The Museum of Design in Plastics is exactly what its name promises, and more interesting for how narrow it sounds. It is the only accredited museum in the country given over entirely to plastics — not the pollution story, but the material as design: what people have made from it, and how those objects have shaped everyday life. It lives, quietly, on the first floor of the Arts University Bournemouth library.
A museum about one material
The collection began in 1988 as a teaching resource for art and design students and was simply called the Design Collection. Over time its focus narrowed to plastics, it took the present name in 2007, and it earned full museum accreditation the following year. Today it holds around nine thousand objects, alongside the loaned collection of the Plastics Historical Society, which together make it the leading UK resource for the study of design in plastics.
What you’ll see
Do not expect a hall of test tubes. The objects are the everyday things plastic quietly took over — fashion and costume, packaging, kitchen and household design, printed ephemera and odd pieces of popular culture, from early Bakelite to the throwaway present. A single shelf might set a mid-century telephone beside a moulded chair and a modern trainer sole, each chosen for what it says about how the material was put to work. Displays rotate rather than sitting fixed, and a searchable catalogue of the whole collection is online, so it is worth a look before you come to see what is out.
Visiting
The museum is open to the public and welcomes both individual visitors and groups, with study and research enquiries actively encouraged. It sits on the first floor of the university library, reached by lift, so access is step-free. Because it is part of a working campus at Wallisdown, on the northwest edge of town, opening can follow university hours — check current times, and for larger or research visits it is best to arrange ahead. The shops and cafés of Westbourne are the nearest village stop for a coffee afterwards.
Good to know
Entry is free. This is a small, specialist museum rather than a half-day out, which makes it a good pairing with something else — an hour here alongside a wander round the campus or the shops. It is the kind of place that rewards genuine curiosity about how everyday things are made, and asks far less of your day than a conventional museum. If museums are your thing, the town also has the clifftop Russell-Cotes and the Natural Science Museum; our attractions guide has the rest.
