Reshaping Museum

Spaces: Architecture,
Design, Exhibitions

Politecnico di Milano
Facolt di Architettura e Societ
Laurea Magistrale in Architettura degli Interni
Building Museum
Prof. L. Basso Peressut Prof. G. Postiglione

Delphine Aboohi
SUMMARY

Introduction 3

SECTION I. ON THE NATURE OF MUSEUM SPACE

1. Architecture as a driver of urban regeneration 6

2. Space and the machine: new technology in the museum space 10

SECTION II. ARCHITECTURAL RESHAPING

1. From cultural institution to cultural consumer experience 15

SECTION III. INSIDE SPACES

1
 1. The narrative space 21
2. When studio becomes gallery 23
3. Constructing and communicating equality 26

SECTION IV. CREATIVE SPACE

1. The vital museum 30

SECTION V. THOUGHTS 33

THE CONTRIBUTORS 35

BIBLIOGRAPHY 38

WEBLIOGRAPHY 39

FIGURES 40

2
INTRODUCTION

Reshaping Museum Spaces: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions is a book edited

by Suzanne MacLeod, emerged out of a conference held at the University of
Leicester in April 2004. The book is composed of seventeen chapters, written
by different authors, which are divided in four sections that would like to lead
to one idea: how come museums had such a radical reshaping in the recent
years. Each author explains, with some examples, his own opinion about what
are the most evident reasons of these changes, both on the architectural (inside
and outside), social and cultural aspects. The authors keep questioning what
kind of types the new museum spaces are required, and highlighting a range of
possibilities for creative museum design.

The authors reflect about the complexity, significance and malleability of

museum space, which is always open to change. In the recent years, while
museums became consciously recognized as drivers for social and economic
regeneration, the architecture of the museum has developed from its traditional
forms into often-spectacular one-off statements and architectural visions1.
Unfortunately, the most highlighted example of this phenomenon, the
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao designed by Frank O. Gehry, that succeeded

1
S. MacLeod, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 2.

3
to transform a provincial city in Spain into a touristic destination, isnt
explained enough but only mentioned as the Bilbao Effect (known as the
power of iconic architecture to place a city on the cultural map). Also other
iconic museum architectures such as Berlins Jewish Museum or Rosenthal
Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati are absent.

In parallel, Suzanne MacLeod and the other authors try to analyze the
reciprocal relationship between construed and curated space, or in other
words, between museum building, exhibition and exposed objects. The
different of approaches about the books topics result as a mix of descriptions;
in certain cases the description is structured by the authors opinion on a
specific topic (architecture or exhibition) lead by some examples. In other
cases the authors choose to give only a detailed description of one/two
museums and their exhibition, in order to touch both arguments (architecture
and exhibition) which results more complicated to understand.

I think that an interesting result of this book stays on the comparison between
the different opinions on the same topics, and in this way I try to compose this
summary. I followed the book four sections, trying, from one hand, to bring all
authors viewpoints, and from the other hand to have a logical connection
between the different parts, considering also my own position and adding
some comments from other books.

4
SECTION I. ON THE NATURE OF MUSEUM SPACE

5
1. Architecture as a driver of urban regeneration

History books suggest us to observe, to judge, to define architecture, and

especially museum architecture, mostly by its aesthetic and functional aspects,
but taking a look at the last decades of the twentieth century we can realize
that the issue became more complex and recognize architecture as a driver of
urban regeneration, which is in continually production through occupation and
use. The complexity of an architecture building stands by the fact that
architecture, today, is a social and cultural product, which should be able to
answer for the society needs, in a specifically time, space and context.

The rule of the architect as the guideline in its production is over, since that
the use of a building, as a museum for example, involves much more
individuals as architects, designers, project managers, directors, curators and
not at least, users. The architect and user both produce architecture, the
former by design, the latter by use. As architecture is experienced, it is made
by the user as much as the architect1.

An interesting fact is that in the most of the museum pictures, the museum is
empty, as we need to appreciate it sui generis without the distraction of
occupancy and use. The relationship between architecture and society is still

1
S. MacLeod, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 20.

6
double in our minds. From one hand, we are aware that the museum
production is continual and ongoing through occupation and use, but from the
other we are still afraid to face its spaces full of people.

