The ideal museum blueprint
Integration-connectivity-control
The past years have seen both an unusual increase in the number of museums throughout the world and an astonishing expansion and diversification in the services provided. This work focuses on museums as the intricate amalgam of historical structures and narratives and the way they have marketed their narratives and strategies of display to their audiences.
The aim of this project is to investigate shifting and diverse culture of museums and art galleries as a socio-cultural environment.
Can the spatial design makes a difference in people’s minds, and if so, what sort of difference? What can we learn about the capacity of morphology to influence space use patterns by investigating the effects of local visibility relationships? How much of our experience of museums is shaped by the way galleries and objects are planned spatially? To explore these questions, I began my research by investigating the role of museums in current culture by narrowing down to three cases: the Herbert art gallery and museum, the Louvre and Centre Pompidou.
How does their architecture affect our experience of walking through them? How does it relate to the exhibited art? Intrigued by these questions and believing that space can be seen as the content of the museum building, as important as the objects themselves, this paper presents answers regarding the relation between spatial design and display layout.
I began conducting a secondary online research on the museum’s websites in order to find out information about their architectural layouts and division of spaces. My main findings focus on the narratives structured in exhibition layouts with the help of visitable sequences and gathering space...
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... will balance the established authority by the reception (inspector's lodge).
In conclusion my conceptual model is a proposed representation shaped by a number of basic theories. It is a way of reading a museum as a space of education and leisure. The ideas could be a source of inspiration for potential designers for their strategic planning. More important is that the model can always be improved by new theories of handling space and exhibit layouts.
This project made me understand that enjoying art and appreciating a building’s architecture are not contradictory purposes but complementary aspects of a museum visit. After we leave a museum we don’t only leave with knowledge about art but also with different states of mind that can only be shaped by the environment. The museum experience is a whole package of stimulants such as colour, space, light and movement.
In Stephen Weil’s essay, he argues “the museum’s role has transformed from one of mastery to one of service” (Weil, 196). According to him, museums have changed their mission from one that cultures the public to one that serves
The facility was smaller than expected by many on the tour group. However, the tour guide had a very nice explanation to each of the artworks. By visiting the museum to gain the aesthetic experience it has open many people point of views to how they can express his or her self through art.
In “Sacrality and Aura in the Museum: Mute Objects and Articulate Space,” Joan R. Branham argues about the experiences art viewers have in museums based on their surroundings. Her points include how a person is to completely understand and feel a ritual object if it is taken out of its natural context or how someone is able to fully appreciate of work of art if they can’t see it where it truly belongs.
Baxandall, Michael. "Exhibiting intention: Some preconditions of the visual display of culturally purposeful objects." Exhibiting cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display (1991): 33-41.
Duncan’s (1991) analysis of western museums is defined through the theme of “durable objects” as a criterion to judge the heritage of American and European art as a ritual of the modern state. In this manner western art museums are built like “temples” as a symbolic and figurative representation of greatness of western culture throughout the world: “[They] are more like the traditional ceremonial monuments that museum buildings often emulate—classical temples” (Duncan 90). This interpretation of American/European museums defines a dominant source of cultural heritage that ritualizes
The Tampa Museum of Art was not always the same museum that we see today. It went through multiple stages throughout the years. The works vary, creating a large spectrum from the old to the new. The social angles change with the exhibits in the museum, combining to create the diversity we see today. Visiting this museum in person helped me to appreciate it even more than I would have thought possible. Observing and analyzing the other visitors helped me to understand the museum’s impact on the community more than I would have been able to just by reading about it. This museum is much different from others than I have visited.
During my visit to the Pérez Art Museum Miami, I did more than just observing beautiful artworks. With the guidelines provided I could appreciate and study also the hidden meaning of some of the pieces I had in front of me. Some of them were easier than other ones, due to previous knowledge I had, but all of them made me examine them in a critic way that enriched my cultural heritage.
