School truant who became a Viking timelord
Immersive museum was radically inventive at its opening in 1984
Familiar to many visitors from Scarborough, the original Jorvik Viking Centre in York was a revolutionary and influential concept in museum exhibition design and archaeological interpretation.
PATRICK ARGENT talks to the former North Yorkshire-based designer John Sunderland, who lived in Scarborough for a time. In the second edition of his autobiographical book, Sunderland details his singular vision for retelling the past. Encountering the pervading and acrid stench of 10th century Viking cesspits would be an extraordinarily unusual and memorable feature of any museum visit.
In 1984, this powerfully evocative sensory factor was a key part of a revolutionary idea of how interactive design could make archaeology (and therefore history) both accessible and intelligible to the public.
As with all meaningful and coherent exhibition design, this was achieved through scholarly and concise storytelling, applied with creative imaginative intelligence.
Metaphorically travelling backwards in time, passing the images and sounds of The Beatles, Winston Churchill and air raid sirens of the Blitz, First World War trench warfare etc., the visitor to the original Jorvik Viking Centre was propelled via “time cars”, directly into a uniquely immersive museological experience.
With accompanying narration from the former BBC Mastermind host Magnus Magnusson, the public traversed through a full-scale, archaeologically accurate recreation of Viking-age York.
This radically inventive approach to museums as “timetravel” essentially presented a vivid, multi-sensory scenario as an objective and tangible engagement with the past.
The impetus for the development of Jorvik would arise from the overwhelming public interest in the long-running and extensive excavation undertaken by York Archaeological Trust in Coppergate between 1976 and 1981.
The oxygen-free soil of the water-logged site, which had prevented the decay of organic material, led to an uncommonly high degree of preservation in both timber building remains and such rare personal artifacts as leather shoes and woollen textiles. Plant remains, insects, larvae and even faecal matter were also unearthed.
The prodigious and internationally significant results of this excavation were to herald a whole new understanding of Viking York and Anglo-Scandinavian culture in this medieval period.
For project designer John Sunderland, the primary aim was to place into context this unprecedented wealth of exceptional finds.
Commissioned by the Trust, Jorvik was developed underground in situ, on the actual dig site, creating an unconventional alignment of archaeology and a radical interpretive museum.
Atmospheric, intriguing and beguiling to all ages, this frozen-in-time Norse underworld would gain both significant acknowledgement from the archaeology profession and prove to be immediately popular with the public.
Former City Archaeologist for York John Oxley MBE said: “John Sunderland transformed the way that we as archaeologists thought about
presenting the past to a wider audience. At a stroke, the stuffy, stilted approach of so many museums was blown away and we were informed and entertained by heritage.”
Opened in April 1984 by Prince Charles, in its first year alone the museum attracted more than 980,000 visitors.
Over the subsequent decades, the continued commercial success of Sunderland’s magnum opus would finance further archaeology, academic research and educational initiatives by the Trust.
A highly vivid and personalised account, Sunderland’s book On My Way To Jorvik not only follows the centre’s development but also his early life as a partial autobiography, in addition to his initial career in
Ttelevision production.
It relates how Wakefieldborn Sunderland would inadvertently discover his future design vocation in wilfully absconding from maths lessons at his grammar school, whilst exploring the town’s museum, art gallery and cinema.
The effect of Sunderland’s habitual culturally-based truanting would result in a design credo emanating from his realisation as to: “Why can’t museums be more like films?”
He added: “All those things, in all those boxes and cases, I thought, have stories to tell. I was 11, but that thought never left me. That’s what was in my head when I landed the job; in fact, it was my inspiration to somehow design the original JVC [Jorvik Viking Centre], even though I had no professional experience of exhibition or museum design”. his unorthodox, decidedly maverick approach, driven by the impassioned conviction of his schoolboy intuition, would not only lead to a revelatory and unique design solution, but ultimately to the unrivalled success and longevity of Jorvik.
Initially training at Bath College of Art and subsequently Birmingham Polytechnic graduating in graphic design, Sunderland describes how he made the unconventional switch of creative disciplines.
From a graphic designer working in two dimensions, Sunderland became a selftaught and, unexpectedly, a leading pioneer in three-dimensional museum design.
