Stevenage Museum is the best place to understand why the town looks the way it does. It covers the older village, the Roman and medieval background, and the post-war decision to turn Stevenage into Britain's first new town.
The museum is not large, but it is useful because Stevenage needs interpretation. Without that context the centre can feel merely functional; with it, the pedestrian precincts, housing estates, and civic buildings become part of a national planning experiment.