Aberdeen Maritime Museum has launched a new, digital guide on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and cultural app created by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Bloomberg Connects app, which is already a success at Aberdeen Art Gallery, is available and free to download from Google Play or the App Store. The app ensures Aberdeen Maritime Museum is accessible for both onsite or offsite visits through rich and varied content including images and audio recordings telling the extraordinary story of Aberdeen’s maritime heritage.
The free Bloomberg Connects digital guide to Aberdeen Maritime Museum includes the story of the city’s long and often dramatic relationship with the sea. The app will take visitors on a voyage of thematical displays exploring the earliest days of trading, fishing and shipbuilding, to offshore energy and life in the industry, and Aberdeen’s place today as a leader in global energy transition. Curators, Learning Officers, Maritime Staff and Supervisors have shared their own highlights and thoughts to a variety of the displays.
The Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Dr David Cameron, said: “I am thrilled that the Maritime Museum is joining Aberdeen Art Gallery and more than 60 other cultural institutions around the globe on the free Bloomberg Connects app.
“The Maritime Museum is a gem within the city centre and this addition will ensure the experience for visitors both onsite and offsite is enhanced, this is particularly true for tourists who can enjoy the app in so many languages. I also encourage locals to rediscover Aberdeen Maritime Museum and no better time than over the summer holidays, with this free app. I hope visitors will listen again and again to layers of voices and stories featured on the app and use it to discover more about the Maritime Museum, which is at the heart of so many locals, and instrumental in telling the story of Aberdeen to visitors.”
Located close to Aberdeen Harbour, the guide includes a brief history of Provost Ross’s House, which dates to 1593. It was in this building that the Maritime Museum opened its doors to the public for the first time in 1984. Following Aberdeen City Council’s purchase of the nearby former Trinity Congregational Church, which dates to 1877, an award-winning glass and steel link building was constructed between Provost Ross’s House and the Church. The new museum as it is seen today opened in May 1997.
Features include beautifully detailed ship models from 1689 to the present day, including the Aberdeen-built tea clipper Thermopylae, the celebrated rival of the Cutty Sark. Marvel at a complete lighthouse lens assembly, admire the lost figurehead of the Star of Tasmania, see the impressive propeller from the steam yacht Fox, which set sail from Aberdeen in 1857 to discover the fate of Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to find a route through the Northwest Passage.
Bloomberg Connects strives to make arts and culture available to as many people as possible, users can use the app to plan their visit and explore the collection on a much deeper level when on site. Over 25 languages were recently added to the application which opens our venues to new audiences.
Image: The Herring Fleet Leaving the Dee, Aberdeen by David Farquharson
About Bloomberg Connects
Bloomberg Connects offers free digital guides to cultural organisations around the world. The app platform is part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ longstanding commitment to supporting digital innovation in the arts. Bloomberg Connects makes it easy to access and engage with arts and culture from mobile devices when visiting in person, or anytime from anywhere. With dynamic content exclusive to each partner organisation, the app provides a range of features including video, audio, and text; expert commentary; and way-finding maps. To download please visit Bloomberg Connects or follow Bloomberg Connects on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for updates on new guide launches, exhibit highlights, and more.
About Bloomberg Philanthropies
Bloomberg Philanthropies invests in 941 cities and 173 countries around the world to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. The organization focuses on five key areas for creating lasting change: Arts, Education, Environment, Government Innovation, and Public Health. Bloomberg Philanthropies encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg’s giving, including his foundation and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, a pro bono consultancy that works in cities around the world. In 2021, Bloomberg Philanthropies distributed $1.66 billion. For more information, please visit bloomberg.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.
About Aberdeen Maritime Museum
Close to the busy harbour, on the historic Shiprow, Aberdeen Maritime Museum takes visitors on a voyage from the earliest days of trading, fishing and shipbuilding, to offshore energy and life in the industry, and Aberdeen’s place today as a leader in global energy transition. Displays are arranged thematically over four floors, in the historic 16th-century Provost Ross’s House and the ‘church’ building with its beautiful painted ceiling. The modern ‘link’ building between the two is dominated by the astonishingly detailed scale model of the Murchison platform. Find out more at www.aagm.co.uk or by downloading the free Bloomberg Connects app from the App Store or Google Play.