Military medical history museum plans sent in
PLANS for a huge new museum in Cardiff dedicated to military medical history have been formally submitted.
The Museum of Military Medicine would hold the national collection of art, artefacts, archives and exhibits.
The archives in the museum would be used by researchers in medicine and medical history and go back to the Napoleonic Wars.
The four-storey museum would be built on land in Cardiff Bay which neighbours the Travelodge Hotel off Hemingway Road.
The original plans showed it on land directly next to the disused railway station, but the new plans are for it to be built on the other side of Lloyd George Avenue.
All the exhibits that will be displayed at the museum are currently at Keogh Barracks, near Aldershot.
According to designers, Cardiff was selected for its transport links with other parts of the UK.
It says that the former Bute Road station has a direct connection with the medical services story, as it was the embarkation point for wounded soldiers in WWI on their way to the military hospitals in South Wales and the west of England. Relocating the museum would allow growth and a greater tourist reach.
The new building has been designed by Scott Brownrigg, and plans have now been submitted to Cardiff Council for consideration.
The design of the building is for a “contemporary factory of knowledge and education” as well as being a “large-scale storage and display box of artefacts of significance”.
It is made up of three “boxes” with different “degrees of opacity”. The external cover of the building would be copper, which would give “views of the city landscape through strategically located cuts on it”.
The design has been created to hide the “least interesting” parts of the hotel and Red Dragon Centre.
The building will be environmentally friendly, according to developers.