The “superstar” museum gained this status by considering every important detail during its establishment and initial phases of conversion from royal palace to museum (Gombault, 2002). As the purpose of the building changed, each room addressed new functions with new requirements. Although the function of the Louvre is different from the building’s original intention, the building is still appears dignified and important enough to display priceless artifacts and painting (Steffensen-Bruce, 1998). This consideration was applied in designing the Met. The Met looked towards the South Kensington Museum (Victoria and Albert) and the “ideal role model” due to its extensive collections and international reputation (Heckscher, 1995). The Met found itself in a similar situation to the South Kensington, because it did not have a building or a collection to start with (Heckscher, 1995). When designing museums, architects strived to create monuments that “prepare and educate the mind of the visitor (Steffensen-Bruce, 1998).” Education is an essential function of a museum. Acquiring, preserving, and properly displaying materials, permits a museum to fulfill this duty (Steffensen-Bruce, 1998). For instance, lighting is a factor that affects the manner in which artwork is viewed and can be properly appreciated. When determining the proper lighting for the Louvre, Comte d’Angiviller, strongly believed that natural, overhead lighting was the most effective solution (McClellan, 1994, p. 72). The same determination impacted the decision to add skylights at the Met. During the initial phase, architects Vaux and Mould, added skylights to the upper floor, and windows to the lower floor that provided a natural light solution (Heckscher, 1995). Additionally, glass-roofed courtyards provided “unimpeded light” for displaying
...f structure, a museum. The one contradiction in the contemporary design theory that Libeskind dares to fight is that to work in the upcoming century means to work with reduced means. His works pose optimism in the sense that architecture, if filled with a satisfactory amount of reasoning, and justification with the help of the advancement in material technology, and the foremost, creativity, will be able to address the profound of any project seeking for poetic embodiment. While modern architects have tried hard to eradicate the traces of history from the forms, postmodern architects like Liberskind would embody the traces of history in between the forms. In Lisbeskind’s Jewish Museum, the invisibility, the implication, and the embodiment come first, then the advancement of material methodology assists the build of the visibility, and the physical infrastructure.
The pavilion is significant figure in the history of modern architecture, regarded to be influential with its open plan and use of exotic material. There is a blurred spatial demarcation where the interior becomes an exterior and exterior becomes the interior. The structure constantly offers new perspectives and experiences, as visitors discover and rediscover in the progress of moving throughout the in’s and out’s, a non directional conforming circulating movement pattern. To facilitate this movement, even though it is a visually simplistic plan, its complexity is derived from the strategic layout of walls with its intimation of an infinite freedom of
New museology is the modernisation of museums. New museums are made to be more interactive and more interesting for the visitors. Displays in the museums are no longer covered in glass and people are encouraged to look more closely and interact with displays. The museums are brighter are the displays...
...troversy as all countries have lost, to a great or lesser extent, treasures of national renown and significance over time. Wars, theft, treasure seeking, changing boundaries and migration have all in some way contributed to this diaspora of art. There is clear evidence that the historic placing of objects in locations remote from their origin has on occasion afforded protection and preservation, The Elgin Marbles in The British Museum being a case in point. However, given the overarching principle of self determination it is difficult to argue that serendipitous historic placement is sufficient reason for items of true national heritage to be kept indefinitely. A world-wide system of touring exhibitions and cultural exchange, with context being provided by the originating society may provide the natural progression to the accessible widening of people’s experiences.
MacDonald, George F. “The Journal of Museum Education, Vol. 16, No. 1” Current Issues in Museum Learning (1991): 9-12. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
One notable aspect in the Romanian museum market is that, whilst the number of museum visits recorded a significant decrease (12 million visitors to 9.5 from 2007 to 2011), the number of museums has increased from 679 to 709 (Pârvulescu 2013), according to Mediafax . The museum market equilibrium was affected due to a drastic decrease in demand, although supply increased by 30 un...
A museum is “a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.” (dictionary.com). This is the literal definition of a museum as well as my view of them coming into my first semester of college. I believed they were boring, outdated places where historical items were displayed. As I moved through the semester, my professor helped me gain a new perspective of these remarkable museums; one of respect and astonishment. Museums are meant to aid in learning and safeguarding of things that should never be forgotten. Of the many great places I visited this semester that adjusted my feelings towards museums, the ones that had the greatest impact were The National Museum of Natural History, The Newseum, The National Gallery of Art, and The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These places are there to remind the general public about things that should never be forgotten; they preserve the history and beauty of the world.