How it started v How it's going - Part Two
13 May 2025
Can you remember what your workplace looked like nearly ten years ago? Now we’ve welcomed our millionth visitor, and as we prepare for what we hope will be a busy summer, we’re back with a second look at how much things have changed since we turned the former City Museum and Art Gallery, Central Library building and St Luke's church into The Box. In this post, we look at some of the spaces on our first floor as well as the exterior of our main building.
Media Lab
The gallery where we now showcase the film and photographic archives was once a space where the Cottonian Collection was displayed – complete with its memorable salmon pink walls! The Collection still has its own dedicated room which is located at the far end of the Active Archives gallery and doubles up as a research room on selected dates and times during the week. Media Lab is now a totally transformed space complete with a huge three-walled screen where you can watch archive clips and newly commissioned films inspired by the collections.
Bridge Gallery
The Bridge Gallery features a programme of changing displays linked to our exhibition programme and community engagement projects. With its impactful lightboxes, it’s a world away from the small ceramics gallery that once filled this space.
Active Archives
Active Archives runs above the main entrance, Kitchen & Bar and shop and is a space that didn’t exist before The Box was created! We started with an empty room – as you can see if you scroll through the images below – and then filled it with the ‘pods’ that regularly change with new images, documents and co-curated displays, as well as interactive elements such as our much-loved map table and Bomb Book.
Before construction work started a post-war extension at the back of the former Central Library building, the toilets on the side of the former Museum and Art Gallery, and a small, untidy garden area that sat in between them were demolished. This created the space we needed to build the main entrance, Kitchen & Bar and shop on our ground floor, the Active Archives gallery above it as well as our stores. Take a look at the images below to see how things looked when building work started.
We hope you've enjoyed our second ‘How it started v How it’s going’ summary! Take a look at our previous post about some of our ground floor galleries. Future posts will cover St Luke's church, The Box Kitchen & Bar and main entrance.