When I came to MOSI before I had a great day out but I was a bit disappointed that there was building work going on in the school holidays so I couldn't go in Xperiment Gallery or leave money for the Tooth Fairy. Now Tony has shown me inside the building I understand why it is taking so long and I'm really excited to see it when it's finished - especially the new Experiment Gallery!"

The main building redevelopment project is the first phase of Revolution MOSI, the museum's ambitious development plan, which (subject to funding) will eventually include the redevelopment of the Air & Space Hall on Lower Byrom Street and a new Road Transport Gallery in Upper Campfield Market on Liverpool Road.

Funding for the project has been confirmed from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) which granted £2million, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) which granted £2million, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Garfield Weston, SITA, and a number of other trusts and foundations.

For media enquiries and pictures please contact: Sarah Roe, MOSI press and publicity officer on Tel: 0161 606 0176, m: 07847 372647.

For more details of this exciting project, click here.

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