European Museum Forum / Council of Europe Museum Prize 2016

The mission of this cultural institution is: “Discover history and decide about the future”. The heart of the ECS is an exhibition commemorating the Solidarność revolution and the fall of communism in Europe. The exhibition is the focal point of the works of the education centre, the science and research centre, the archive, the library and the media library. The ECS is also a public space, a venue for the meeting of the citizens who feel responsible for the development of democracy, and a zone for practicing solidarity and citizenship.

European Museum Academy Micheletti Award 2016

The project’s aim was to update Den Gamle By (The Old Town open-air museum) and to focus on the inclusivity of the institution. This was achieved by adding two town districts from the 20th century to the museum’s pre-industrial environment. The updating was done in close cooperation with the people, by using their skills and memories. The new, contemporary segment increased visitor numbers by 30 percent and this additional income gave the museum a platform to address relevant subjects such as homelessness, old people’s dementia and youngsters with mental disabilities.

Chinese Museums Association / Most Innovative Museums of China 2016

Guangdong Museum was opened to the public in October 1959. The new building is located in the new city axis in Guangzhou, the Zhujiang New Town. It covers an area of 41,000㎡. There are more than 170,000 objects in the museum collection, amongst which are pieces of ancient calligraphy, paintings and ceramics - all at the top level of the national museums in China. Chaozhou Woodcarving especially in particular carries distinctive local characteristics. In addition to the temporary exhibitions, three permanent exhibitions are on display: Guangdong History and Culture, Natural Resources and Art Exhibitions. 

Estonian Museum Awards 2016 / Best Permanent Exhibition

The title of the “Echo of the Urals” exhibition derives from the scientific-mythical idea that the primary home of the Finno-Ugric peoples can be found in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. The museum aimed to negotiate traditional ethnography of the Finno-Ugric peoples and modern gender discourse. This topic enables the museum to demonstrate a wide range of the Finno-Ugric cultural particularities. In the display, the Finno-Ugric connections are articulated by the interactive image of the language tree, the presentation of the history of ideas about the Finno-Ugric peoples and issues of gender dialog through ethnographic objects. 

UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize 2016

Iberarchivos – Programa ADAI was set up in 1999 as a result of the 8th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Governments of 1998. This Programme is oriented towards the development of projects that enable the preservation and dissemination of Ibero-America's documentary heritage and the training of specialized employees to manage the archives. It also focuses on collaboration between archivists in Ibero-American countries to encourage a common work methodology, the purpose of which is to strengthen long-term links between Ibero-American archives, improve conservation and access to documentary heritage.

American Alliance of Museums / Excellence in Exhibition Awards 2016

San Diego, California, is known for its incredibly diverse terrain and is one of only 35 biodiversity hotspots in the world, meaning areas that have the highest concentration of different species of any geographic area of similar size. Using specimens from the Museum’s scientific collections alongside immersive environments, hands-on interactives, live animals, and innovative media, Coast to Cactus in Southern California illustrates that richness by taking visitors on a journey through these habitats and the plants and animals that live in them.

Portuguese Museum Award 2016

The Museum is located in the historic centre of Porto in a building that used to be the head office of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto from the mid 16th century up to 2013. Over the years, the building suffered a number of interventions, the last of which was its adaptation for museum facilities. The MMIPO has a double purpose; one is letting people know the history of the Misericórdia do Porto and its institutional purposes, and the other is to divulge its artistic collections, through a set of resources that reflect the memory and the identity of the organization, projecting it into the future.

European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards 2016

The Village Gostuša project was developed with the support of the Serbian Ministry of Culture and was composed of reconnaissance, research, mapping, recording, geo-positioning, systematization and digitalization of the recorded documents, preparing the designation proposal, publishing, promotion and action planning. In two campaigns, more than twenty experts and students spent around two months working in the field, succeeded by one year of office work by three architects to complete the project. From the year 2015 the team have been working on conservation project, dedicated to the full rehabilitation process of the village and the whole region.

Intermuseum 2016 festival Grand-prix / ICOM Russia Award

The State Darwin Museum was founded in 1907 in Moscow, and this year celebrates its 110th anniversary. The museum’s collection includes about 400 000 items, with over 5 000 exhibits in the exposition. The annual attendance exceeds 600 000 visitors and the museum hosts over 60 temporary exhibitions per year. It serves also a scientific centre for the museology of natural history museums in Russia. Each year the museum organises over 10 public festivals, with each event gathering up to 7 000 visitors. The museum features a comfortable environment for people with disabilities. 

