Museum of the University of St Andrews

MUSA is the product of a vision: to restore and extend a disused 19th century (grade II listed) coach house to create a museum in order to make accessible to the public the collections and heritage of Scotland’s most ancient university. Some of the collections (University Heritage, Chemistry, Historic Scientific Instruments) have been officially recognized (Museums Galleries Scotland 2008) as being of national importance. Items from all the collections can now be seen in a specially designed museum to which admission is free. They include all the University’s most famous ‘treasures’, such as the three medieval maces (the finest such set in the world), all 70 of the archery medals from the 17th and 18th centuries, our finest scientific instruments, including Humfrey Cole’s ‘Great Astrolabe’, and a selection of the University’s art works.
MUSA is the first museum in the U K that describes and illustrates the history of a University – the University of St Andrews – but through this single subject it leads the visitor into numerous stories, including the political, social and economic history of Scotland since the Middle Ages, the British Empire and the Scottish diaspora, invention and discovery, religious disruption in Scotland, and many others.
MUSA was also designed to be attractive and interesting to the widest range of visitors, especially for local people, including school children and families. Thus, the galleries incorporate both traditional display cases and text and graphic panel presentations, together with numerous interactive elements, both manual and computerised. Interactives range from a jig-saw puzzle of the medieval maces and manually operated kaleidoscopes (invented by a St Andrews Principal), to a simulated on-screen archery game to accompany the archery medals display and a ‘memory bank’, through which visitors can watch and listen to film clips or record their own memories of St Andrews.
MUSA, with its purpose-built education centre, the Learning Loft, is now the key facility for developing and widening the University’s museum outreach programme for the community, including schools workshops, arts and crafts sessions, object handling and identification, lectures, demonstrations, etc (see accompanying Supporting Statement from a user group: Home-Start Fife). Since MUSA opened in October 2008 the many separate events and tours organised have attracted over 3000 local community or school participants, while the Museum itself was visited by over 30,000 members of the public in its first year.
MUSA was designed to be fully accessible. All the galleries are on the ground floor and a lift enables visitors to access the Learning Loft and viewing terrace upstairs. It is also the University’s ‘greenest’ public building. The galleries are heated by a ground source heat pump, LED lighting is used wherever possible and the photovoltaic solar panels on the museum extension’s south-facing roof cover a total of 17.5 square metres and will save the University 1 tonne of carbon dioxide per year.

Summary
An imaginative re-development and extension of a former garage/coachhouse incorporating modern design and technology, to form a museum of the University of St Andrews which provides the community with direct access to the vital contribution made by the University to the rich heritage of the town.

Architect: Jack Fisher Partnership

Supporting Statement on behalf of a User [extracted from a letter published in the Museums Journal, January 2010, with the title: ‘Why we love Musa’]

Home-Start East Fife is a charity that supports families with at least one child under five years of age. We recruit, prepare and support volunteers who support families in their own homes. In addition we run Family Support Groups.
In March 2009, staff from the Museum of the University of St Andrews (Musa) contacted us to discuss the possibility of working in partnership. We met them at the museum and agreed on a project, the first part of which involved our Family Support Groups visiting the museum. A total of 23 adults and 25 children ranging from birth to four years went to Musa and visited all of the galleries in May last year.
The session ended with story-time relating to the museum artefacts. The photographs taken by Home-Start East Fife clearly demonstrate that even the smallest child enjoyed the experience. Discussions with parents revealed that although they would never have considered taking their pre-fives to a museum before, they had all thoroughly enjoyed the morning and would be keen to visit again.
One of the main things that impressed our parents and staff is the fact that each gallery hosts at least one interactive element as well as the additional exhibits which are found in the many drawers that the children enjoyed pulling open. The interactive elements help to engage children of a wide range of ages as well as adults.
Museum staff visited the groups over the subsequent weeks and introduced activities such as paper making, message in a bottle and shell crafts. All materials produced were then considered for display in the community case [in MUSA]. The staff also arranged for a traditional storyteller to come along to the groups, which was fantastic. Musa also hosted a volunteers event, which was organised by us to show our gratitude for the work that they do.
We will be continuing to work in partnership with the museum and will continue to recommend this tremendous facility to families and individuals alike.

Joanne Roddam
Senior Coordinator
Home-Start East Fife

The University of St Andrews has had in its possession for many years a large colection of historically important artefacts which it could not put on display. This attractive, environmentally friendly building rectifies this situation and the University's "treasures" are now on display for the benefit of students, staff and the wider community.