(Coincidentally in parallel, the eminent international designer Richard Seymour, from Scarborough, would also make a similar shift of specialism to product design).
Sunderland relates his idiosyncratic story with both humour and frankness, depicting the numerous setbacks, unexpected occurrences and revelations, in the gestation of his innovative design idea.
‘Jorvik changed everything ... presenting heritage would never be the same again’ John Oxley
Illustrated with numerous original sketches and photos, the book is an absorbing and lucid personable narrative that also functions as a kind of informal design report.
The exacting details of how Jorvik was originally conceived derive from Sunderland’s obsessively conscientious recording of daily events in his career.
Reflecting on the centre’s wide-ranging appeal, Sunderland remarked: “Jorvik demonstrated that you could present something as complex as broad-spectrum archaeological data, both material and organic evidence, in ways that would engage and educate people on a more experiential level.
“One criticism levelled at the JVC before opening was that it would ‘Disney-fy’ British history. My answer was the intention was to present ‘truth’ as believed based on evidence, in a way that would satisfy scholars as well as be understood by the public.”
Jorvik would subsequently also gain particular recognition from renowned figures within the design profession for its startlingly innovatory approach.
The eminent designer Richard Fowler, creator of Eureka! children’s museum, stated: “Jorvik was clearly the best of the new ‘heritage’ attractions that were popping up like mushrooms in the 80s and 90s.
“Providing high-quality experiential interpretative displays in and around an important Viking archaeological dig site in the centre of an existing tourist destination was something that no conventional museum could emulate at that time.
“The phenomenal success of Jorvik bears testimony to this and all involved – including curators, archaeologists, interpreters and, most importantly, John’s design team – deserve full credit for their groundbreaking work.”
International exhibition
designer Neal Potter, whose work includes the Experience Music Project in Seattle, said: “In 1984 I was putting the finishing touches to the design of the British Pavilion at Expo 85 in Japan. The inspiration had started to flag when a colleague suggested that we go to see the newly opened Jorvik Centre which was receiving good press.
“Jorvik turned out to be a game changer from which we took inspiration, as did the many visitors who flocked in.
The key to that success, I believe, was the designer’s creative imagination linked to a solid story with a good collection. Many places tried to copy the Jorvik concept to attract people to their town but they didn’t have the imagination, the great story or the footfall from other attractions.”
The unparalleled success of the centre was to spawn numerous imitators, and many ideas which originated within Sunderland’s Jorvik design can be observed in museums worldwide today.
Inspired by his hero, the grandee of British exhibition design James Gardner (19071995), John Sunderland’s subsequent expansive and multi-faceted career postJorvik encompassed a rich diversity of design and consultancy commissions in the UK and abroad.
They include The Eurotunnel exhibition, Madame Tussaud’s ‘Spirit of London’, Hereford Cathedral’s Mappa Mundi exhibition, and the Celtica and Rheged historical visitor centres, among numerous others.
Living in the Scarborough area for part of his career, Sunderland, the designer/storyteller, would also establish a reputation as a leading pioneer in the implementation of virtual reality (VR) in archaeological interpretation.
His design for the Ename Museum in Oudenarde, Belgium, of 1998, for example, would feature in the world’s first on-site, outdoors augmented reality system.
Sunderland’s current writing reflects his Iberian home compiled in a forthcoming publication, Tàrbena Times: Stories From A Spanish Rural Village High And Hidden In The Costa Blanca Mountains, in addition to his planning of other titles inspired by his exhibition design experiences.
Today some 20 million visitors later, with Sunderland’s core idea still intact, although updated technologically and much altered, Jorvik continues to both enhance and powerfully convey the integrity of the original design.
As Scarborough-based John Oxley concisely summarises: “As an archaeologist, Jorvik changed everything about how we tell stories about the past. Presenting heritage would never be the same again.”
Sunderland, the absconding 11-year-old schoolboy, would have undoubtably thought, “This is more like it, can I go round again?”.
The revised second edition of On My Way To Jorvik, by John Sunderland, is available via Amazon and Waterstones and from selected bookshops detailed on the website www. johnsunderland.co.uk. Samples of Tàrbena Times are also available from the website.