‘We really want to be much more open and inviting’ – The Geffrye Museum looks to the future

The Geffye Museum. Photograph: Jayne Lloyd

Winding down at the end of a busy year is no option for the Geffrye Museum. Hoxton’s museum of the home experiences twice as many visitors in December than in other months, and last month saw record numbers through its doors.

The former 18th century almshouses opened as a museum a century ago, and its director David Dewing has been there for over 20 of those years. Born in 1951, Dewing’s route to the Geffrye hotseat came via a career in furniture design, by which he became fascinated as a teenager.

“I remember there was a great crop of British designers whose work was attracting attention at that time. I just thought that looks interesting and it drew me into thinking furniture design might be an interesting career,” he says.

After graduating and working as designer, Dewing moved into the museum sector, becoming a curator at the Museum of London in 1979. He then changed tack, retraining and gaining museum qualifications and a degree in history. When in 1991 the Geffrye Museum were looking for a new director, his combination of qualifications and experience made him a good fit.

“I was approached about the post at the Geffrye Museum at a time when the museum was changing, from it being run by the inner London education authority to a charitable trust with funding from central government,” he says.

His appointment was a new chapter for the museum, and coincided with the emergence of Hoxton and Shoreditch as creative hubs.

“It’s an exciting place to be and the Geffrye finds itself well placed,” says Dewing. “We’ve renewed and changed to keep the museum alive and relevant to today’s audiences.

“Especially since Hoxton station opened by our back door we’re getting visitors from all across London and beyond.”

According to Dewing this is why the museum needs more space, as well as allowing it to improve access and display books, collections and archives currently not visible to the public.

Last May, the museum’s plans for an extension were rejected by Hackney Council. The project, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, included a concrete extension that would mean the demolition of a former 1830s pub, The Marquis of Landsdowne.

“We thought the pub was not a highly important building and perhaps one that we could have replaced with a purpose built museum building. In fact the people declared their sense of outrage so we’ve taken on board the fact that a body of people would like to see the pub retained,” explains Dewing.

The vocal campaign to save the pub was damaging – Private Eye framed the episode as a museum of middle class taste pitted against a symbol of working class culture. It quoted Dewing as saying he had “no interest in the culture of the working classes” – something he subsequently denied.

“It’s a very easy link to make and undoubtedly makes a catchy headline but is absolutely not where we are,” he says.”Although we have a core collection that looks at middle income homes we’re actually very interested in all sorts of homes.”

The planning committee’s decision put paid to four years of work costing half a million pounds. The museum also lost its Heritage Lottery Funding, worth £10 million. Tomorrow, however, is another day, and after initially being “devastated” by the news, Dewing is determined to start the project afresh.

“We’re going to slightly reduce the scale of the project and make the pub part of our museum extension rather than knocking it down. And we want to make sure that the way it sits on the street and the way people engage with it on pavement level is much more friendly,” he says.

“I think the previous design was a little bit of a wall against the street and we really want to be much more open and inviting.”

The museum has parted ways with David Chipperfield Architects, who designed the previous scheme, and has initiated its search for a new architect,, which it hopes to have in situ by April.

“It will be refreshing for us all to start with a new architect who’s coming in with a new sense of ownership and enthusiasm and energy,” says Dewing. “It will also be good for our sense of relating to the public because we need to carry the public with us. We need to make sure there is popular support for a new scheme and move forward on that basis.”