Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, Science Museum
- Client
- Science Museum Group
- Services
- Branded Environments
- Sector
- Culture + Civic
- Location
- London, UK
- Collaborators
- Architect: WilkinsonEyre
Environmental graphics for the world’s largest medical galleries
Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries at the Science Museum is the world’s largest display dedicated to medicine. Designed by WilkinsonEyre, the five themed galleries cover 3,000m² and house over 3,000 objects drawn from the collections of Sir Henry Wellcome and the Science Museum Group. Spanning more than 500 years of medical history, the galleries are organised around the themes of Bodies, Exploring Medicine, Medicine and Communities, Faith, Hope and Fear, and Medicine and Treatments. Benoy was appointed to develop a wayfinding scheme that would support the visitor journey across this vast and complex space.
3,000m² (five themed galleries)
A narrative thread through 500 years
The scheme is designed to support the historical narrative across five galleries of fundamentally different character and content, establishing a clear information hierarchy that gives the overall scheme coherence while allowing each gallery to carry its own identity. A family of interpretive devices integrates seamlessly into the space, bringing individual exhibits to life and creating moments of intrigue and discovery alongside the objects themselves. The graphics are calibrated to support the cyclical themes of darkness and light that run through the collection, acknowledging the full complexity of medicine’s history rather than presenting a single progressive narrative.
