Plastic is the material most of us look straight past. This small museum makes you stop and look at it properly, from a Victorian comb passed off as tortoiseshell to a moulded chair that changed how furniture was made. It is free, it is quietly brilliant, and almost nobody outside the university knows it is there.
What to see and do
MoDiP, short for the Museum of Design in Plastics, is the only accredited museum in the UK with a dedicated focus on design in plastics. Its own collection runs to roughly 9,000 objects, mostly post 1945, chosen for design, cultural or historical significance. Sitting alongside it are two loans that widen the story considerably: the Plastics Historical Society collection, which reaches back into the nineteenth century and the very earliest man made plastics, and more than 400 items from the Worshipful Company of Horners covering horn, early synthetics and the tools used to work them.
The public gallery is compact, so what you see is a curated slice rather than the whole store. Displays rotate, and past exhibitions have done things like gather a handful of chairs together and simply invite you to sit and study them. Look out for the early cellulose nitrate pieces branded Parkesine and Xylonite: combs, hairbrushes, mirrors, decorative lace effects and billiard balls, several of them deliberately imitating ivory or tortoiseshell for a mass market. Some objects are shown in a degraded state, which is a genuinely striking lesson in how unstable early plastics could be. At the other end of the timeline sit packaging, sports equipment, medical devices and newer sustainable materials.
If something you want to see is not on show, the entire collection is catalogued online, including archive photographs and old manufacturers' advertising, and staff take research enquiries.
The setting
The museum occupies a modest square room lined with mirrored glass cabinets, inside the library at Arts University Bournemouth. It is an unusual setting for a museum and it works in its favour: the atmosphere is studious and unhurried, with none of the crowd flow of a big civic attraction. Most visits take half an hour to an hour, longer if you fall down a rabbit hole in the cases or ask a question at the desk. Because it lives within a working art school library, you get the sense of a collection being actively used for teaching rather than simply preserved behind glass.
Where it is
MoDiP is on the AUB campus at Wallisdown, on the boundary between Bournemouth and Poole and a short hop north west of Westbourne. The museum is on the first floor of the library building, reachable by lift. Buses connect the campus with both Bournemouth and Poole town centres. Campus parking is designed around staff and students rather than day visitors, so it is worth checking arrangements before you drive over. For more ideas nearby, browse our guide to Bournemouth attractions.
Good to know
Entry is free and the museum is genuinely open to the public, not restricted to students. Opening is tied to library hours, which shift with university terms, so check the MoDiP website before travelling. Get in touch ahead of time if you would like to meet a member of the team, arrange a group or school visit, view particular catalogued objects, or discuss access requirements. It suits design students, makers, material geeks, and anyone with a passing interest in how the twentieth century got made. Pair it with a stroll around Westbourne afterwards and you have a neat half day.