The transformation of a given place into a practiced space, a museum place

making, is a result of the actions of different individuals which can be
decomposed into more levels:

Urban planners designate a place for a new museum in the geometry redevelopment. An
architect takes the constraints of this assignment and designs a new space for a science
museum. Museum staff takes the given place of the museum and designate the varied museum
spaces. Finally, the museum visitors transform the given place they enter by how they use and
travel through it1.

As I mentioned in the introduction, the most emblematic example of

architecture as a driver of urban regeneration is the construction of the
Guggenheim Museum in the city of Bilbao in Spain, opened in 1997, by the
Candian architect Frank O. Gehry. The Bilbao Effect became a popular
term after Frank Gehry built the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, transforming
the poor industrial port city of Bilbao into a must-see tourist destination. Its
success spurred other cities into hiring famous architects and giving them carte
blanche to design even more spectacular buildings in the hopes that the
formula could be repeated2.

1
R Toon, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 35.
2
Retrieved from the official website of the New York Branch of the American Institute of Architects on
2 May 2010. For more information: http://cfa.aiany.org/index.php?section=calendar&evtid=1579

7
The revitalization of Bilbaos metropolitan region included also a huger
strategic plan, involving other architects as Norman Foster (for the subway
system), Santiago Calatrava (for the new airport), Cesar Pelli, Zaha Hadid and
Arata Isozaki (both for the master plan of Abandoibarras area, where the
museum is located). Urban development was promoted through large-scale
projects including infrastructures and public facilities, but also hotels,
residential building and malls. Bilbao nowadays is one of the most expensive
areas in the country.

Figure 1. The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

8
An intersect aspect about urban regeneration by culture stays at the Third
World museology, where the International Council of Museums (ICOM),
which represents the most important forum about this issue, strengthen
cultural identity and consciousness in the face of rapid and world-wide
cultural change, strengthen national identity within an internationalized system
of states and make use of the educational potential of museums in the context
of development3. The 1982 ICOM study by De la Torre and Monreal,
Museums: An Investment for Development, approves the relationship between
the number of museums and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) proposed as an
indicator of social development, positioning each society within an
international hierarchy.

A similar approach is to be found in Hudson and Nicholls Foreword to their Directory,

likewise making a direct link to GDP: developing countries will make great sacrifices in
order to have museums, which are needed both to reinforce and confirm a sense of national
identity and to give status within the world community. To have no museums, in todays
circumstances, is to admit that one is below the minimum level of civilization required of a
modern state45.

3
These functional definitions are derived from the UNESCO/ICOM periodical Museum for the period
1972-92, on the ICOFOM Study series of the Museological Committee of ICOFOM within ICOM.
4
K. Hudson, A. Nicholls, edited by, Directory of Museums and Living Displays, Macmillan, London
1985.
5
M. Prsler, Theorizing Museums, in S. Macdonald, G. Fyfe, edited by, Blackwell, Oxford 1996, p. 24.

9
2. Space and the machine: new technology in the museum space

Another interesting aspect in the evolution of the museum as a social and

cultural product is about his reciprocal relationship with the digital media.
During the twentieth century we might identify some phases with which the
ICT (Information and Communications Technology) conquer the museum and
the galleries spaces. We can observe a huge development of the ICT systems
in the museum in the last sixty years; in the middle of the twentieth century,
ICT was completely out of the museum building while during the time ICT
begin to infiltrate into the museums spaces, first as a support to the
management, documentation and research, and then in a larger presence
through computers, video screens, sound systems, websites and so on.
Nowadays

digital ICT is (when applicable) integrated so deeply into the practices of curators and
designers, harmonized so thoughtfully and appropriately into the interpretive strategy of the
exhibit, and embedded so seamlessly into the fabric of the gallery, that it becomes an integral
and ambient component of the exhibition. In this praxis digital ICT is no longer something to
be conceived separately but rather (like object, text panel, display case) is assimilated as
simply another property of what an exhibition is6.

This strong and complex penetration of digital media into the museums makes
me wonder if, in the coming decades, the museum building wont be just a
sweet memory of the past, while we will visit the virtual museum online. Due

6
R Parry, A. Sawyer, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod,
edited by, Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 46.

