It's school holidays here, and the kids and I desperately needed to get out of the house after being stuck inside with awful weather. So off we went to the National Museum of Australia. I worked here for a year in 2002-03, and we've been numerous times since I moved on, but recently there have been some major changes to the galleries and the branding, so it's well worth another visit if you haven't been for a while.
The museum is a social history museum, and now uses the tagline 'Where our stories live'. The brochures refer to it, and us, being part of a 'national conversation'.
From the outside it's much the same, and while there have been a few changes to The Hall, pictured here, it's still a huge, airy space, used for many temporary exhibits, special activities, and as a general meeting place. There's a cafe serving meals and coffee just to the right of this photo, with tables and chairs along the large windows overlooking Lake Burley Griffin.
The museum website says of this space:
Visitors enter the Museum through the Hall, a great light and open space with curving walls, windows and ceilings. To the architects, the Hall is like a huge rope knot seen from the inside. It is a metaphor for the strands that tie Australians together as a nation, the weaving together of the lives and stories of Australia and Australians.
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