The Hold Archives
Ipswich
GuM completed the 3D interpretive design and permanent exhibition design for NLHF project, The Hold Archives, on the Ipswich waterfront. The new building designed by Pringle Richards Sharratt Architects was a joint venture between Suffolk County Council and the University of Suffolk for the design of a flagship heritage facility to contain Suffolk’s nationally significant archives.
The new building opened its doors to reveal Suffolk’s treasured past and inspire Suffolk’s future. To help achieve the project vision, we considered how to create a new, flagship heritage facility that aimed to launch people, young and old, on new voyages of discovery.
In developing the content and stories for the 7 key display areas, we worked closely with the Record Office Collections Team, with continual reference to the Conservation Plan, to ensure that the most significant collections and star stories were featured in a compelling way.
The theme of Reveal focussed on ‘Spotlights’ and on the internationally renowned heroes and heroines of Suffolk. It explored and focussed on creating many connections across stories with sub-themes including: family and local history, health, politics and campaigns, arts and crafts.
Visitors are introduced to 5 individuals from the archives, Basil Brown, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Henry Wrought, the Stopher Brothers, and individuals from the local community. Among the collections at the Suffolk Record Office are about 200 letters sent to and from two brothers from Sweffling who served in the Suffolk Regiment during the First World War. Previous to this they were both employed as gardeners. This particular segment included a specially commissioned installation by artist Rebecca Louise Law using dried flowers to replicate a wartime Suffolk garden.
Individual cases also included replicas of some of the items the Stopher brothers asked to be sent to them from home: Cigarettes, walnuts, cakes, sausage rolls, matches, paper, socks, pudding, a safety razor, sulphur (used for sterilisation) soap, hair oil and ‘something to kill the fleas’.
This area includes visitor engagement and interaction by opening drawers, audio points, touch screens, puzzles, note books, dressed cases with objects, and bespoke made models which all introduce more detailed stories, and opportunities to interact and ‘unpeel; layers of history.
We used surprise, mapping and connections as a way of engaging people. For example, the theme Change – displayed along the main route through the building on a 33 metre long ramp which shows a large scale map of Suffolk, an array of drawings of the county located back into the map, and super graphic reproductions of a selection of Valerie Irwin drawings of Ipswich which documented the demolition and construction of buildings over the years along the Ipswich waterfront.
Through a historic map of Suffolk visitors are able to locate their own hometown, making connections to others, and how it may have looked in the past.