Swedish Museum of the Year 2016 Award

Sweden’s biggest museum of technology has a national charter to preserve technical and industrial history as part of the cultural heritage of Sweden. At the Museum, you can experience exhibitions on inventions, energy and the environment along with other areas of topical interest in a fun and inspiring way. The Museum also includes a Science Center, “MegaMind”. The galleries cover around 10,000 m2 and the Museum attracts more than 300,000 visitors every year. A programme of successful renewal work has enabled the Museum to achieve its objective of being ‘every little genius’s favorite place’.

Telegraph Family Friendly Museum Award 2016

York Art Gallery reopened on the 1 August 2015 following an £8 million redevelopment, was a finalist for UK Museum of the Year 2016 and won the Family Friendly Museum Award 2016. All areas of the gallery are creatively displayed and accessible to all. The Gallery’s excellent collection of Western European paintings has designated status. In addition, the collection of over 5,500 British Studio Ceramics is housed within the gallery in the Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA). The gallery hosts an exciting programme of temporary exhibitions and public engagement projects.

European Museum Forum / European Museum of the Year Award 2016

Facing the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes on the rubble of the Warsaw ghetto and destroyed prewar Jewish neighborhood, the POLIN Museum honors those who died by remembering how they lived. At the heart of the museum is a multimedia narrative exhibition, a journey of a thousand years, which recovers the historic diversity of Poland and the memory of what was once the largest Jewish community in the world. With its innovative educational and cultural programs, POLIN Museum is an agent of transformation that can move an entire society forward. 

ServiceIQ 2016 New Zealand Museum Awards / Best Museum Project

At 4.35am 4th of September 2010 a magnitude 7.1 earthquake destroyed not only the Kaiapoi Museum but the surrounding communities in Canterbury, New Zealand. There was no respite given by the earthquake god Ruaumoko who then struck the same area with a magnitude 7.3 on 22nd of February 2011, decimating the already fragile nerves of people with the loss of human life and destroying the city of Christchurch. By 2013 Canterbury had experienced over 13,000 aftershocks. This is the story of Kaiapoi Museum, the first museum to be rebuilt and reopened during and after this tragedy.

European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards 2016

IN 2015, NGO AKCIJA Sarajevo initiated a civil society campaign, “I am the Museum”, to remind residents that the most important cultural institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been closed for almost three years, and to influence those in charge to resolve this problem. This campaign emphasized the strong commitment of the employees of the National Museum of BiH to keep the Museum active, in very difficult political and economic circumstances. The campaign, which galvanized a massive community response to save the Museum, was awarded the Europa Nostra Grand Prix for 2016.

European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards 2016

The Adopt-a-Monument scheme run by the Pirkanmaa Provincial Museum enables citizens to take a proactive role in the management and conservation of cultural heritage in their own living environment. The concept is a result of extensive research and based on the idea that the museum is a facilitator; the initiative and need to work for cultural heritage must come from adopters. The mission of the adopters is to make sites accessible and to bring joy to others. There are currently more than 400 volunteers working within the Adopt-a-Monument teams.

European Museum Forum / Silletto Prize 2016

Founded in 1947, the Museum is located in the baroque palace of the counts Eltz on the right bank of the Danube. It was almost entirely destroyed in the Croatian War in 1991, but continued its work in exile until 1997. Returning to the ruined palace, it was an active force in reconstructing the social and cultural life of Vukovar. The permanent exhibition, which shows a time span from prehistory until nowadays, refurbished the memory of the city. The Museum became a guardian of heritage, tolerance and peace for which it received the Silletto Award, EMYA 2016.

Japan Institute of Architects Grand Prix 2016

In the heart of Oita City, a “Museum of Encounters and of the Five Senses” was born. The building was designed by world-renowned architect Shigeru Ban. It is an invigorating architectural space that lets in a great deal of light and is filled with versatility. This museum has been developed so that it is not only a culmination of the heritage of both art and museums worldwide, but also so that it is a place where people can locally experience global encounters amidst objects from different cultures. The Museum’s aim is to create singular and unrivalled experiences of art in a place fit for the twenty-first century.

Norwegian Museum Of The Year 2016

Vest-Agder-Museum is a regional museum, consisting of 20 different museums spread across the county, including city museums, open-air museums, birth homes of artists, fortifications, factories, railways and ships. The museum is committed to taking care of its valuable collections, maintaining the buildings, railways and ships and creating new knowledge about these through research.   Vest-Agder-museum has also focused on sensitive contemporary issues - for example poverty and sexual abuse. In relation to such issues,  Vest-Agder Museum has taken on a national role in developing methods for dealing with this type of subject matter.

European Museum Forum / Kenneth Hudson Award 2016

This unique museum, located in the restored and renewed listed heritage building “de Ledenlokalen”, shows the smallest yet most powerful and numerous forms of life on earth. After a development of 12 years, involving the close collaboration of many international parties, Micropia opened in 2014. The museum focuses on the relationship between microbes and the visitor, and makes the visit very personal. Visitors have live views of microbes moving, eating and reproducing. Through interactives the visitor becomes part of the microbial world, and vice versa. Design, soundscape, art and architecture complement the space.

EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award 2016

In 2011, the Berlin based non-profit organisation DIEHL+RITTER launched - with an overall budget of 6 million euro - the project Tanzfonds Erbe (Dance Fund Heritage) to encourage artistic projects dedicated to the cultural heritage of dance. The funded projects range from stage works, films to exhibitions, festivals and websites. The results are all documented and allow the general public to openly access the history of 20th century and contemporary dance through a well-designed website, which includes videos of rehearsals, interviews and performances as well photographs, artworks and articles relating to dance thus creating access to the heritage of dance for future generations.

National Lottery Best Heritage Project 2016

In 2015, the Lion Salt Works Museum located in Northwich, North-West England re-opened after a four year £10 million restoration. One of the last open-pan, salt-making sites in the world, the Museum has the UK’s highest protection status. The Museum tells the story of the salt and the impact it has made on the region’s people, industry and landscape. It does this through fun, interactive displays and numerous events. The Museum has won eight awards since opening, including, after a nationwide vote, the highly prestigious National Lottery’s ‘Best Heritage Project’.

European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award 2016

The two year project saw the conservative repair of the building: the stabilisation of its structure and fragile surfaces, and the reinstatement of missing and damaged elements, while ensuring that its weathered beauty was not compromised.  Conceived in the 18th century as a picturesque ruin, rich with historical allusions, and the focus of a designed landscape, the building had been degraded by time, weather, vegetation, animals and vandals.  A rigorous process of research and analysis and an interdisciplinary conservation approach enabled an aesthetic run to be rescued from real ruin.

Museums + Heritage Permanent Exhibition Award 2016

The Lister Project has transformed Surgeons Hall Museum into a vibrant and important medical collection-based museum. The £4.5 million project has received six different architectural and heritage awards and won the best permanent exhibition for the UK in the 2016 Museum and Heritage Awards. The project unites new buildings and display space connected to the magnificent 1832 Playfair Building on Edinburgh’s Nicolson Street. It is centred on a digital dissection theatre portraying the first public dissection in Scotland in 1702. The museum welcomes over 70,000 visitors a year.

International Association for Children in Museums / Children in Museums Award 2016

GeoFort is a science center in the Netherlands where visitors can experiment with cartography and navigation at a beautiful old fortress. GeoFort emphasizes the importance of spatial thinking to a broader audience and stimulates younger people to choose geosciences related study. Visitors are invited to experience the geo-ICT behind climate change, renewable energy, big data, tracking 'n tracing, satellite images, geodesign, Minecraft and many more topics.

Chinese Museums Association / Most Innovative Museums in China 2016

This comprehensive museum is devoted to collecting the historical and artistic cultural relics of the Changzhou area, as well as natural specimens, and houses more than 30 000 objects. Its best collections include jade from the Liangzhu Culture, pictorial brick  from the  Southern dynasties, lacquer from the Song dynasty and painting and calligraphic works of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Its permanent exhibitions are History and Culture of Changzhou, Natural Resource of Changzhou, Gallery for Master Xie Zhiliu and Hardwood Furniture Donated by Liu Guojun. Changzhou Museum was  selected as one of the nation’s first-class museums in 2017

Museums + Heritage International Award 2016

Horsens State Prison was built in 1853 as the first modern prison in Denmark. In the Museum, which opened in 2012, the 153-year long history of the prison, and the real-life story of former prisoners/guards come to life through the delicate use of dramatic historic narratives, quotes, animations, smells, lighting, sounds and analogue means. An authentic prison atmosphere and knowledge is combined with state of the art design, and strong social media profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to create a vibrant and interactive museum, as well as a platform for social debates.

MAGNA Awards 2016 / Interpretation, Learning & Audience Engagement

The creation of a school museum, with the support of Museum practitioners, is the perfect vehicle for developing deep inquiry-based learning.  In 2015 Princes Hill Primary School and Museum Victoria developed a partnership to support a learning inquiry into Museums. A grade 3&4 cohort of 120 students engaged in a year-long study which culminated in the creation of the Princes Hill Primary School Museum which opened to the public in December 2015. This presentation will tell the story of that project and further applications of this approach with other schools.

Soft Power Destination Awards 2016 / Soft Power Organization

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to the evolution, celebration and future of human rights. It is the first national museum in Canada to be built outside the National Capital Region. Using multimedia technology, original artefacts, and other innovative approaches, the Museum creates inspiring encounters with human rights appropriate for all ages. Collecting and presenting intangible heritage, transmedia storytelling is used across core and temporary exhibition programs to engage audiences in reflection and dialogue.