'Big Pit' Wins Gulbenkian
Last updated: 14/11/2006 - 09:34
The 'Big Pit': the National Mining Museum of Wales digs deep to win the UK's largest arts prize for '05.
Big Pit: the National Mining Museum of Wales
A former South Wales pit that once produced 100,000 tonnes of coal a year and which is staffed by miners has won the £100,000 Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year, the UK's largest arts prize.
"Sir Richard Sykes, Chairman of the Gulbenkian judges, who made the winning announcement at a ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), comments: "Any one of our four finalists would have been a worthy winner of this year's Gulbenkian Prize for 'Museum of the Year' but Big Pit offers an exceptional emotional and intellectual experience. It tells the individual stories of its community better than any museum I have visited and makes you contemplate the scale, and even the cruelty, of an industrial past that inspired a spirit of camaraderie and pride.
"All our finalists clearly show that museums today are not solely about displaying objects but are about the exposition of history, told with real passion alongside a commitment to a community's heritage."
Big Pit is judt one of National Museums & Galleries of Wales' six sites across Wales. Receiving the award at an exclusive gala event in London, Keeper & Mine Manager, Peter Walker, said: "It's been a great experience being involved in this award, and we are delighted to be here tonight as winners."
"We've wanted Big Pit to win this prize for so many reasons. It proves that we've finally come of age as a national museum, and that we're offering a fantastic experience for our visitors — many of whom return time after time. Big Pit is a special place to visit, and I'm delighted that the judges in this year's competition feel the same way as we do about the museum.
"Our funders have been with us every step of the way, and we are extremely grateful to them for their support and encouragement over the past few years. Their faith in us has, hopefully, been repaid here this evening."
Alun Pugh, Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Culture, Welsh Language and Sport, said: "This is a fantastic achievement and one that Big Pit fully deserves. The knowledge and dedication of the staff, together with the recent redevelopment work have made Big Pit a world-class attraction and winning the Gulbenkian Prize is a very well earned recognition of this. As the son of a coal miner, I have a special interest in Big Pit, so I am very proud that the Welsh Assembly Government has been able to support this invaluable piece of our industrial heritage."
In 2004, Big Pit saw a record 141,000 people visit the site and enjoy the unique attractions on offer at the museum, following its recent £7million development, which was funded principally by the Heritage Lottery Fund, with additional money from the Welsh Assembly Government, Heritage Lottery Fund, Wales Tourist Board, the Garfield Weston Foundation, Lloyds TSB Foundation, The Coalfields Regeneration Trust, the Local Regeneration Fund, the Pilgrim Trust and the SR & PH Southall Trust.
Jennifer Stewart, Manager of Heritage Lottery Fund in Wales, the main funder for the Big Pit project, said: "It is fantastic news that one of the most important heritage sites in Wales has been recognised with such a prestigious award. It is so rewarding to see the positive impact that over £5 million of Lottery players' money has made here, in terms of conservation, regeneration and pride in our coal mining heritage. Our industrial past in Wales plays an integral role in the lives of local communities as well as attracting visitors through innovative successes such as Big Pit. We hope to see many more successful museums in the future!"
Big Pit, as part of the Blaenafon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site, is key to telling the story of the industrial heritage of South Wales. It works closely with HERIAN, the partnership of local authorities, public bodies and voluntary groups set up to champion heritage as a source of economic and community benefit.
Blaenafon
Visitors at Big Pit in Blaenafon have been able to visit the underground mine since it first opened as a museum in 1983 but, until 2001, lack of funding left many of the sites on the surface untouched. Big Pit reopened in February 2004 after a £7 million redevelopment.
The thrilling underground tour, where visitors are led by miners down the 300ft mine shaft into the dark, dank subterranean passageways, past the pit ponies' stables and along the tracks of the coal trucks, is still an integral part of the Big Pit experience.
Now, above ground, all the colliery buildings, including the pithead baths, the winding engine house and blacksmith's workshop, have been restored and brought back to life with the sounds of the miners at work echoing from the past. The pithead baths, built as recently as 1939 and the first baths the miners had on the site, house the main exhibition. This tells the story not only of the coal mines themselves, but also of the communities that grew around the industry from the earliest days to the miners' strikes and pit closures of the 1980s.
The Gulbenkian judges were unanimous in their praise of Big Pit. In recounting the story of the people of the South Wales Coalfield in a simple yet captivating way, Big Pit will keep alive the story of British coal alive, particularly for the generations born after the closure of the mines.
Heritage Lottery Fund
The £7 million redevelopment of Big Pit was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (£5.5 million); Wales Tourist Board; Local Regeneration Fund; Garfield Weston Foundation; Lloyds TSB; Pilgrim Trust; SR & PH Charitable Trust; Coalfield Regeneration Trust; and the National Museums & Galleries of Wales. Admission is free; over 140,000 people have already visited Big Pit since it reopened.
The winner receives £100,000 and an enamelled silver bowl designed by award-winning metalwork artist, Vladimir Böhm.
The three other finalists were:
The Gulbenkian Prize celebrates the innovative and excellent work taking place in museums and galleries today that is challenging traditional public perceptions of their role. It is open to any museum, large or small, in the UK, and its prize money of £100,000 makes it the largest single arts prize in the country.
Last year's winner was the National Gallery of Modern Art (pictured, above) in Edinburgh - for its dramatic Landform by Charles Jencks - part sculpture, part garden, part land-art. The winner of the inaugural Gulbenkian Prize in 2003 was The National Centre for Citizenship and the Law housed in the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.
Other NMGW sites are the National Museum & Gallery, Cardiff, the quite excellent Museum of Welsh Life at St. Fagans, Roman Legionary Museum, Caerleon, National Woollen Museum, Dre fach Felindre and the Welsh Slate Museum, Llanberis. Opening later this year is the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea - which will have the job of telling the stories of the peoples, industry and innovation of Wales.
Entry to all NMGW sites is free, thanks to the support of the Welsh Assembly Government. Big Pit: National Mining Museum of Wales can be found at Blaenafon, Torfaen. The museum is open 9:30am-5pm daily, from mid-February, until 28 November.
All Big Pit Blaenafon images are copyright NMGW. Edinburgh National Gallery of Modern Art landform image copyright: Alistair Lindford.
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