Pair to reimagine International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum on city’s waterfront

A pairing of Adjaye Associates and Ralph Appelbaum Associates is preferred bidder for a £57m redevelopment of two museums in Liverpool.

The two firms pipped Haworth Tompkins with JA Projects, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and Heneghan Peng Architects with Droo Architects to win the redesign of the International Slavery Museum and the Maritime Museum for National Museums Liverpool (NML).

A grade I-listed former warehouse now known as the Hartley Pavilion, which houses both museums, will be revamped to improve its circulation and to house new commercial space, retail and a temporary exhibition space.

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The maritime museum on the city’s Albert Dock is one of two set be given a makeover

The Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building, another grade I-listed building which formerly housed the Dock Traffic Office, will become a new entrance to the International Slavery Museum.

The scheme, which is being supported by a £9.9m grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, is part of a 10-year masterplan to improve the area between Liverpool’s Royal Albert Dock and Mann Island.

Last year NML announced Adjaye and Asif Khan had won a competition to design the transformation of the city’s historic Canning Dock. That project, also part of the 10-year vision, will aim to tell the story of the site’s links with the slave trade using a new public realm and public art strategy.

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