Changing Places: Evaluating the socio-cultural impact and experiential change of the new Museum of London in Smithfield

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The relocation of the Museum of London (MoL) to Smithfield in 2024 provides an opportunity for an empirical case study on the interplay between city museums and their urban contexts.The move will transform the MoL's approach to the city: not just to its mission to connect people to the lived experience of London, but across its collections, programmes, public engagement activities, and to the unique morphology of its new site. The museum has the potential to become a more permeable institution, both philosophically and spatially. To do so, it must understand the nature and communities of its subject - London - and its immediate urban context - Smithfield - well before it opens its doors. It must also understand the impact of its presence on that same context before, during and after its move. This PhD will develop a theoretical and methodological framework to map and evaluate the extant social, symbolic and experiential meanings embedded in Smithfield, the narratives that underpin its identity, how these are authored and 'read'. Further, it will analyse how the existing socio-cultural landscape can inform the MoL's institutional practices and connections to the neighbourhood, and the development of its surroundings. It will result in a practical toolkit to be used by the MoL beyond the period of the research to apply to the ongoing changing circumstances of Smithfield. The PhD will be action research-based and apply a mixed methods approach. It will engage with the current academic discourse around museums as agents of social change, as well as a theoretical framework combining aspects of phenomenology and narrative theory.The research will contribute to an understanding of how museum spaces physically interact with their surroundings; how new or relocated institutions can 'land softly'; and to better understand place-based narratives and their impact on urban atmospheres and everyday practices.