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Industry | Designer and Masterplanner |
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Founded | 2000 |
Founder | Stephen Greenberg and Rachel Morris |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Global |
Services | Visioning, master planning, architecture, design, story-planning, text writing, content research, financial sustainability, brief writing, facilitating workshops, consultation, and working with funders. |
Website | metaphor |
Metaphor is a London-based global design firm. Established in 2000 by Stephen Greenberg and Rachel Morris, Metaphor specializes in the re-presentation of museums, palaces, forts, landscapes, and country houses through master planning and design.
Metaphor's work in museums began with the master plan of the V & A in 2000.
Metaphor was the master planner and lead designer at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Cairo, from 2003 and 2011. It is one of the largest planned archaeological museums in the world. [1]
Metaphor redesigned 32 permanent galleries at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, opening in 2009. [2] [3]
In 2010, Metaphor planned, renovated, and displayed the Museum of the Order of St John in Clerkenwell. It tells the story of the Knights of the Order of St John, the Crusades, and their later history.
The Holburne Museum in Bath [4] reopened in 2011, after a complete re-design. Metaphor displayed the central collection as if reflecting the mind of its eccentric 18th-century collector. [5]
In 2013, Metaphor redesigned the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, a museum of the renewal of the Olympics by Pierre de Coubertin and the Olympic Legacy. It also designed and curated the Parc Olympique, including new routes, sight lines, welcome sequences, and lighting.
Metaphor is currently master-planning the National Museum of Scotland and the National Railway Museum. It's also master-planning and re-designing Shakespeare's Globe. [ citation needed ]
In 2007, Metaphor designed the Surreal Things exhibition at the V & A/ Stephen Bayley, writing for The Observer, called it "comprehensive, fascinating, engaging and instructive". [6] [Rachel Campbell-Johnston], writing for The Times , said 'the psychological mood starts to possess you'. [7]
The exhibition was redesigned to appear at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, running from 2007 to 2008. It was seen by 575,000 visitors, making it one of the most successful V & A touring exhibition ever. [8]
Metaphor first worked at the British Museum when it designed the exhibition on Michelangelo in 2005. At the time, it broke the museum's audience records, with 160,000 people seeing it. [9]
The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum in London. Metaphor used the curved walls of the Round Reading Room to hold projections, acting as a theatrical backdrop. Rachel Campbell-Johnston said that "exhibition designers and curators have to work hard to create a sense of spectacle. But they succeed brilliantly. The museum’s great Round Reading Room has been temporarily adapted into an atmospheric show space". [10] The exhibition was seen by 850,000 people, 37% of whom had never been to the British Museum before. [11]
Metaphor has undertaken many projects in the wider cultural and heritage sector, including with National Trust properties, Historic Royal Palaces, and Wordsworth Trust. Clients have included Hampton Court Palace, Fountains Abbey, Wordsworth Trust, Hardwick Hall Country Park, Coughton Court, Winchester Cathedral, Winchester College, and Tyntesfield. [12]
Metaphor's director, Stephen Greenberg, constantly lectures and teaches at universities around the country, including the University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester, and the University of Cambridge. He has also lectured at numerous museum conferences around the world. [ citation needed ]
Metaphor's director Rachel Morris has spoken at a number of conferences, such as the Museums Association Conference in Cardiff in 2014, entitled 'The Collection in the Cloud' on virtual museums and the concept of a museum space. [13]
Metaphor curates a website called The Museum of Marco Polo, which seeks to explore 'What is a Museum?' and the changing relationship between the physical museum space and the virtual visitor. It includes the History of the Museum, and an explanation of how The Museum of Marco Polo came to be located on the island of Büyükada, near Istanbul. It is illustrated by the award-winning [14] graphic novelist Isabel Greenberg.
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. It is also the world's second university museum, after the establishment of the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1661 by the University of Basel.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, in Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain, with an exhibition of 250 contemporary works of art. Built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Cantabrian Sea, it is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists. It is one of the largest museums in Spain.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preservation, and research of modern and contemporary art and operates several museums around the world. The first museum established by the foundation was The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, in New York City. This became The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952, and the foundation moved the collection into its first permanent museum building, in New York City, in 1959. The foundation next opened the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, in 1980. Its international network of museums expanded in 1997 to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain, and it expects to open a new museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates after its construction is completed.
Sir Peter Thomas Blake is an English pop artist. He co-created the sleeve design for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His other works include the covers for two of The Who's albums, the cover of the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and the Live Aid concert poster. Blake also designed the 2012 Brit Award statuette.
The Garden Museum in London is Britain's only museum of the art, history and design of gardens. The museum re-opened in 2017 after an 18-month redevelopment project.
Henry Hugh Armstead was an English sculptor and illustrator, influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites.
Stephen Snoddy is a British artist and gallery director.
Palazzo Grassi is a building in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice (Italy), between the Palazzo Moro Lin and the campo San Samuele.
Michael Petry is an American multi-media artist and author who lives and works in London. He is director of MOCA, London, and co-founder of the Museum of Installation, also in London. He was formerly the Curator of the Royal Academy Schools Gallery, Guest Curator at the KunstAkademi, Oslo, and Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton.
Joseph Grozer (1755–1799) was an English artist and printmaker. He resided at No 8, Castle Street, Leicester Square (1792-4) and published some of his prints himself.
Tessa Farmer is an artist based in London. Her work, made from insect carcasses, plant roots and other found natural materials, comprises hanging installations depicting Boschian battles between insects and tiny winged skeletal humanoids.
The Holburne Museum is located in Sydney Pleasure Gardens, Bath, Somerset, England. The city's first public art gallery, the Grade I listed building, is home to fine and decorative arts built around the collection of Sir William Holburne. Artists in the collection include Gainsborough, Guardi, Stubbs, Ramsay and Zoffany.
Sir Terence Farrell, known as Terry Farrell, is a British architect and urban designer. In 1980, after working for 15 years in partnership with Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Farrell founded his own firm, Farrells. He established his reputation with three completed projects in London in the late 1980s: Embankment Place, 125 London Wall aka Alban Gate and SIS Building aka Vauxhall Cross.
Eric Owen Parry is a British architect, designer, writer and educator. Parry is the founder and principal of Eric Parry Architects established in London in 1983. His built work includes the restoration and renewal of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Holburne Museum in Bath, 50 New Bond Street, 23 Savile Row, One Eagle Place in Piccadilly, Aldermanbury Square by London Wall, 30 Finsbury Square in London, and the London Stock Exchange. His projects also include a number of residential developments. Eric Parry's architectural work and design has been shown internationally on major exhibitions, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the British School at Rome, and the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Sydney Gardens is a public open space at the end of Great Pulteney Street in Bath, Somerset, England. The gardens are the only remaining eighteenth-century pleasure gardens in the country. They are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.
The Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci is located in Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci's birthplace, in the province of Florence, Italy. It is part of the Museo Leonardiano di Vinci.
Julie Verhoeven is a British illustrator and designer who has collaborated with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Versace and Peter Jensen. While she is recognised primarily for her work in fashion, she has also contributed illustrations to books, magazines and album covers. Her work has been widely exhibited, including at London's Hayward Gallery. She is a design academic at both Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art.
Giles Waterfield was a British, McKitterick Prize winning novelist, art historian and curator.
Tatiana Bilbao Spamer is a Mexican architect whose works often merged geometry with nature. Her practice focuses on sustainable design and social housing.
Jennifer Scott has been director of Dulwich Picture Gallery since 2017. She was previously director of the Holburne Museum in Bath, and curator of paintings at Royal Collection Trust.
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