London Museum to create immersive exhibition in rediscovered vaults

The rediscovery of a huge, brick-vaulted basement underneath Smithfield Market was “one of the most remarkable moments” of the London Museum development project, says director Sharon Ament – and now the institution is searching for a design team to bring the unique space to life.

The museum has put out a £350,000 tender to create an immersive exhibition in the 800 sq metre Victorian-era vaults.

According to Ament, who announced the project on LinkedIn this week, the exhibition will “bring to light never-before-seen archaeological treasures, blending physical collections with cutting-edge storytelling to create an engaging, multi-sensory experience”.

The hidden space was rediscovered in 2019 during the early days of the £437m development project, when a building contractor broke through a wall to find a vast, rat-infested network of subterranean vaults.

Although building plans had indicated the presence of some underground structures, the scale of the space, which had been bricked up for many years, came as a shock.

The discovery forced the architect team to go back to the drawing board and a number of options were considered for the vaults, including closing them again. However additional funding was eventually found to restore and transform the basement into a functional museum space.

The museum is now seeking a design team to create an inaugural exhibition in the vaults, with the project due to complete in July 2026.

Ament said: “We are looking for designers who can craft innovative, accessible, and compelling visitor journeys, using creativity, design, and technology to bring history to life.”

The project will require a lead designer, 3D designer, graphic designer, and lead designer input into the exhibition’s audiovisual elements.

The project brief states: “The London Museum is seeking an exceptional exhibition design team to create a groundbreaking inaugural exhibition within the vaults — an atmospheric, historic, brick-vaulted basement space situated in the Victorian General Market building [that] forms part of the museum’s new home.

“This immersive experience will showcase never-before-seen archaeological treasures, blending physical collections with cutting-edge storytelling. We are looking for designers who can craft innovative, engaging, and accessible visitor experiences, bringing history to life through creativity, storytelling, and multi-sensory design.”

The London Museum development is one of the most ambitious cultural projects of the coming decade. It will see transformation of two historic buildings in the Smithfield Market complex in Farringdon into a new home for the former Museum of London, which left its previous site at the Barbican in 2022.

The first phase of the new museum development, including the opening of the Victorian-era General Market building and West Poultry Avenue, is due to complete in 2026.

The building will feature a series of exhibition spaces, as well as an events and performance hub, restaurants and shops. Visitors will be able to see the museum’s collections in a permanent underground gallery with a live train line running through it.

The second phase of the project, scheduled for 2028, will see the opening of the adjacent 1960s-era Poultry Market building, which will house two large temporary exhibition spaces, a learning centre and a working collections store.

The project has been designed by the architectural team Stanton Williams and Asif Khan with Julian Harrap Architects.