The Springbok Experience rugby museum here at the V&A Waterfront has been shortlisted for an international museums award.

The South African Rugby Union’s world-class installation has been bracketed with museums from Lausanne, Antwerp, The Hague and Amsterdam in the annual Museum + Heritage Awards in the UK.

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“We have had fantastic feedback from visitors to The Experience since we opened on Heritage Day in September and this nomination is a feather in the cap for the SARU team and our designers,” said Jurie Roux, CEO of SARU.

“The brief was to create a ‘wow’ experience that told the full story of the history of South African rugby in all communities in a location that was accessible to as wide a range of people as possible and that’s what we got.”

Manchester-based designers, Mather & Co, working with Cape Town project managers, Collaboration, and Johannesburg-based installation specialists, Digital Fabric, teamed up to create a radically modernised museum experience.

The completed museum was ten months in development and installation and contains 4kms of cabling to support 91 channels of audio visual media and 480m of LED lighting among 230 objects in 19 purpose-built display cases and more than 500m of wall graphics.

“It was a major feat of design and engineering to pull together in a short space of time to make our deadline of Heritage Day,” said Roux. “But the outcome has been dazzling visitors and is worthy of a team as iconic as the Springboks.

“Just as importantly we have brought the story of black rugby in the pre-unity era to the centre. But it is all done in an engaging audiovisual manner. We even have a Springbok Trials zone where visitors can try their hand at passing, kicking, fitness and reaction tests.”

Former winners of the International prize at the Museum + Heritage Awards have come from as far afield as Washington DC, Oslo, Dublin, Oman and Cairo.

“The competition is extremely fierce, with the shortlist also containing the Olympic Museum in Lausanne and The Netherlands’ national archives,” said Roux. “We are just delighted to have been recognised by the nomination.”