- This is just truly wonderful.
Sorry that's not in my speech
but it's a real thrill
to see all of you today
in this magnificent Whale Hall.
Deputy Lieutenant, Sir David,
Vice-Chancellor, Ladies and Gentleman,
welcome to this ceremony
which is my opportunity
to thank all those who have
made this project happen
and there are a lot of them.
I'm Paul Brakefield, I'm
the Director of the Museum.
We celebrate today the
completion of the redevelopment
of the historic Museum of Zoology
as an outward facing organisation
with all the facilities
and sparkling smartness
one expects of a dynamic, modern museum.
I'm especially delighted to welcome
Sir David Attenborough
as our guest of honour.
We are privileged to be a special part
of this magnificent David
Attenborough Building
which we share with the
Cambridge Conservation Initiative
and it's partner organisations.
The building, with a museum at its heart
is dedicated to
understanding and conserving
biodiversity for future generations.
The David Attenborough Building
with its unique community
is a tribute to the strategic
vision of the university.
It's central purpose of
biodiversity conservation
is also extremely timely in this era
when the natural world
faces so many challenges.
Our project would not
have happened without
the whole-hearted
support of the university
to whom we are immensely grateful.
We are also embedded as a museum
in a world-leading department of zoology
that has supported us
to the absolute hilt.
I'm very pleased to actually also today
to announce the news that
Nicholas Hare Architects
have today won a major Rebar
award for this building.
There are so many people to thank
that I can only do this collectively.
I would however, especially
draw your attention
to our brilliant installation team
who have been so incredibly busy
in the latter stages of the project.
All of our staff, past and present,
curators and managers,
administrative and marketing staff,
the learning team, cleaners, technicians
and front of house personnel
have been truly dedicated in their efforts
and we've benefited from
the unflagging support
of a magnificent army of volunteers
and also more and more from
graduate students as well.
Now this redevelopment
would not have happened
without the generosity of Lottery players
and the support of the
Heritage Lottery Fund,
As well many other funders as you can see
from the wall of this
magnificent Whale Hall behind me.
Arts Council England helps fund
the fantastic team of eight
University of Cambridge
museums and botanic garden
to which we belong
and whose staff have assisted us
with such enthusiasm
throughout the project.
I hope that when you move through
the galleries at the reception
that you and all future visitors will be
enthralled by the new displays.
I certainly am.
That you will marvel at the
wonders of animal diversity
and perhaps be driven to discover more
or to become involved
yourself in conserving
biodiversity in some way or another.
We pride ourselves on
being at the forefront
of international research
on animal diversity
and using our truly
exceptional collections
to provide inspirational teaching
to future generations of zoologists
and this project, I believe,
has greatly enhanced
our ability to fulfil all of these aims.
Now museums face many challenges.
We can be, I think,
proud of our new museum
and what has been achieved to date
but it is now up to us to be ambitious
and to make the very most of
our wonderful new environment.
We aim to provide leadership,
to continue to provide leadership to
zoology museums worldwide
and we can attract more
researchers, students and visitors
of all ages, all backgrounds
and all walks of life,
to encourage a fascination with
the science of natural history,
and finally my thanks to
all of you for joining us
here for this afternoon's celebration
and it is with extremely great pleasure
that I now hand over to Sir David
to unveil the commemorative plaque.
(applause)
- When I was an undergraduate here,
1945, there was no at any
rate, in a formal sense,
there was no Museum of Zoology.
There was of course a
collection and department,
but there was no museum in a formal sense.
So this is a newborn
museum in my experience
and there is a great advantage
that comes from being newborn and modern
and you will see what it
is in just a minute or two
when you go into the galleries,
but it's revelatory.
It's revelatory for all kinds of reasons.
It's revelatory from display reasons,
you'll see a glittering showcase.
Any idea that a museum could possibly
be fusty or dusty or boring will not occur
to your brain for a microsecond,
because it's ravishingly beautiful
and excitingly and thrilling to when you
turn around a corner you
see a new revelation.
But it's also exciting and thrilling
and revelatory in a scientific sense.
The new science that is in
these galleries is breathtaking.
There's a whole new order,
I had to make a note of it in my diary.
(laughter)
There's a whole new order of grouping
of animals which include
tenrecs and dugongs
and various other animals
that I'll let you find out
which suddenly we worked out, we,
suddenly geneticists have worked out
(laughter)
but are related, I'll have
to put it in my diary,
the.. look at the museum, you'll see it.
(laughter)
But it's the science that is new science,
new display, marvellous creatures,
another thrill for me
was to bring the past
into the present in
the sense that you take
display fossils alongside
their descendants,
living descendants.
Suddenly you see the
great panoply and panorama
of this natural world
opening in front of you.
Seeing all these things develop
over five hundred million years.
