The Wedgewood Museum in the Potteries has won the £100,000 Arts Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries for 2009, in a difficult year for the Wedgewood name
If winning the Art Fund Prize for Museum and Galleries has done else, it has the world know that the winner is open and welcoming visitors, because the shock news that exploded in January led many to believe that it wasn’t.

But the Waterford Wedgewood company that went into administration in January had nothing but a family link to the new Wedgewood Museum which opened next to the works at Barlaston in the Potteries in October, and as you now know is not only open but thriving.

And the £100,000 prize money will go towards more development, kick-starting the effort to raise the £2m needed to create a temporary exhibition space within the new building.

“It’s got us national and international coverage which is very upbeat, and we’re delighted” said the museum’s director, Gaye Blake Roberts. Not only was it the choice of the judges, led by Lord Puttnam, but also of the overwhelming majority of the 27,000 who votes on the Guardian’s website. It beat Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, for its Centre of New Enlightenment; Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham; and Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales.

“This museum is extraordinary for so many reasons, and we were all but unanimous in our decision” Puttnam, said at the presentation at the RIBA gallery. “The Wedgwood Museum brilliantly highlights the marriage of art, design, manufacturing and commerce; a marriage that resonates more today than at possibly any time in the intervening years. In every respect it fully meets our criteria of what a 21st century museum should aspire to be.”