Dancing to artefacts: London Museum will be ‘democratic’ space for all, says director

London Museum’s new home is in two historic former market halls in Smithfield. Photograph: Asif Khan/Secchi Smith/London Musuem/PA View image in fullscreen London Museum’s new home is in two historic former market halls in Smithfield. Photograph: Asif Khan/Secchi Smith/London Musuem/PA Dancing to artefacts: London Museum will be ‘democratic’ space for all, says director A decade in the making, the museum will reopen in November in two restored market halls with displays and late-night DJ sets The new London Museum will be “a social space for the city”, its director has said, hosting afternoon tea events, monthly dinner clubs and late-night DJ sets where visitors can mingle among the artefacts while dancing. Sharon Ament said that when it reopened later this year the museum would be a “democratic” space that engaged with all Londoners rather than merely a repository for its collections, which stretch from the city’s neolithic prehistory to modern acquisitions. “I want commuters to pass through the museum on their way to and from work. I want people to extend their evenings in a museum, in a way which is a different form of going out,” Ament said. “Maybe they’ll stay for an hour, maybe they’ll stay right until we close, maybe they’ll do a club night. We need to match our opening times to how people actually operate in their daily lives. “We are funded by the taxpayers of London, so our responsibility is to all Londoners.” View image in fullscreen An artist’s impression of the Past Time galleries in the restored London Museum, which will officially open its doors to the public this November. Photograph: Secchi Smith/London Musuem/PA The institution, formerly known as the Museum of London, has been closed since 2022 when it vacated its eccentric former premises in the Barbican complex. Its new home, painstakingly converted over a decade from two historic former market halls in Smithfield, in the City of London, will open on 28 November, it announced on Thursday. Paul Williams, the principal director of the lead architects Stanton Williams, said: “It’s not just about a container for objects, but it’s a space where people are going to interact with each other.” He said the museum would be “an arena for public life”. The cavernous market halls will be connected by a former London street, now glazed, with openings at either end to welcome visitors inside. What was once the trading floor of the Victorian General Market will host a full programme of cultural events, with the first, called London Tastes, focusing on the diversity of the capital’s food scene. Events will sit alongside objects drawn from the museum’s collection of 7m artefacts, which include the Cheapside Hoard of 17th-century jewels, the vest worn by Charles I when he was beheaded in 1649 and a chunk of the Whitechapel fatberg , collected from the capital’s sewers in 2017. Other acquisitions made during the museum’s temporary closure include a police sentry box decorated with piranhas by Ban