10
to the fact the that museum is in continues evolution, I guess that the first
conclusion we can make is that we should design museums that are flexible,
malleable, easy to change, multifunctional, multitasking, suitable to the social
and cultural developments. As the architect Rem Koolhaas says in an
interview in Iconeye: any architectural project we do takes at least four or
five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of
culture and the continuing slowness of architecture7.

I would like to return to the delicate relationship between museums and

technology. In 1967, the French philosopher Michel Foucault presented for the
first time his idea for Of Other Places, where he anticipated some thoughts
(published only later in 1984) that are completely contemporary:

The idea of accumulating everything, of establishing a sort of general archive, the will to
enclose in one place all times, all epochs, all forms, all tastes, the idea of constituting a place of
all times that it itself outside of time and inaccessible to its ravages, the project of organizing in
this way a sort of perpetual and indefinite accumulation of time in an immobile place, this
whole idea belongs to our modernity. The museum and the library are heterotopias8 that are
proper to western culture of the nineteenth century9.

7
Iconeye: Icon Magazine Online, June 2004. To the interview: http://www.iconeye.com/read-previous-
issues/icon-013-|-june-2004/rem-koolhaas-|-icon-013-|-june-2004
8
Heterotopias a concept elaborated by Foucault to describe places and spaces that function in non-
hegemonic conditions. These are spaces of otherness, which are neither here nor there, that are
simultaneously physical and mental, such as the space of a phone call or the moment when you see
yourself in the mirror. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that
opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own
visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the
mirror. But it is also a heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of
counteraction on the position that I occupy.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotopia_%28space%29 :
http://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heterotopia.en.html
For more information: http://www.heterotopiastudies.com/
9
M. Foucault, Des Espace Autres, Architecture, Mouvement, Continuit, n5, Octobre 1984, pp. 46-49,
English version Of Other Places, translated by Jay Miskowiec.

11
That leads me to the idea of conjoining of multiple realities into a real,
temporal space. Our current radically technologized experience seems to be
right within Foucaults idea. The simultaneous human being is already used to
navigate between different spaces and times, in high speed velocity. In the
transformation of culture from one of objects to one of information, museums
have developed [] a number of new roles. Curatorial considerations can []
now include anything from digitised virtual objects, to a piece of software, to a
web-link resident on someone elses physical serving computer10. We might
propose exhibitions and collections that emphasize techno-genealogies,
showing the provenance, resonant and reproductive effects of a networked-
museum-object.

The new type of spatial orientation in galleries is provided by a secondary

mediation of the displayed object by their recontextualisation through images
and sounds in one hand and the interactive experience on the other.

Both these media, once incorporated into the museum, blur the boundaries between the
museums private space and the public world []. But they also blur the boundaries between
the individuals private space and the public space of the museum, [] reinforcing the familiar
elision of domestic and public which the consumption of television, in particular, tends to
produce11.

10
J. Allen, D. Gauthier, K. Reitan Andersen, Museums in an Age of Migrations: Questions, Challenges,
Perspectives, in L Basso Peressut, C. Pozzi, edited by, Mela Books, Milano 2012, pp. 164-165.
11
R. Silverstone, Towards the Museum of the Future: New European Perspectives, in R. Miles, L.
Zavala, edited by, Routledge, Oxfodrshire 1994, pp. 172-173.

12
Figure 2. Baluardo The Virtual Museum of the City of Lucca, Studio Azzurro. A real museum
made by only monitors and screensin order to tell the history of the city

13
SECTION II. ARCHITECTURAL RESHAPING

14
1. From cultural institution to cultural consumer experience

An interesting study has been done about the power of space to influence the
visitors experience in museums and galleries. In order to do so, we took in
exam four museums in Britain. Two contemporary museums the Art Gallery
and Museum Kelvingrove and the Natural History Museum and two
historical museums the Burrell Museum and the Museum of Scotland. The
museums plans were analyzed by the program Space Syntax1 (developed by
Hillier at UCL), which studies spatial characteristics and relates them to the
patterns of movement, use and cultural meaning. The result of this type of
analysis is that the most integrated elements, in all museums, are the main hall
and the axes that link this space with the main entrance and galleries. On the
other hand, the top floors are generally segregated. The clear structure on the
ground floor has become much more complex on the upper levels. Such a
result is very interesting, due to the fact that even if the museums fall into two
different categories, some characteristics seem to be similar.

