Glasgow Museums and Glasgow University Hunterian Museum are in the early stages of exploring a joint museum research centre and store as part of the redevelopment of the Kelvin Hall.
Glasgow Museums currently stores over 400,000 objects in a leased building in Maryhill. Conditions there are far from ideal, and public access to the collection is difficult.
Collections there include furniture and interiors, Glasgow history and archaeology. In addition, the Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed interiors of the Ingram Street Tearooms are cared for there. They are the only complete suite of original Mackintosh tearoom interiors to survive.
In creating a joint facility within the Kelvin Hall, an unprecedented level of access to the collection will be possible. Combined with greater levels of collection care and research, this project would be the first of its kind between a university and a local authority-owned collection.