Inside the Museum of London

Hello, Giusy here again from the Museum’s Visitor Services Team, with more on the workshops you can enjoy developed and run by your hosts (hope you enjoyed my last update on my own Roman mosiac workshops which you can read here).

My colleague Ed has a true mania for mail making. He has always been fascinated and he has been doing it for nearly five years now. If you walk to the galleries you will never find him without a small piece in his hands. I am not joking.

He wrote a dissertation on the topic and discovered that despite the fact mail was used for nearly two thousand years, very little work has been done on it. As an archaeologist it is his belief that the best way to understand an ancient technology is to have a go at making or using it. So now he runs the workshop at the Museum of London demonstrating to the public how mail was made and sharing the secrets that are locked within it.

He told me that in the past weapons and armour were not viewed the way they are now, they were integral to society, they had magical powers, names and were status symbols.
Mail armour was one of the most expensive armours around; it is very labour intensive, taking him around 7 months to make a complete shirt alone. It involves linking each ring through four others, and if made properly, riveting them shut to prevent them opening. In a complete mail shirt there can be as many as 28,000 rings, each one formed and riveted by hand.

His research into mail and its manufacture has brought to light a number of interesting new facts: such as how was mail made to fit the wearer? What sort of quality is the metal that mail is made from? What do these facts then tell us about the people making and wearing mail? When Ed does his workshop the public gets the chance to see and touch complete mail garments as well as have a go at riveting a ring or two.

The hope is that through this the public gain some new understanding of this interesting aspect of history, plus its fun! As the workshops progress visitors will see how the rings they have riveted become part of the weave of a new mail coif, a form of head protection that will be put in one of our gallery prop boxes for future visitors to try on.

Be sure to visit our Medieval Gallery to find out more.

Why not Join Ed for his next workshop this Sunday (7 August)!

Hi guys Giusy here, back again with our first update of the month from the museums Visitor Services Team.

Here at the Museum of London we love to get inspired by our collections. I hear that very exciting projects are on their way but let me show you what some of us have been working on so far.
We all have a passion for London but for some of the Hosts this enthusiasm becomes a real obsession and so we have been running a different series of workshops for families and children at the museum.

My personal inspiration comes straight from my favourite exhibition in the Museum: the Roman Gallery. With a focus on perhaps one the most famous art activities during Roman times, I decided to work on a mosaic, but a real one, to be made with real stone tesserae and based on authentic Roman design!
The model that I chose for my common project is a twisted rope design technically called Guilloche. I thought it was exceptionally representative of the Roman culture as it was often used in borders to enclose popular patterns and also because we have a wonderful one in our Roman gallery.

What a better example with which to get inspiration from for the kids!
I created the Guilloche freehand but it took me a bit of organisation and time.
I sketched six big circles in an A3 sheet and I drew six smaller circles inside. To make the large circles on the sheets I used a pen held in a loop in a thread and I pinned the string at the centre of the circle to obtain radius of not more than 3cm. At this point I simply drew lines for the rows of the stone tesserae.
Roman craftsmen would opt for different combination of colours according to the uses they were designated for. I wanted to create something that looked quite similar to our Bucklersbury mosaic.

The mosaic I am working on with the kids has six lines and presents an alternation of 3 colours. Normally guilloche frames would have had three lines of tesserae only. These might have been one line of one colour and the remaining two of a different colour but they could also have a combination of three colours for each row.
Here you can see what we have achieved so far…

It is a very time consuming work and your patience will pay dividend.

Our Roman Gallery is planned to be completely refurbished after the 2012 Olympics Games.
I can’t wait to give a tour in the new exhibition and perhaps develop another workshop!

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the construction of the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London. 

Come along and see it when it opens at the Museum of London Docklands on 22 July 2011.

I thought it would be nice to show you just how the exhibition is constructed so here are a few photographs taken this week as the installation design team are hard at work.

Looking to learn more about the Olympic site? I recommend that you come along if you can to our next Olympic tour called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Wednesday 27 July from 2.30pm – 4pm.