This fact leads us to the question: why are some areas segregated? According
to Sophia Psarra in the contemporary buildings segregation results from an
architectural device based on layered stratification that mediates the
relationship between different parts of the layout. In the other two museums it

1
For more information: http://www.spacesyntax.com/

15
is the outcome of the exhibition design2. I guess that during the years the
architects approach to the building complexity did change.

Figure 3. Levels of integration at (a) the Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, (b) the
Natural History Museum, London, (c) the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, and (d) the Burrell Museum,
Glasgow. Light tones show high levels of integration. Dark tones show progressive segregation

2
S Psarra, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 85.

16
Due to the last considerations, we can ask another question: what is the impact
of the spatial configuration on the use pattern? In order to answer to this
question, we may consider also the average number of people observed in
each space. Studies on the Kelvingrove and the Burrell Museums lead us to
the fact that seventy per cent of the variance in the route of people is
determined by the structure of the layout. The result of this study is extremely
important to understand how to construct the visitor experience.

Museums are communicating environments in which complex meanings are

negotiated. They are consumed in a multitude of different ways by visitors.
They are structured narratively, by principles of classification and
representation that create stories or arguments, or perhaps a more open logic,
and which provide a framework or a route through which the visitors pass and
in relation to which they make sense of what is seen3.

The next case study is the Grande Galerie de lEvolution in Paris, museum that
was opened for the first time in the eighteenth century, had been close for over
25 years and then reopened in 1994. The new project, of the architects Paul
Chemtov and Borja Huidobro in collaboration with the artist Ren Allio
focused on the use of the light as a model reshaping of the various spaces. The
main tools used by the designers, in order to translate the characteristics of
each natural ecosystem, are lights, sounds, colors and distribution of
specimens, with few written pieces. The aim was to create a multisensory
atmosphere where the feeling is of being immersed in a world full of
mysteries. The important conclusion of this project depends on satisfaction
level of the public. Commenting on the overall visit, the satisfaction rating of
the visitors, concerning the aesthetic quality and the collections come before
those concerning the scientific contents. Fabienne Galangau-Qurats
conclusion is:

3
R. Silverstone, Towards the Museum of the Future: New European Perspectives, in R. Miles, L.
Zavala, edited by, Routledge, Oxfodrshire 1994, p. 166.

17
 Space can be creative when there is a holistic integration between the space, exhibits and
visitors, so that none of these elements can play an autonomous part without the help of the
others In this sense, the exhibition scene as a whole is more than the sum of the elements
composing it the cognitive experience of the scene emerges as an unpredictable novelty
involving semantic, emotional, sensory and symbolic dimensions 4.

Figure 4. The Grande Galerie de lvolution, Paris, inner space models, light and sound

Regarding these words, compared to all the considerations that we made

before, I would like to add my own doubt: is it really possible to observe, to
judge, a museum only by his spaces, or in other words, separately from the
exhibition? Shouldnt we change our tendency to comment museums by their
empty spaces?.

4
F Galangau-Qurat, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod,
edited by, Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 46.

18
I guess that the answer isnt so simple so Ill just let the coming sections to
speak.

Figure 5. What exhibition?

19
SECTION III. INSIDE SPACES

20
1. The narrative space

We can generally divide museums exhibitions into two main categories:

permanent or temporary exhibitions. Its quite obvious that if a permanent
exhibition would like to attract local visitors to repeat their visit to the
museum, there must be something new to see and do, such as events,
workshops, activity trails, tours and performances.

From the other hand, its important to know that also museum with temporary
exhibitions must be flexible. Before we try to understand the correct policy
that should be apply, I would like to highlight that a museum is a social space
as well as an educational, due to the fact that visitors come from all over the
world, with different backgrounds and cultures. Moreover, the publics
interests and needs and the relevance of museums to peoples lives are also
constantly changing and evolving; accordingly, its more than vital to create
displays and facilities that respond to different audiences. These displays must
be easy to change and capable to tell a story.

