Metaphor (designers)

Metaphor's work in museums began with the master plan of the V & A in 2000.

Metaphor was the master planner and lead designer at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Cairo, from 2003 and 2011. It is one of the largest planned archaeological museums in the world. [1]

Metaphor redesigned 32 permanent galleries at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, opening in 2009.[2][3]

In 2010, Metaphor planned, renovated, and displayed the Museum of the Order of St John in Clerkenwell. It tells the story of the Knights of the Order of St John, the Crusades, and their later history.

The Holburne Museum in Bath[4] reopened in 2011, after a complete re-design. Metaphor displayed the central collection as if reflecting the mind of its eccentric 18th-century collector.[5]

In 2013, Metaphor redesigned the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, a museum of the renewal of the Olympics by Pierre de Coubertin and the Olympic Legacy. It also designed and curated the Parc Olympique, including new routes, sight lines, welcome sequences, and lighting.

Metaphor is currently master-planning the National Museum of Scotland and the National Railway Museum. It's also master-planning and re-designing Shakespeare's Globe.

In 2007, Metaphor designed the Surreal Things exhibition at the V & A/ Stephen Bayley, writing for The Observer, called it "comprehensive, fascinating, engaging and instructive".[6] [Rachel Campbell-Johnston], writing for The Times, said 'the psychological mood starts to possess you'.[7]

The exhibition was redesigned to appear at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, running from 2007 to 2008. It was seen by 575,000 visitors, making it one of the most successful V & A touring exhibition ever.[8]

Metaphor first worked at the British Museum when it designed the exhibition on Michelangelo in 2005. At the time, it broke the museum's audience records, with 160,000 people seeing it.[9]

The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum in London. Metaphor used the curved walls of the Round Reading Room to hold projections, acting as a theatrical backdrop. Rachel Campbell-Johnston said that "exhibition designers and curators have to work hard to create a sense of spectacle. But they succeed brilliantly. The museum’s great Round Reading Room has been temporarily adapted into an atmospheric show space".[10] The exhibition was seen by 850,000 people, 37% of whom had never been to the British Museum before.[11]