Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will reopen in phases.

• The first phase started in February 2024 with Victorian Radicals exhibition. This award-winning exhibition returned the city’s world-renowned collection of Pre-Raphaelites to Birmingham for the first time since 2018. Over the past five years these works have toured the United States, raising the profile of Birmingham and its collection with more than 168,000 visitors across eight cities. Victorian Radicals is currently on display in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s major exhibition space, the Gas Hall and tickets are on sale.  
• The next phase of reopening took place on Thursday 24 October 2024. In this phase the stunning Round Room Gallery, Industrial Gallery, Bridge Gallery, Tearooms and Shop are among the gallery spaces that reopened, with new displays that tell the social story of Birmingham and the city’s global impact.

The Museum has been partially or fully closed since March 2020. Following Covid-19, a programme of essential maintenance works had to be carried out across the Grade II* listed museum building and the wider Council House complex. This has included electrical work, upgrades to heating, roof repairs, and replacing lifts.

In 2022, with the spotlight on our city for the Commonwealth Games, more than 400,000 people visited the Museum when we reopened for a short series of pop-up exhibitions and displays curated in collaboration with creatives from across the city. We then closed again to allow maintenance work to complete.

We are reopening the Museum in phases to make best use of our limited resources. Having some spaces open and generating revenue for the Trust will help us accelerate work to improve and open other galleries across the Museum. This approach will also help us prioritise the re-introduction of learning and participation programmes that serve communities and schools across the West Midlands.

We are now open Wednesday - Sunday, 10am - 5pm. Free entry (some exhibitions and special events may charge).

Gas Hall was the first space to open for the Victorian Radicals exhibition (this exhibition ends on 5 January 2025).

These spaces are also open:

• The Round Room
• Industrial Gallery
• Contemporary Gallery (temporary exhibition space)
• Bridge Gallery (temporary exhibition space)
• Tearoom
• Shop
• Wild City
• Pixel Studio
• Waterhall (temporary exhibition space)

We are now open with displays that are different from before, you can find out more details about the new displays by seeing our Highlights page. We also have a series of temporary exhibitions, find out more about these on the What's On page.

2022’s partial reopening of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery was the first chance to see the journey Birmingham Museums Trust is embarking on to make the Museum and the organisation more representative of the people of the city with a new approach to galleries and displays, all created in partnership with the people of the city.

The new displays explore the characteristics of Birmingham and what it means to be shaped by this city is at the heart of the of the latest phase of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s reopening.

We are continuing to work with people and partners across the city to develop these new displays, so that they tell the stories and display the objects that people most want to see.

Yes, the museum has a new children's display called Wild City, as well activities for children and families.

Yes, the Tearoom is open Wednesday to Sunday. We can’t wait to welcome you back!

General admission to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is FREE but donations are welcome. Some events and exhibitions may charge, this information is included in the What's On details.

Birmingham Museums Trust is a charity, and your support helps us to care for and share the city’s collection of over 1 million objects and artworks across nine museums and historic properties. Find out more on our Support Us page.

We plan to reopen as much of the museum as possible. The displays will be different to before. We continue to work with people and partners across the city to develop these new displays, so that they tell the stories and display the objects that people most want to see.

We understand that the Pre-Raphaelite artworks and the Staffordshire Hoard are two of our most treasured and popular collections. Currently, you can view some of our Pre-Raphaelite pieces in the Victorian Radicals exhibition.

The Staffordshire Hoard gallery will reopen as part of a later phase of the museum’s reopening. Currently, the Staffordshire Hoard can be seen on display at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. We are also conducting new research on the Pre-Raphaelite collection and plan to share new stories about these artworks in a future phase of the reopening.

Yes school visits can now visit us, pre-booking is essential. See the Schools section for more details about sessions, self-guided visits and booking details.

The museum objects were put safely into storage before the infrastructure works began.

This was a huge undertaking by our collections team to ensure 35,000 objects (26,000 works on paper, 1,000 paintings, and 8,000 objects) were checked, packed, and carefully moved.

The Staffordshire Hoard can be seen on display at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. Many other objects and artworks are on loan to other venues across the region and country. See the full list on the objects on loan page. Some of the stored objects can be seen at the Museum Collection Centre, the main store for Birmingham Museums, which holds around a million items. The Museum Collection Centre is open to the public once a week for pre-booked admission.

The electrical upgrade is part of Birmingham City Council’s works.

Funding has been secured via the Government’s Museums Estate and Development Fund (MEND) for the roof and other infrastructure works such as new lifts.

We are also hugely grateful to our funders FCC Communities Foundation and Friends of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery for their support towards the first phase of the reopening.

FCC Communities Foundation is a not-for-profit business that awards grants for community through the Landfill Communities Fund.

Over the past few months, we have worked closely with the Council to limit the impact of the section 114 (s.114) notice. We are focused on welcoming visitors back to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2024 and on creating a financially sustainable plan that will allow the city’s museums and collections to play a full and inclusive role in the region’s civic life in the months and years ahead.

Birmingham Museums is an independent charitable trust formed in 2012 that cares for over 1 million objects and nine museums on behalf of the City Council and the people of Birmingham. Birmingham Museums venues are Aston Hall, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Blakesley Hall, Museum Collection Centre, Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Sarehole Mill, Soho House, Thinktank and Weoley Castle.

We want to make sure your visit is as safe and enjoyable as possible so some safety measures will continue:

• We support staff and visitors who wish to wear a face covering.
• Staff who test positive for COVID-19 isolate at home for at least 5 days until they have two successive negative tests.
• We have hand sanitisers at the entrance and throughout the building.
• Contactless card payments will limit personal interaction, but cash will also be accepted.
• We have cleaners working throughout the day focusing on touch points and toilets to keep them safe and clean.

Please do not visit us if you are feeling unwell, have any symptoms of Covid-19 or have been in contact with anyone that has had the virus in the last 10 days. Please contact us if you have any further questions.