It is a revelation and
I am truly, truly proud
to be given the privilege of opening it.
Other one.
(laughter)
(loud applause)
- Thank you Sir David.
I can't think of anybody
else in this world
who is any more appropriate
than you to open this museum.
We are absolutely thrilled to
have seen you open the museum.
I now hand over to Phil Rothwell
from Heritage Lottery Fund
to say a few words, Phil.
- I've had many tough
acts to follow in my life
(laughter)
none quite so tough as this,
and I've just abandoned all my haradition
and I'm just going to say a few words.
The Heritage Lottery Fund is delighted
to be supporting this project.
I have the joy and privilege of sitting
on Heritage Lottery Fund
East of England Committee
where we have handed out over 5000 grants
over the last 20 years,
some of them big, some of them small,
but all fantastic in
making a huge difference
to people's lives and the
way people see the world
and what they experience
and it wouldn't be possible without,
as Paul had said, Heritage
Lottery Fund players.
I can see you're all
Heritage Lottery Fund players
and you check your numbers every weekend.
I know Sir David does,
he told me what his were.
(laughter)
So it's really important that we continue
to support the Lottery because without it
we couldn't do the sorts
of things we do here.
But this is a fantastic achievement.
I'm so pleased to be here
and I'm so excited by it.
And I did have a sneak
preview behind the scenes
a few months ago and to be able to hold
Darwin's Beetle Box, you know,
the essence of conservation and evolution
sitting there in this
building is fantastic
and what it's now trying to do
for the future is equally important.
So I drove here, 15
miles across the The Fens
and not one insect this afternoon
bothered to commit
suicide on my windscreen.
(laughter)
So that is the state of our nature today
and it is this place that
can be the building block
for the future and we're so excited at the
Heritage Lottery Fund to be funding it.
We're looking forward
very much to the outreach,
to bringing biodiversity
and bringing the messages
that this place tells us to
a whole range of communities.
To not diversity in biology
but diversity in community
because all of us, all of us,
have a role to play in
sorting out the problems
that we've now managed
to provide ourselves with
and this is a really exciting,
exciting building block on that journey.
So, thank you.
(applause)
- Thank you very much Phil.
It's now a pleasure to
hand over to an old friend
of not just this museum but
all the museums in Cambridge,
Kathy Fawcett from Arts Council England.
- Thank you Paul.
Well I'm hugely excited to be here
at the University Museum of Zoology
for this re-opening on behalf
of Arts Council England.
This is a museum with one of the largest
and most important national
history collections
in the country.
Arts Council England's mission
is great arts and culture for everyone.
And this new museum which
Arts Council co-funds
as part of University of
Cambridge Museum's consortium
through our national
portfolio funding programme
delivers this in a truly remarkable way.
Through it's world renowned collections
newly displayed in these
brilliant new spaces,
through it's innovative research,
it's exciting public artworks,
and it's excellent engagement programmes.
This is stunning new
chapter for this museum,
and also for Cambridge's season.
We're very grateful to our colleagues
at Heritage Lottery Fund and
to national Lottery players
and to the many other supporters
and funders of this museum.
Including of course, the
University of Cambridge,
for their support of this project.
As one of the first Arts
Councils across the world
to demonstrate commitment
to embracing environmental sustainability
and reducing carbon footprint
both within the Arts Council
and through the organisations we fund
we're really delighted
to be supporting a museum
to make such a compelling contribution
through its work in this area.
For the Museum's MPO programme
and through a very important
other arts council-funded
project, the Beetle Voyage.
A designation development funded project
which focuses on the notebooks written
by the Reverend Leonard Jennings.
Among the etymological
collections to which they relate,
I've been hugely impressed
by the immense enthusiasm,
dedication and hard work of the staff team
at the University Museum of Zoology,
towards opening up access to
their remarkable collections.
I'd like to commend
the staff of the museum
and their fellow museum volunteers
for the immense hard work they've put in
to reopening this museum after five years.
It's an amazing achievement and will,
I'm sure, transform public engagements
with its unique collections
and greatly contribute
to public understanding of the value
of natural history collections
and their wider role in increasing
both of our understanding
of the natural world
and the great environmental
challenges of our time.
Thank you.
(applause)
- Thank you Kathy.
And last but not least,
as I've already said,
we are honoured to have
had such fantastic support
from the University of Cambridge
and it's my privilege to introduce
a fairly new Vice-Chancellor,
and I put it like that,
Professor Stephen Toope
to talk to you at the end.
- Thank you very much.
And I do have to join you in saying that
whoever had the idea
of putting David first
and the rest of us afterwards,
(laughter)
really you've got to
rethink that for the future.
(laughter)
Sir David, Deputy Lieutenant,
distinguished colleagues,
students, friends of Cambridge.
