About the Project

Creating a 21st century museum experience.

The Royal Museum Project is a £46 million initiative to transform the magnificent Victorian building and its facilities into a must-see attraction for people from Scotland and around the world.

The re-development will see storage areas transformed into public space, dated displays completely transformed and access improved through-out, so everyone will be able to share in the new Museum.

Why are we doing this?

The benefits of the Royal Museum Project will be to:

• Display thousands of new treasures – 80% of the objects on display will be shown for the first time.
• Create sixteen new galleries totalling 7,000m^2.
• Increase public spaces by 50%.
• Add 800m² of special exhibition space.
• Provide a new learning centre, trebling the space for education in the Museum
• Make it easier to access the Museum, through a new welcoming arrivals hall at street level, and to reach all floors and galleries with new glass lifts and escalators
• Improve the facilities for visitors, including a new cafe and better shop.

Where have all the exhibits gone?

Now that the project is under way, over two million items have been carefully catalogued, packed and moved into our purpose-built storage facility - the National Museums Collection Centre.

Soon, visitors to this centre will be able to go behind the scenes on a guided tour to experience this rich treasure house and watch our expert team of conservators at work.

Stay in the know!

Sign up to our newsletter and be the first to know when you can visit our house of treasures! You can download past copies of the newsletter from this page.