A story display can be formed both from a single significant painting and a
small group of paintings representing a particular style or movement. The
key point is that the story will arise out of the object and not vice versa1. We
can take for example the Kelvingrove Art Gallery (that we mentioned also in
the second section), where in order to provide flexibility, the displays were
designed as some standardized modules that could be arranged in different

1
L Fitzgerald, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 138.

21
ways and were capable of containing a mix of all likely objects and media, but
could also accommodate bespoke finishes and graphics to avoid a trade show
look2.

Figure 6. The protype flexibile story display system, the Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove,
Glasgow

2
L Fitzgerald, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 140.

22
2. When studio becomes gallery

A special type of gallery is the artists studio in the gallery, which implies
two issues; the first one concerns the historical problems of reconstructing an
artists studio after his death. The second problem concerns the way in which
some artists, who are still alive, choose di restage their studio as a material
and metaphorical environment for a way of working and thinking in the
gallery.

As an example for the first problem we can take the reconstruction of Francis
Bacon and Constantin Brancusis studios. In both cases the reconstructed
studios were also relocated, which is very important, since that the new studios
havent the same context that the former had, and the visitors (or may we say
the viewers?) cant understand that original social, economic and geographical
conditions with which the artist worked. My doubt about the definition of the
visitor/viewer derives from the fact that in both cases, its impossible to get
into the studio/gallery, but the viewer, as it seems to be, must watch it from
behind glass. The studios have been treated as an archaeological subject,
painstakingly recorded and reconstructed piece by piece, work by work to
recreate the look and arrangement of the final studio these installations do

23
provide some sense of the scale, materials, atmosphere and overall style of
things3.

Figure 7. Francis Bacons studio on the left the original studio in London, on the right the
reconstructed studio in Dublin

On the other hand, we would like to describe two studio installations of

contemporary artists: Mike Nelson and Richard Venlet. In Nelsons case, the
behind the scenes of his art is represented by jumbled structures, images and
iconographies of his practice, trying to transmit to the visitor what was going
on in his head and in his studio. An interesting aspect of his strategy is that he
took himself out of the picture and try to make directed installations that
privilege the experience of the visitor with the stuff at hand, rather than with
him, the artist4. Richard Venlet proposed a reproduction of his work at the
25th Biennale of San Paolo in 2002. The visitors entered into a room, read as
the artists studio, where on the floor and around the edges of the room he
placed some cardboard boxes containing A4 photocopies of his own work.
The studio is traditionally seen as the site of artistic production and

3
J. Wood, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 164.
4
J. Wood, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 166.

24
authenticity and here Venlet subverted this and staged it in the gallery,
offering free-of-charge reproductions of his work inside5. Here the artist, his
work, the space and the visitors enter into a real interaction.

5
J. Wood, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 167.

25
3. Constructing and communicating equality

Taking a general look on the museums rule in the society, its spaces have
often been characterized as means through which social inequalities have been
constituted, reproduced, reinforced. A museum visit can be interpreted in
plenty of meanings, due the fact that the visitors themselves have different
socio-cultural backgrounds. This simple introduction leads us to the next
question: If individual visitors are understood to generate their own highly
personalized and variable meaning from the same exhibition encounter, what
rule, if any, might museums play in constructing spatial forms which
communicate notions of equality and enable meaning that combat, rather than
enhance, prejudice?6.

Historically, the museum has always been related to an idea of exclusion,

division and oppression. Till today, even if in a minor level, we can
distinguish between those who visit the museums and those who dont.
Richard Sandell suggests that there are three principal spatial manifestations
associated to the exclusion and the othering sensations. The first one is
characterized by the creation (and, sometimes, the relative positioning) of
discrete, differentiated spaces that [] separate, demarcate and distinguish
between different groups7. I think that he intends that usually the American
and the European art traditions are located in the central galleries, while the
others are more hidden.

6
R. Sandell, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 186.
7
R. Sandell, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 188.

