The Museum of Transport in Glasgow is a triumph of fashion over function. I was in it for the first time last night, and was actually quite looking forward to it.
Having earlier presented the new Hyundai i40 to Scotland’s top motoring journalists (I think I was making up the numbers!) Hyundai hosted an informal buffet inside the Museum on the river banks and we were allowed to wander around and explore.
The new i40 impressed me a lot more than the new Museum. This is a visitor attraction with exhibits, it is not a Museum dedicated to the history of transport. The majority of exhibits are out of reach and almost out of sight and there are very few explanatory labels, plaques and exhibit descriptions. There are also very few seats to sit on and just look.
You can’t just blame the architect for this either, because someone at our end signed it off and agreed to build it. Which just goes to prove that if an architect is a good salesman, or saleswoman, then they can sell a numpty with a big budget anything. The Scottish Parliament building anyone?
All this business about flowing curves and rippling shapes has resulted in a waste of space. If they had concerned themselves less about landscaping they could have built a bigger and more usable, functional space to properly display the marvellous exhibits which the Museum has in its collection. For goodness sake, the site has acres of space for a bigger, squarer building.
It’s a bitter disappointment and a waste of a golden opportunity to provide Scotland with a proper national showcase to present its road, rail and shipping history, not to mention our glorious motor sporting achievements.
I’m so disappointed I could strangle a Haggis.
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