Soon after the Whitworth’s collections were designated as having national significance in the 1990s, the Gallery secured two tranches of funding from the Designation Challenge Fund to rehouse large parts of the collections across the three disciplines of fine art, textiles and wallpapers, in new, specially designed mobile storage units.  

Each of the separate units were designed to meet the needs of the collections housed within them, whether they were boxed watercolours, hanging textiles, or wallpaper rolls; they were a combination of shelving units, drawers, and suspension rods, and at the time the result of new thinking around the dual needs of collection care and accessibility.  The mobiles were located on the first floor of the Gallery within the study rooms and until recently served us well.

During our discussions with storage companies last year, it became clear that in terms of both cost and efficiency of design, it…