If you do get a chance to visit the exhibition, please do let us know your thoughts by posting comments on either the museum’s Facebook or Twitter pages.

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the construction of the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. Come along and see it when it starts at the Museum of London Docklands on the 22nd of July 2011 and see some awesome pictures.

One of the buildings we will be showing in the exhibition is the Orbit Tower. Below you can see an image showing the next exciting phase of development of its construction with winding structures now being built around the central frame. When it is fully constructed it will be a staggering 115 metres high. This will make it even taller than the Statue of Liberty which by way of contrast is only 93 metres high.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to our next Olympic tour called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Finally come and check in again for a couple of extraordinary photos from the ‘Your 2012′ photography exhibition itself next week.

Peter

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the construction of the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London. Come along and see it when it starts at the Museum of London Docklands on the 22nd of July 2011 and see some awesome pictures.

Recently I was fortunate enough to gain access to ’The View’ and take these spectacular photos of the Olympic landscape from an aerial perspective. 

In the photo below, to the left of the Olympic site, you can see a view of the construction works where huge amounts of concrete are prepared onsite.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to our next walking tour called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we are offering on Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Look out for more blog posts later this week and see some of the latest progress going on with the Arcelor Mittal Orbit tower.

Peter

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the construction of the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. Come along and see it when it starts at the Museum of London Docklands on the 22nd of July 2011 and see some awesome pictures.

Naturally many of the photographs have their own intrinsic aesthetic appeal which is only to be expected as so much effort has been put into making sure that all of the buildings look visually stunning. With this in mind I thought that this week it would be good to look at some images of those objects that are hidden gems. 

The example below for instance is a visually appealing flower pot holder that is right beside the Viewtube and the Olympic stadium. 

Stratford itself already has some of its own art already built. If you go to the centre of Stratford you can see the  ‘Railway Tree’ designed by Malcolm Robertson in 1996. According to him it is intended to ‘act as a gateway to Stratford and to symbolise its former connection, with industry and railways in particular’.

Another example that sometimes gets overlooked is the Stratford clock tower beside Stratford station. With its twisting winding column like structure Im sure we can all agree it is unique. This extraordinary piece of art was designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects (who also built the adjacent Stratford station) and was completed in 1999.

Anyway if you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to our next Olympic tour called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Next week you will be in for a special treat as I have some exclusive aerial shots covering the Olympic site and its surrounding area so come again and prepare to be dazzled.

Peter

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the construction of the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London. Come along and see it when it starts at the Museum of London Docklands on the 22nd of July 2011.

Obviously feverish action is taking place to make sure everything is ready and looking fantastic. Knowing the effort that is needed to make this exhibition take place makes myself even more impressed by the rate of progress at the Olympic site. Already the Aquatic Centre is ready as is the Velodrome and according to the latest news this month so is the mobile basketball stadium. Perhaps the most amazing achievement is the biggest, the Olympic stadium itself, as can be seen below.

Efforts are now going on the make the surrounding vicinity look equally resplendent as can be seen by the following image below.

Construction efforts have now moved on to the left of the site.  (If you look carefully in the distance you can see the red brick Byrant and May building).

Further along you can see how the site is now being concreted over.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to one of the our tours called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Don’t forget to check this blog next week when I will be talking about art around the Olympic site and Stratford.

Peter

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the Olympic Park’s construction upon Stratford, East London. Come along and see it when it starts at the Museum of London Docklands on the 22nd of July 2011.

If you want to have a clear idea of the scale of construction going on at the moment then check out these images of cranes at various sites around the Olympic venue.

(looking over the Olympic warm up area)

(photo taken on the Greenway with the Olympic stadium in the distance) 

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to the Olympic tour called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Make sure to check this site next week when I will talk to you about the vast area beside the stadium and all the progress going on there.

Peter

Time is ticking away before the 20 images that will make up the Your 2012 free photography exhibition go on display dealing with the impact of the construction of the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London. Come along and see it when it starts at the Museum of London Docklands on the 22nd of July 2011.

