Fitzwilliam wins lottery funding

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded a grant of £5.6 million towards the Fitzwilliam Museum's Courtyard Development. This building project is vital to the Museum, which receives over 250,000 visitors annually, yet has no dedicated education space, no reception or orientation spaces for large groups nor even a public lift.

The design exploits a redundant courtyard to create an additional 3,000 square metres of space over four floors, providing a range of new and improved amenities including:

Duncan Robinson, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, said: "The Courtyard Development will transform the Museum in ways which reflect the role of the art museum today as a focal point for the learning society. Its implications for the Museum's programmes are far-reaching and the potential benefits to all of our users are very great indeed. We are deeply grateful to the HLF for supporting this exciting and far-reaching project which will benefit the collections and their visitors alike."

The architects for the projects are the London firm of John Miller and Partners, whose museum experience includes the Whitechapel Art Gallery and the Serpentine Gallery, in addition to the Millbank extension to Tate Britain which opens in Autumn 2001 and the forthcoming Playfair scheme for the National Galleries of Scotland.

The designs have attracted widespread support, and planning permission and Listed Building consent for the Fitzwilliam Museum's Courtyard Development have already been granted. The Museum is now on target for work to commence on site in January 2002; the building project will take approximately 18 months. During this period the Museum's Founder's Building will remain open, displaying highlights from the collections.

The £5.6 million grant is in addition to an HLF Development Grant of £302,000, awarded in March 2000 and matched by the Museum, which permitted development of the designs to RIBA Stage E. The total project is currently costed at £11.5 million.

Initially the Museum was able to allocate £1 million towards the project from the bequest of the late Paul Mellon KBE. Since January the Museum's Development Committee, chaired by Nicholas Baring, has raised almost £3 million, reducing the current shortfall on the project to £1 million. With that target in mind, an anonymous donor has now offered a challenge grant to match £ for £ all donations from individuals up to a maximum of £500,000; the remaining £500,000 must therefore be raised by the end of this year.