The Big Smoke

What are museums for?

It's a big question. For some of you, it may seem like a very boring or obvious question, but stick with me and I'll try to throw in some jokes to reward your attention (how journalism works: part 27).

To the public at large, museums are huge buildings filled with old objects on shelves behind cases. Museums promise to deliver information about these objects in, hopefully, as entertaining a manner as possible. They also have a shop that sells small plastic/furry versions of these objects to children as rewards/bribes for attending the museums in the first place.

But there's more to it than this. Museums also act as stores for historically and culturally important objects – not just the ones the public see on shelves, but millions more which are hidden behind the scenes or kept in vast purpose-built stores in the suburbs.

And then they employ people to study and research these objects, or invite specialists from all over the world to come and do the same. This academic function of museums is, in truth, the prime reason for their existence. After all, without the specialists to explain what the object does, why would anybody go and look at it the museum in the first place? But it's also something that museums rarely make a fuss about.

Take the Natural History Museum. It's not just a beautiful building crammed with extraordinary objects, it is also home to 350 scientists (plus another 8,000 who visit annually), who are continually adding to and exploring the vast collection (70 million, of which only 28,000 are ever on public display), conducting real, existing, relevant scientific research and adding to the sum total of our knowledge about how the planet works.

Does the public know about this? Do they need to? Do they care?

Museums are beginning to think that maybe they do. Many of them conduct rolling programmes of lectures and demonstrations that allow the public to meet curators. This is a good thing. Having met many of the NHM's scientists over the years, I know that there are two things they all share: one is a love for extraordinary facial hair; the other is a powerful and contagious enthusiasm for what they do.

So a few years ago, the Natural History Museum began construction of the Darwin Centre, a new two-phase building that was designed to function as a state-of-the-art scientific laboratory and first-rate museum store, while also allowing museum visitors a glimpse of the scientists at work. Phase One, the Spirit Building opened in 2002 to house the museum's zoology department and looked like a warlock's store cupboard – a clutter of huge bottles filled with alcohol and curled-up frogs. The public can take tours, and see scientists pottering about behind glass.

Phase Two, the £78 million Cocoon, opens on Tuesday. September 15, and takes this a step further. Firstly, it is an extraordinary building, an eight-storey concrete cocoon encased in steel and glass. Secondly, the public can enter it directly from the main museum without having to go on a special tour.

Hidden inside the Cocoon are the museum's plant and insect collections, kept in steel cupboards in a carefully controlled climate. The scientists labs, secreted in a separate building but viewable from the Cocoon, are spacious and uncluttered, designed to allow for the more collaborative working required by contemporary scientific study (this policy is extended to a wonderful new staff room on the roof, allowing scientists from all departments to chew the fat together).

For those who have been behind the scenes at the old, more silo-based, labs, it is an impressive if antiseptic environment. The metal drawers will never be as beautiful as the old wooden ones, even if they are more practical. (The wooden drawers, though, did save part of the museum's collection from destruction when it was hit by an incendiary bomb during WWII, wood being a good insulator against fire. They are still sorting out the damage.)

That then, is all brilliant. Scientists can be viewed at work in their wonderful new labs and the public can meet them in person at the excellent new David Attenborough studio. There is also the Angel Marmont Centre, a new space for amateur scientists (the museum's collections are largely built on items collected by Victorian amateurs).

What, though, of the other key aspect of what a museum does? The old objects on shelves for the public to look at.

Now here the Cocoon might not be all it's cracked up to be. The public tour starts at the top of the building and spirals down. Volunteers talk you through the handful of interactive displays, there's a window into a lab that allows you to talk to a scientist at work (one of whom, Max Barclay, eagerly assured me he was going to use to recruit willing new scientists) and you are given the chance to learn more at home by diligent use of the Nature Plus card (one of which was cover-mounted on this week's magazine). But there's not much in the way of actual things to look at.

Maybe this is me showing my age or inclinations, but I can't help but inwardly shudder when a museum person tells me (as they always do) about the new 'interactive' they have installed at great expense. I don't get them, don't use them and don't think they are anywhere near as effective or useful or interesting as a well-judged, object-heavy display. And while I enjoyed the first couple of chances to chat to volunteers about taxonomy or DNA, I was soon trying politely to avoid them so I could conduct my own learning at my own pace, only I didn't have the objects to allow me to do so.

I love the Natural History Museum and understand that the Darwin Centre acts as an extension to the old museum, not a replacement. I love the look of the new building and the philosophy behind it. I think the Attenborough Studio will be a valuable addition to London's educational resources. But I want more stuff.

Am I wrong here? Do people love interactive displays? Do they love talking to volunteers rather than look at things on their own? Are people even interested in what museums do behind the scenes? What do you think museums are for and how should they achieve it?

(For the other side of the debate, check out this article from The Times, which eulogises over the 'new high-tech format…[that] will change public perceptions of what the Natural History Museum is'.)

Oh, and for all those who ploughed through this article waiting for the jokes: sorry, I lied (how journalism works, part 28).