Southampton City Council wanted a new set of museum galleries on the former law courts and town hall site that would tell a genuinely new story for the city.

The Gateway gallery was conceived as an exploration of the city as a perpetual point of arrival and departure, a gateway to the world, from Roman traders to modern communities, and everything in between. Heritage Lottery funded, the galleries needed to work for residents and visitors alike.

Narrative Masterplanning | Interpretation Planning | Content Development | Interactive Development | Design Integration

Working with a team of academic consultants and community partners, we developed the core narrative, Gateway to the World, and used it as the foundation for a full interpretive masterplan, interactive development and scripting throughout the galleries.

The interpretive approach placed real Southampton people from the past at the centre of the visitor experience: a Saxon princess, a Roman trader, a Medieval merchant and many more, each one a portal into a particular moment in the city's long history as a place people passed through.

Today's incomer communities were given their own display area to share experiences and insights alongside the historical figures, placing contemporary Southampton in direct conversation with its past.

A single organising metaphor, Gateway, did what no chronological structure could: it gave an enormously diverse collection of stories spanning 2000+ years a common thread that visitors could carry from room to room and return to after the visit.

The project also demonstrated the value of developing two major galleries within the same museum from the same narrative practice.

The Titanic gallery and the Gateway gallery speak to each other across the building, giving SeaCity a coherence and identity that extends far beyond either gallery alone.

Client: Southampton City Council

TGA: Narrative Masterplanning, Interpretation Planning, Content Development, Interactive Development, Design Integration

Partners: Urban Salon (Design), Newangle Productions (Media), Woods McGrath (Graphics), Paragon (Interactives)