The award-winning Museum of the University of St Andrews is to close for 18 months from next week for a major expansion.
The £1.6 million redevelopment and extension will create new exhibition space to allow important artworks from prestigious collections to go on display in the town for the first time.
A closing party will be held at the building on The Scores on Saturday June 30, reflecting on the museum’s achievements over the last decade and looking forward to the reopening,
Activities for the whole family will be on offer between 1pm and 5pm, when there will be a “ceremonial locking” of the museum by a local school pupil.
Helen Rawson , co-director of the museum collection’s unit at St Andrews University, said: “The extension of the museum presents a wonderful opportunity to increase the range of material on display through a fascinating programme of changing, temporary exhibitions, many developed in partnership with academic colleagues and the local community.
“This will allow us to showcase dynamic university research and highlight fascinating material in the university’s museum and special collections as well as extraordinary loans.”
She added: “During the closure, the permanent displays will also be redeveloped and we look forward to reopening in 2019 and welcoming new and existing users to the wonderful new facilities.”
While MUSA is closed, the learning and access team will take objects out into schools and community venues and visitors are still welcome to the university’s Bell Pettigrew Museum in the Bute Medical Building on Tuesday and Friday afternoons in July and August.
MUSA has been extremely successful since it opened in 2008 as the centre-piece of the university’s museum service.
It is the only university museum in Scotland to have consistently been awarded the highest ranking of five stars under VisitScotland’s quality assurance scheme.
It attracts around 35,000 visitors every year, including 1,600 school children who take part in organised events and workshops.
The university holds more than 115,000 items within its museum collections, the vast majority of which are in storage.
Its extensive database of objects can be searched online at https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/adlib/home.
