Eating drinking and digging
This week our builders carefully took down the children’s bas relief sculpture from Brunel’s caisson. This is where the new doorway will go, and though I know everything will go back again in the New...
View ArticleBreaking the chain!
A downward path has been excavated, and I tweet a picture. The modern concrete render (who put that there?) projects out at the corner of each facet, and below we can now see the round of the brickwork...
View ArticleThis is the Way In
The new entrance is made and the view from the doorway down and across the void is just breathtaking! I have entered the underground chamber many many times, but always through the tiny hobbit hole,...
View ArticleJanuary News: Wassail, Miss Julie, New Entrance to the Shaft
Every month we send an e-newsletter to our subscribers with sneaky peaks, tidbits and event reminders. Once the newsletter has gone out we then post the text as a blog for everyone to read (see below)...
View ArticleMuseums and Wellbeing
There is no evidence that Brunel had problems with mental health, except of course in almost everything he did! And the utterly brilliant Professor Michael Faraday suffered from dementia towards the...
View ArticleHappy Birthday Brunel!
This Saturday 9th April is Brunel’s 210th birthday and I am leading a special boat trip to look at all things Brunel in London. No need to book, just turn up 10.45am Embankment tube station ready to...
View ArticleIsambard Kingdom Brunel: A Victorian Frank Lloyd Wright
Today I fly to Chicago returning to the UK on the 7 June for a whirlwind lecture tour with English Speaking Union as part of the Evelyn Wrench Speaker Program. I shall be blogging and tweeting my...
View ArticleAmerican Lecture Tour
Chicago welcomes me with a biting wind and a rain storm. It could be London. Chicago’s elevated railway, The Loop, which is as wonderful as it is famous, is also very exposed. Construction in 1897 was...
View ArticleNotes from America
Cleveland is home of the world famous orchestra and Severance Hall, America’s most beautiful concert hall. I enjoy Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 and Stravinsky The Firebird, and afterwards there is...
View ArticleFlash messages of peace and goodwill between two kindred nations
By Amtrak the journey to West Palm Beach, Florida takes 26 hours. I have been warned against the railways by my American hosts, but this is the Silver Meteor and I cannot resist such train journeys. I...
View ArticleDirector’s Diary
Did you ever wonder what it is like to run a small museum? I am starting a weekly blog: a mixture of notices and news, hopes, anxieties and declarations. I should say that I don’t lead all the walks,...
View ArticleDirector’s diary 09/10/16
Did you ever wonder what it is like to run a small museum? I am starting a weekly blog: a mixture of notices and news, hopes, anxieties and declarations. I should say that I don’t lead all the walks,...
View ArticleDirector’s diary 16/10/16
The week ended with some turbulence, and on an interesting note! Our Leverhulme artist in residence is preparing a sound installation in the Grand Entrance Hall, a space which is acoustically very...
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Director’s Diary: America – a loose connection
I am sorry this blog is late. My flight to Tampa, Florida was not without incident, but I am safely on board Norwegian Cruise Line’s ship Jade with two thousand passengers. The ship seems huge and many...
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Director’s Diary: Atlantic crossings
I cannot quite explain my nervousness as we sail from Miami. With a stop at the Azores it will take the ship nine days to cross the Atlantic. The flight is only nine hours, but the distance is the same...
View ArticleDirector’s Diary: Kingdom for a bicycle
The exceptional weather has had a benign effect on Museum activities and visitor numbers this week. As part of London Festival of Architecture, we hosted a debate on Re-usable Buildings and our...
View ArticleDirector’s Diary: Concerted efforts
This week the Fourth Choir concert sold out for Tudor music in the suitably vaulted Grand Entrance Hall. Children from Bowhill Primary enjoyed meeting Brunel in Person and the heritage boat trips were...
View ArticleDirector’s Diary: Howlett’s birthday Pin Up
Happy 186th Birthday Robert Howlett, photographer extraordinaire, born this day! This is the man who snapped IK Brunel on the Isle of Dogs in 1857 and so created the image that fuelled the myth that...
View ArticleDirector’s Diary: Brunel’s Nursery Garden
This week ended Brunel Museum’s fifteenth Summer Playscheme . The children had a good time with craft workshops and in play and ended with a rousing Thames Tunnel Fancy Fair performance for parents,...
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Director’s Diary: Galleria, Ferroviale and the wrong kind of air
I am in Italy, and thinking of Brunel. The tube holds no fears for me, but tunnels under the Alps are just a bit too long for complete peace of mind. Surely we must come out of the darkness soon? This...
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