LAUNCESTON'S grand old lady of a museum is back open for business.
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The QVMAG at Royal Park was officially reopened last night after a $7 million makeover that has been three years in the making.
Launceston Mayor Albert van Zetten and Premier Lara Giddings cut the ribbon to launch the city's first museum on its next stage of public life in a ceremony attended by more than 270 guests.
It was a ceremony that came close to never happening.
The Launceston City Council seriously considered closing and selling the 115-year-old museum in 2006 after a report recommended that the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery be consolidated at Inveresk.
Alderman van Zetten said this week that it was the Friends of the Museum with Jill Dearing as the group's president who galvanised a campaign to keep the historic building as a public institution after talk that it would be sold.
Patrick Filmer-Sankey was appointed as museum director in 2006.
"He didn't agree with consolidating the two sites either," Alderman van Zetten.
Mr Filmer-Sankey and museum project manager Glenda King started work instead on plans for a major makeover of Royal Park.
The state government contributed $3.9 million of the $7 million to restore the "grand old lady," as Alderman van Zetten calls her, to her original splendour.
The rest came from the council.
During the renovation, Northern-based builder Vos Constructions has pulled out false ceilings, removed walls and different floor levels to reveal the original museum designed by John Duncan and built in the late 1880s by J & T Gunn.
The QVMAG at Royal Park has become the city's home for fine art while its natural history collection will be at QVMAG at Inveresk.
Friends of the Museum president David Henshaw said that he had first become involved with the museum after the campaign to keep Royal Park open.
"It's the oldest regional gallery in Australia on that site, purpose built and it is absolutely amazing the job that has been done to bring it back," he said.
Museum Foundation chairman Sandy Campbell said that people would be impressed by the wonderful fine art collection now displayed so well - some for the first time.
The QVMAG at Royal Park will be open to the public from 10am today after a special celebratory breakfast for staff and Friends of the Museum.
It will be open every day except Good Friday and Christmas Day from 10am to 5pm.
Tour the new museum online
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