JUDGES say the public voting with their feet could help the Riverside Museum in Glasgow win the biggest arts prize of the year.
More than a million visitors have walked through the doors of the multimillion-pound Zaha Hadid-designed museum since it opened in June last year.
And one of three key criteria being considered by the judges of the Art Fund Prize, who were in Glasgow yesterday, is the response of the public to the new museum.
The judges of the £100,000 prize are in Scotland examining the three Scottish institutions shortlisted for the museum of the year award, and will be in Edinburgh today to review the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which have also been shortlisted.
Yesterday, the judges, led by Lord Smith of Finsbury, the former Labour Secretary of State for Culture, visited a bustling Riverside Museum to assess it for the competition. The shortlist will be whittled down to four by May 14 with the winner announced on June 19.
Lord Smith said it was clear the museum was very popular with the public.
He said: "The Riverside certainly has a good chance of winning but it has stiff competition, there are 10 very good museums on the shortlist and it will be very difficult to choose between them.
"The qualities we are looking for are excellence, innovation and the audience experience. The Riverside has definitely been very popular and is a much-loved new kid on the block.
"We will be looking at how it has drawn in its audience, how it is engaging with them, and how it will refresh that experience over time."
There was intense controversy after Hadid's design was snubbed by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland Awards.
However, Lord Smith said the Art Fund Prize was not primarily about the design or architecture of the museums.
Author and journalist Charlotte Higgins, who is also on the judging panel, added: "I have visited the Riverside before, and it is a very interesting building which reflects the landscape around it. But this is not an architectural prize, this is an award about how museums inspire and excite people, the design of the museum being only part of the puzzle."
The judges include Professor Jim al Khalili OBE, the theoretical physicist; Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces and Sir Mark Jones, Master at St Cross College, Oxford and former V&A director.
Also judging are architect Rick Mather and Lisa Milroy, artist and head of graduate painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
Today, they will visit the NMS, which reopened in July last year after a £47.4 million redevelopment, and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which reopened after a £17.6m revamp in December 2011, the first refurbishment in the museum's 120-year history.
The other listed museums are Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, M Shed in Bristol, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in Exeter, The Hepworth Wakefield in Wakefield, The Holburne Museum in Bath, the Turner Contemporary in Margate and the Watts Gallery in Guildford.
Video: Museum opening and tour
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