Rick Mather Architects scheme for the expansion of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has been awarded a £15 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund

Rick Mather Architects design provides the museum with 100% more display space, an education centre, conservation studios, teaching rooms, study galleries and discovery areas, and for the first time in the museum's history, the Greek and Roman Collections will be integrated.

Established in 1683, the Ashmolean is the oldest museum in the country. Behind the distinguished 1845 façade of the renowned architect Charles Robert Cockerell lies a confused accretion of buildings that neither does justice to Cockerell nor develops the full potential of the Museum at present.
Rick Mather Architects strategy will maximise the potential of the building and optimise the display of the collections. Extensive new galleries will be created, linked by a new primary route, uniting the full collection both horizontally and vertically and will allow the visitor to quickly comprehend, use and enjoy the whole museum.
The museum is currently housed in a collection of interconnected buildings which have developed piecemeal behind the fine Cockerell building. The space planned for redevelopment is at the back of the museum - areas not designed by Cockerell, but were erected at the end of the 19th Century as a quick fix to house a rapidly expanding collection.

Carole Souter, Director of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said, "As the UK's oldest public museum, the Ashmolean has a long and distinguished history of looking after the nation's heritage. This ambitious project will propel it well into the 21st Century and take a treasure trove of items out of old fashioned galleries into a place of inspiration and learning."

Dr Christopher Brown, Director of the Ashmolean, said, "The Museum is immensely grateful for this tremendous act of support for the Museum's ambitious development plans which are needed both by the collections and the visitors."

Chairman of the Board, Nicholas Barber, "This is an exciting time in the long history of the Ashmolean. We are proposing nothing less than the total transformation of the oldest museum in Europe and these generous grants will go a very long way towards helping us."

Rick Mather is "delighted with the grant as it makes it possible for us to continue work on a project that is intended to complement and do justice to what is probably Cockerell's best surviving building; and give great new exhibition spaces for the Ashmolean's superb collection."