The past 12 years have been an exciting and positive period for museums in Britain. When the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) was set up in 1994, the trustees’ prime priority was to update Britain’s museums. This certainly needed doing: since repairs made after World War II, remarkably little had been spent on the fabric of museums, or on new construction. Compared to France, Germany or the United States, the number and quality of new museum buildings were laughable. The £1.2 billion spent on museums by the HLF since that time has included both glamorous projects such as Somerset House and Manchester City Art Gallery and numerous smaller extensions and renovations countrywide. Without the Lottery this would not have happened: this year as in previous years all four finalists for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year received the bulk of their project funding from the HLF. The HLF is—or has been—the only body in this country capable of making multi-million awards to museums for building projects or acquisitions.

Read full article (The Art Newspaper, September 6, 2007)

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