26
The second aspect, according to Richard Sandell, is that museums have been
criticized for displaying cultural difference within physically shared spaces but
within an interpretive framework that reproduces and reinforces social
inequalities8. As an example we can assume an exhibit about the colonial
period, where in the same room the colonial society (usually European) is
represented as more civilized and powerful than the conquered society.

The last spatial manifestation concerns the marked absence of (certain forms
of) difference from museum spaces9. Richard Sandell means that non-
representing certain groups in an exhibitions can hurt their feelings, and leave
them unseen.

Due to the last considerations, today there are several spatial strategies that
can obviate the exclusion problem. Here below are indicated the three
principal strategies:

- Compensatory initiatives that are usually in a small-scale, sometimes

as temporary installations alongside long-term displays that have been
perceived as excluding or discriminatory.
- Celebratory interventions that might occupy a more prominent space
in the museum and usually focus on a specific differentiated group.
- Pluralist the aim of this strategy is to integrate cultural difference
within a unifying interpretive framework, designs to suggest both
similarities and also (positive) differences between groups10.

A very interesting project is MeLa* European Museums in an age of

migrations11 which consists in a long research, with the aim to define new

8
R. Sandell, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 188.
9
R. Sandell, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 189.
10
R. Sandell, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 191.

27
strategies for contemporary museums in a context characterized by a continues
migration of people and ideas12. The team, composed by various European
universities and museums, defined six research fields:

- Museum & Identity in History and Contemporaneity

- Cultural Memory, Migrating Modernity and Museum Practices
- Network of Museums, Libraries and Public Cultural Institutions
- Curatorial and Artistic Research
- Exhibitions Design, Technology of Representation and Experimental
Actions
- Envisioning 21st Century Museums

We can surely say that nowadays there is a major interest and sensibility from
one hand about the identity of the visitors and their background, and from the
other about the museum and exhibitions identities. The titles of the research
field confirm that the new tendency is toward an open museum, a sort of
widespread museum, which involves also other institutions and the entire city,
and doesnt stay close between his walls.

11
For more information: http://www.mela-project.eu/, or the book BASSO PERESSUT Luca, POZZI Clelia,
edited by, Museums in an Age of Migrations: Questions, Challenges, Perspectives, Mela Books, Milano
2012.
12
Took from the MeLa Project website

28
SECTION IV. CREATIVE SPACE

29
1. The vital museum

The first changes, or may we say developments, in the museum structure and
space came with the modern movement which cut the tight relationship
between the space and the objects to be exhibited, so that the art became
autonomous within the museum. Few years later, Frank Lloyd Wrights
Guggenheim Museum was the very first museum designed as an artistic
environment, as a vast and organic sculpture, in an urban center. In the last
years, especially in the transition between the nineteenth and the twentieth
century, the raise of the superstar architects (such as Frank O. Gehry, Zaha
Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and so on) has resulted in the architecture
overpowering the art inside. The result of these last years tendency is that the
pre-publicity focus more on the architect than on the work inside.

Such museums, as we see for maybe the first time at the Centre Pompidou,
designed by the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, encouraged the
evolution of the museum as a container. The museums today are multipurpose,
multifunctional, where art is only one of a variety of activities to choose. The
continues evolution of the society implicates the continues renewing of the
museum. As Stephen Greenberg says there has never been a more
challenging and a more exciting time in which to be devising creative spaces.
These spaces are inevitably becoming more dynamic and experiential,
changing and theatrical, rather than monumental and static1.

1
S. Greenberg, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 226.

30
The first steps of the experience making began with the inclusion of
performances, installation art and monitors in display spaces. The presence of
the new technologies in the static architectural spaces leads towards dynamic
performance spaces. According to Stephen Greenberg, the first tools used in a
new exhibition design and masterplanning project should be the same that are
used of film and TV programme making. Narratives and scripts should be the
heart of the project. The script structures the story for all the members of the
creative team, in order to check that the experience is working before we start
with the architectural project. I would like to conclude this part by saying that
the challenge is to make an installation that traverses the macro and the micro
and integrates the building as well2.

2
S. Greenberg, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, in S. MacLeod, edited by,
Routledge, Oxon 2005, p. 233.

