Bath-based architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios have been chosen to design the new home for The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA).
The new museum and archive centre in London will give access to the BPMA’s unique collections of 400 years of postal, social and design history, including photographs, posters, vehicles, pillar boxes, employment records of millions of people and a world-class stamp collection.
The design will restore and refurbish existing building Calthorpe House, on the Mount Pleasant site where the country’s oldest mail centre is located, with additional exhibition space and the archive in a new landmark building.
The site is close to the BPMA’s existing home in Freeling House which has very limited space for exhibitions and displays.
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios’ brief is to make this building welcoming and accessible to visitors while also dealing with practical aspects specific to museum and archive design including security, environmental control and visitor routes.
The ultimate goal is to provide London with a new museum that displays a unique set of world-class collections.
Richard Collis, partner and project architect from Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios said: “We are very excited to be working with Royal Mail Group and the Postal Heritage Trust on the BPMA Project. It reflects some great ambitions for a genuinely sustainable refurbishment and the creative re-use of a robust, existing industrial building in the heart of Clerkenwell. It will also provide the rare opportunity for improving the care of, access to and wider presentation of a collection of international importance”.
The project is a development of previous proposals to create a new home for the BPMA in Swindon’s former railworks heritage site. FCB Studios were appointed from RMG's framework and a limited competition process.