We're of course used to
hearing that Cambridge
is in many ways exceptional.
Our unique college system,
our incredible buildings
in a picturesque and ancient town,
first-rate students,
world-leading academics,
history of groundbreaking
discovery, Nobel prizes,
but there is still more to Cambridge.
It is a place of record.
A place where our library keeps a copy
of every book published
in the United Kingdom
and our museums are filled with treasures
that map the very history of the world.
Every one of those museums and
of course the botanic garden
is a vital public facing
arm of the university.
A place where scholars from
all over the planet arrive to study.
The museum of Zoology
confirms its place today
as one of the World's
most important collections
and is a key piece in
the university's crusade
to record and conserve biodiversity.
What you see here from the Fin Whale
hanging above us to the Bird of Paradise
that Sir David Attenborough
placed for us earlier today,
represents the mere
tip of the iceberg when
it comes to this remarkable collection.
The museum stores we
developed as part of this
magnificent building transformation,
hold rare specimens from almost
every corner of the planet.
Many of them, as you know, were gathered
during the great collecting
expeditions of the 19th century.
They include as we
heard, a large selection
that Darwin himself amassed
during his voyage on the Beagle.
Yes, the collection that
Darwin himself selected.
Naturally, it's Cambridge.
The importance of the museum's collection
to modern science can't be overstated.
It's central to our world
leading Department of Zoology,
a department with an
extraordinary history,
and an incredible ability
to make a difference,
I think, in the world today.
Modern technology allows current students
and scientists to use methods
undreamt of 150 years ago
to study this collection
and make new findings.
It's possible that the carefully preserved
zoological specimens on display here,
even those of sadly long-extinct animals,
may be the heart of
discoveries that enable us
to conserve species for the future.
And the Museums's mission
stretches beyond the exhibition
and study of biological material.
This is a place where the crucial task
of inspiring the next
generations takes place.
A dedicated education
team of just two people
helps teachers engage with the collections
with curators, departmental
students and staff.
Online resources are being developed,
workshops held, young minds
connected with this museum.
It's estimated that roughly
12000 school children
will take part in activities
in the learning lab each year.
Imagine the inspiration,
what they may go on to do.
Teachers and school children alike
are galvanised by the palpable enthusiasm
of the Museum's staff and volunteers.
And that kind of passion
is essential to engender
the deep love of the natural world
that we all I think aspire
to and want to share.
Our researchers, curators and conservators
are working with local volunteers,
our thanks to them,
and with counterparts across the globe.
They're exchanging ideas with communities
in locations as far afield
as Sumatra, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Columbia, various oceanic islands.
I'm told that on a recent field trip
for the first time one of the
Museum's learning assistants
accompanied a research team to Indonesia.
She's now inspiring audiences with
her experiences and direct observations.
That kind of journey
echoes in the footsteps
of Charles Darwin himself.
He went on a voyage of exploration
that changed his thinking and through
communicating his discoveries
he changed the thinking of the world.
The Museum of Anthro-,
excuse me, of Zoology
(laughter)
is a place of discovery and influence.
A place that can help change the future.
It's also closely affiliated
with the next door neighbours,
the Cambridge Conservation Initiative,
also housed in this magnificent
David Attenborough Building.
The CCI as you know is the largest cluster
of conservation
organisations in the world.
And it's proximity to the Museum
is of real importance in communicating
the message of conservation
and sustainability
of paramount importance to our planet.
So I think this Museum is a
resource of which Cambridge
and indeed the United
Kingdom must be proud.
We're grateful to all who
have understood its importance
and contributed to its ongoing success.
Thanks to you, we can make
groundbreaking research
available to the widest audience.
Thanks to you, we can use this collection
to influence young minds in to keeping
and commending the future of this planet.
Thanks to you, our researchers
can make discoveries
and exchange knowledge with
others all around the world
and that doesn't happen without vision.
It doesn't happen without
financial support.
Speaking of which, I
hope that you will all
have a chance to admire, right down here,
the beautiful new donation box.
(laughter)
Far more than simply a piggy bank,
it is a magnificent work of
art by Matt Lane Sanderson
who also designed the Corpus
Clock on Trumpington Street.
Every child who comes in here
will want to turn that lever,
I have absolutely no doubt,
and I bet many adults too.
So our thanks to Matt for
creating such a beautiful piece.
In closing, I reiterate
Paul's words of thanks
to absolutely everyone involved
in the multi-faceted work
of transforming the Museum of Zoology.
I just had the pleasure of touring
with Sir David and it
is truly magnificent.
You're in for a treat.
And I want to pay special tribute
to Professor Paul Brakefield himself.
His vision has played no small
part in this achievement.
Congratulations and thank you, Paul,
and from all of us our
deep felt gratitude.
Go forth and investigate!
Thank you.
(applause)