31
SECTION V. THOUGHTS

32
In this short paper about the book Reshaping Museum Space I tried to walk the
reader by a path of decomposition of the contemporary museum, from the
macro sphere about its role as an urban regenerator and the implications on the
society to the micro sphere about its inside spaces and the straight relationship
to the exhibitions exposed.

I think that the most commune characteristic of cultural places in the last years
can be summarized by the next words:

Observing the aesthetic decisions regarding new cultural places or the expansion of existing
ones shows that the role of the architect is not limited to high-quality spatial design or to
attracting potential visitors attention, but also concerns the definition of the public image and
identity, even as regards fundraising and facilitating the realization process1.

These words lead me to my first conclusion about the new museum design: the
importance of creating a public image. People need signs, mark places, to be
identified with, to be attracted by. Already in 1974, Georges Perec said it even
better: I would like to exist places that are stable, unmoving, intangible,
untouched and almost untouchable, unchanging, deep-rooted, places that
might be point of reference, of departure, of origin2. These places are defined
both by the container, the outside aesthetic aspect, and the content, the inner
spaces.

The second point that I would like to highlight is the perhaps now, more than
ever before, the visitor the consuming visitor has become increasingly
important in the process of gallery and exhibition creation.

1
D. Ponzini, M. Nastasi, Starchitecture: Scenes, Actors and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities,
Umberto Allemandi & C., Turin 2011, pp. 103-104.
2
G. Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Penguin Books, London 1997, p. 91.

33
 In the museum the hypostatistion of public understanding [] has provided an increasingly
insistent framework for gallery design. The visitor is encoded in the texts of the museum in a
way that can scarcely have been the case in earlier years. Maybe the current preoccupation, in
the literature, with the receivers of mass media (the audiences, viewers, readers of their various
texts) is part of the same ideological shift. [] The status of the object in the museum; the
plausibility, persuasiveness and the offered pleasures of the museums texts; the representation
and articulation of space and time, all are ultimately dependent on the involvement and
competence of the receivers of the communication.3.

3
R. Silverstone, Towards the Museum of the Future: New European Perspectives, in R. Miles, L.
Zavala, edited by, Routledge, Oxfodrshire 1994, p. 174.

34
THE CONTRIBUTORS

Lawrence Fitzgerald led the team that developed Kelvingrove Museum,

Glasgow, UK, refurbishment project. Moreover, he was the Project Directore
for the Riverside Museum Project and Manager of the Museum of Transport,
Glasgow.

David Fleming is Director of National Museums Liverpool, UK, and in

responsible for eight national museums and galleries. He has worked in
museum in York, Leeds, Hull and Newcastle.

Fabienne Galangau-Qurat is Assistant Professor, National Museum of

Natural History, Paris. She was involved in the renovation of the Grande
Galerie de lEvolution, Paris. Since its opening in 1994 she has been in charge
of temporary exhibitions.

Stephen Greenberg has been an architect and the editor of the Architects
Journal, prior to specializing in museum design. Projects include the
masterplan for the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Holocaust Exhibition at the
Imperial War Museum, the galleries at Compton Verney and the exhibition
masterplan and design for the Grand Museum of Egypt at Giza.

Elaine Heumann Gurian is a consultant to a number of museum and visitor

centers that are beginning, building or reinventing themselves. Gurian has held
many elected offices in museum associations, has written and lectured widely
and enjoys teaching in museum studies programmes.

35
Peter Higgins trained at the Architectural Association and has worked for the
BBC and Imagination.

Beth Lord is a Consultant with the international museum planning company

Lord Cultural Resources Planning & Management. She has a PhD in
Philosophy from the University of Warwick, UK, and combines research in
philosophy and museum theory with practical museum and heritage planning.

Suzanne MacLeod is Director and Head of School in the Department of

Museum Studies in the University of Leicester, UK. She bas BA in History of
Art and Architecture and an MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies, both
from the University of Manchester. She is the editor of Reshaping Museum
Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions.

Christopher R. Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Museum

Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests range
from contemporary museology and display to a parallel specialization in
Neapolitan Baroque patronage, collecting and the art market.

Ross Parry is a Lecturer in the Department of Museum Studies at the

University of Leicester, UK. His research considers the ways memory
institutions have used and have been shaped by technologies of information
management and display.

