Jude Barrett, Officer for adult and children's education at the Ashmolean joined us this evening having had to previously cancel her visit in January due to extreme bad weather.  A fascinating talk was given which took us through the history and evolution of the museum and then on to the mammoth restoration and extension project that took place between 2006 and 2009.  Jude talked about how the underlying philosophy of the project was to provide a platform where the exhibits could be displayed in a new and refreshing way.  It was decided to go back to the way that the original collection, as started by John Tradescant the elder and continued by his son John Tradescant the younger, was displayed. This was in fact by culture and has been enhanced by time and crossing cultures.

The architect Rick Mather carried out the design and is the same architect as did the new boarding houses at Stowe school.  He has built an excellent reputation for his use of space and light.  Jude explained that due to existing buildings on all sides the only way to extend the buiding was to go downwards and so a huge basement was excavated.  As I said in my thanks to Jude I felt that the way that the exhibits had been displayed in custom made display cases perfectly mirrored the way light and space had been used in the architecture.

The project did not proceed without its problems and Jude described how the Ashmolean got into a hot bed of Japanese tea politics.  They had to go to extreme lengths to appease the three major Japanese tea houses from being offended because they had combined elements from each in the building of the Asmolean Japanese tea house. 

After tea Jude brought along 5 replica objects from the collection that we observed and handled including one mystery object that looked like a large and heavy fosslised bar of dark chocolate.  It turned out to be a tea tablet which was used as money in the trade of tea from China to Japan. An extremeley enjoyable and educational evening!

More reading and pictures via the links below.

John Tradescant
Elias Ashmole
Stories from the Ashmolean  
Our Bafa trip to the Ashmolean 
The Ashmolean