The attraction celebrates the life and work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel taking visitors on an imaginative and immersive journey through the inventor’s life. The visitor is guided through the new building to be confronted with an astonishing recreation of the head of Brunel, cigar and all!

Visitors move through the gallery space and are eventually led along Isambard’s ‘ear canal’ into ‘The Mind’ an immersive 180º dome and 4k wrap-around 6 and half minute experience allowing visitors a unique opportunity to literally ‘get inside the mind’ of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and to see the Victorian world through his eyes. Experiences, triumphs and disasters of Isambard’s life are expressed through a wide screen vista, these are the views though his eyes. These POV ‘chapters’ are directly linked to Brunel’s brain activity; his thoughts, his memories and his vision, unfolding across a dome projection above the audience.

The visitor journey continues through to the actual dock office building where visitors are invited to participate in a board meeting and debate Brunel’s innovative theories on the screw propeller. Using large scale projected AV, we virtually re-created the dock office interior in which Brunel presented his controversial ideas. Cast members were filmed in a large green screen studio and then blended into a CGI room set to create a virtual extension of the actual gallery space. The audience becomes part of the voting procedure to decide which method would be best.

The exhibition won Permanent Exhibition Of The Year award at the 17th Museums + Heritage Awards in 2019.