Sophia Psarra is an Associate Professor in the Taubman College of

Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, US. She has
collaborated with leading institutions and museum organizations to provide
evaluation of layouts and support of building facilities and to improve spatial
and social performance.

Helen Rees Leahy is Director of the Centre for Museology at the University
of Manchester, UK, where she lectures in Art Gallery and Museum Studies.

36
She was a museum curator and Director of the Design Museum, London, and
Assistant Director of the National Art Collections Fund.

Richard Sandell is Deputy Head of the Department of Museum Studies,

University of Leicester, UK. His research is focused on the social role of
museums and, in particular, their potential to combat prejudice.

Andrew Sawyer is a specialist in the development of digital, interactive

learning publications for the museum and education sectors.

Lee H. Skolnick is the founding principal of a unique architecture and design

firm whose award-winning projects range from museum masterplans, through
architectural design, to exhibitions, environmental graphics and educational
programming.

Moira Stevenson is Deputy Director at Manchester City Galleries, UK. She

was Director of Macclesfield Museums and Heritage Centre Trust from 1987
to 1998.

Richard Toon is Senior Research Analyst, Morrison Institute for Public

Policy, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. He was previously
Education and Research Director at the Arizona Science Center, in Phoenix,
Arizona. He completed his PhD in Museum Studies at Leicester University in
2003 and has been a programme evaluator and public policy consultant for
over twenty years.

Jon Wood works at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, UK, where he
coordinates the research programme and curates exhibitions. He is an
Associate Lecturer at Leeds University.

37
BIBLIOGRAPHY

BASSO PERESSUT Luca, POZZI Clelia, edited by, Museums in an Age of Migrations: Questions,
Challenges, Perspectives, Mela Books, Milano 2012.

MACDONALD Sharon, FYFE Gordon, edited by, Theorizing Museums, Blackwell, Oxford 1996.

MACLEOD Suzanne, edited by, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, Routledge,
Oxon 2005.

MILES Roger, ZAVALA Lauro, edited by, Towards the Museum of the Future: New European
Perspectives, Routledge, Oxfordshire 1994.

PEREC Georges, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Penguin Books, London 1997.

PONZINI Davide, NASTASI Michele, Starchitecture: Scenes, Actors and Spectacles in Contemporary
Cities, Umberto Allemandi & C., Turin 2011.

38
WEBLIOGRAPHY

http://arquivodeemergencia.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/perec-species-of-spaces.pdf

http://history.prm.ox.ac.uk/

http://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heterotopia.en.html

http://www.mela-project.eu/project

http://www.spacesyntax.com/

39
FIGURES

Figure 1. The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/bilbao/guggenheim-museum-bilbao

Figure 2. Baluardo The Virtual Museum of the City of Lucca, Studio Azzurro. A real museum made
by only monitors and screensin order to tell the history of the city

http://www.studioazzurro.com/index.php?com_works=&view=detail&cat_id=3&work_id=69&option=c
om_works&Itemid=27&lang=it

Figure 3. Levels of integration at (a) the Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, (b) the
Natural History Museum, London, (c) the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, and (d) the Burrell Museum,
Glasgow. Light tones show high levels of integration. Dark tones show progressive segregation

MACLEOD Suzanne, edited by, Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, Routledge,
Oxon 2005, p. 83

Figure 4. The Grande Galerie de lvolution, Paris, inner space models, light and sound

http://www.balado.fr/idee-balade/ile-de-france/paris/grande-galerie-de-l-evolution/idb/1255

Figure 5. What exhibition?

MILES Roger, ZAVALA Lauro, edited by, Towards the Museum of the Future: New European
Perspectives, Routledge, Oxfordshire 1994.

Figure 6. The protype flexibile story display system, the Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove,
Glasgow

http://www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk/kelvingrove-art-gallery

40
Figure 7. Francis Bacons studio on the left the original studio in London, on the right the
reconstructed studio in Dublin

http://www.visualnews.com/2014/04/08/francis-bacon-man-behind-worlds-expensive-work-art/

http://www.francis-bacon.com/blog/wouter-davidts-lecture-displacement-and-reconstruction-the-francis-
bacon-studio-hugh-lane-gallery-dublin/

41