 THE public will today be given a first chance to view the new vision for Liverpool's historic Pier Head, an ultra modern museum. Models of the £65m project will be on display at the Liverpool World Museum, in William Brown Street. Unlike the last exhibition, when the public could vote for its favourite, this time there will be no scope to make substantial changes to the design of the Museum of Liverpool. Will Alsop's doomed Cloud was the least popular among the public when it was one of five choices for the so-called Fourth Grace site. However, it was still selected as the favourite among the decision makers before eventually being scrapped. The proposed replacement has been designed by Danish team 3XN (named because the three founders all share the same surname, Nielsen). Their practice is based in Aarhus, the second city of Denmark, and has an international reputation for work in the education and culture sector. National Museums Liverpool also hired US exhibition designers BRC Imagination Arts to masterplan the exhibition space on three levels. Their projects include the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the National Museum of the Civil War. NML plans to submit a planning application for the 90,000 sq ft museum to Liverpool City Council later this month. It will then have to be assessed by planners before going before the city council's planning committee. However, it is also dependent on funding from the North West Regional Development Agency which will make a decision on whether this will be forthcoming next month. If the bid is unsuccessful, the museum will not go ahead. English Heritage has already been involved in early talks over the museum as its proposed location is within the World Heritage site. Early indications are that it will be supported. Later this week the project will go before Ludcap, the Liverpool Urban Design group made up of planners and architects for a "peer" group review.. David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, said: "We are very excited about the plans for the new museum and we hope that the general public will come and see for themselves how the development will be the ideal cultural legacy for the 2008 European Capital of Culture. "We believe that this museum will help elevate the North West into the front rank of museum destinations." Never before has a British museum set out to explore the story of a nation through the experiences of one city and its people. From prehistoric times, to the Norman Conquest, the English Civil War to the Suffragettes to the Thatcher era and beyond, the museum will tell the story of Liverpool to an estimated 750,000 visitors a year. * The exhibition will be open until June 17 at World Museum Liverpool. larryneild@dailypost.co.uk 9 artist's impressions of the Museum of Liverpool Larry Neild's assessment >>> | 