This exhibition will give you a great visual idea of all the changes taking place to make the site ready for next year. However if you want to have a great view next year then probably the best place to go will be the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower. At 115 metres high it will be more than twice the height of Nelson’s Column but 20 metres shorter than the Millenium Eye at Westminster. This gigantic tower will cost around £19 million and has already acquired various nicknames such as ‘the Colossus of Stratford’ and ’the Hubble Bubble’ whilst various newpapers are refering to it as a giant lattice. As you can see it will be huge and this is exactly what Mayor Boris Johnson asked for as one of his provisions for the big Tower was that it should rival the Eiffel Tower.

Judge for yourself below.

If you would like to learn more about the Olympic site than I recommend that you come along to one of the our Olympic tours called ‘Walk the Olympic Way’ that we will be offering on Sunday 12th June 2011 from 2.30pm -4pm and Wednesday July 27th from 2.30pm – 4pm.

Don’t forget to check this blog next week when I will talk about the large number of cranes in use around the Stratford area overlooking the Olympic site.

Peter

Hello everyone! My name is Giusy and I’m a host at the Museum of London, London Wall.

Many of you may know me and the other hosts personally but if you come to the Museum for the first time you certainly cannot miss us. We are those friendly and caring people in bright pink shirts who run up and down doing tours, workshops, and assist visitors throughout their stay.

It is the first time that I have written a blog ever and I am very excited at the idea of telling you about us on an open and informal platform. There’s no better means than a blog to get to know us a bit better, unless you come and pay a visit to our museum.

I’ll start by telling you about the Museum of London Docklands latest exhibition Pirates: The Captain Kidd Story and the fun had by both staff and public who attended our special pirate themed late event on the 27 May.

The hosts who went along got very excited at the opportunity of dressing up as pirates and exploring Captain Kidd’s fascinating story.

I unfortunately was unable to join them, but looking at the pictures I am filled with envy! In addition to the fun from dressing up they were also joined by our curators, Tom Wareham and Hilary Davidson, for a free tour about Captain Kidd which were very instructive!

Nick enlightened me with some very interesting facts he picked up at the event, such as intriguing aspects about Captain Kidd’s life, as well as something that I actually had not known before…

Did you know that textiles have in fact a very distinguished heritage when it comes to pirates? It is common for gold and jewellery to be associated with pirates, but it is fabrics that tell us more! According to our curator of fashion and decorative arts Hilary, it seems that between the 16th and 17th centuries Indian patterns featured prominently in pirates’ fashion – particularly on bandanas.

It had the advantage of being easy to wash and at a certain point it became a very fashionable and valuable type of cotton textile to be exported to many parts of the British Empire. I think these types of garments possessed a sort of exotic charm in those days…

 Later in the evening, to the groups great suprise, they realised that one of the team was wearing an exact copy of one the Museum puppets outfits…without a beard.

Later on, Elizabeth discovered that the blue and white bandana she was wearing as part of her pirate outfit was a paisley pattern -just what Captain Kidd would probably have worn. And she had bought two for a bargain price of only £1.50!

Hilary used Elizabeth’s bandana as an example to show the audience the authentic way of folding it. I am sure she must have looked like a proper woman pirate.

Did you know that a significant minority of historical pirates were female? Anne Bonney, Charlotte de Berry, Jane de Belville were among the most famous ones in history.

Pirates would occasionally capture parrots or monkeys due to the price they fetched on the market once they returned home. In those days tropical animals were a real ‘must have’ accessory and would be considered more unique than they are today.

Pirates are not believed to have actually kept them as pets, but I love to savour the image of a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder just like Long John Silver was portrayed in Treasure Island, a fact that clearly inspired Anna…

Our late events are proving to be very popular (I hope you can see why from the pictures and stories I shared above). I understand that our next late event at the Museum of London will have a 50s theme and will take place on 11 August (check out our website from 04 July for booking details).