Museum architecture pdf

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MORSI ABSTRACT When the architecture is the art of designing a space for certain purposes; the architectural design of the museum is the ability to create a special and inspiring envelop, which provides its visitors with different experiences, according to its cultural message.

It became the main place for preserving artworks, inventions, and human achievements. The architectural design of museums has passed through many stages from the onset of the concept of creating a space to preserve artifacts, until it became now the main cultural and educational beacon for communities, which made it from the most important building types. It was developed over centuries until it became a separate building with special architectural characteristics. This paper discusses the evolution of the museum architecture from the B.

C till now, in order to study its evolving circumstances, which had managed its design concept and the new design technologies, which is affecting its design nowadays. Keywords: Museum, Architecture, Virtual museums. By the 17th century, it was used to describe the European artists work like Ole Worm. In England, the art collection catalogue of John Tradescant in Lambeth was titled Musaeum Tradescantianum, which was published in The property collection of Tradescant was moved to Elias Ashmole, and then he transferred it to a new building in Oxford University, which was built especially to host this collection upon Ashmole request and named the Ashmolean Museum.

After that, the museum was opened to the public in , accordingly, the Ashmolean museum was considered the first old museum built on the museum concept as nowadays and also the first university museum [3]. The museum was moved to another building in the university, and the old building became a science museum.

Subsequently, a paradigm shift has occurred in the concept of museum, during the 19th and 20th century because of the revolutions took place around the world, in addition to the world wars. A new generation of museums has been emphasized after this time, by the architectural pioneers. Accordingly, the design of a museum building has become a great challenge for any architect, which reflects the ideology of this era, and remarked as a progress for any school of architecture.

At this time, museums are the places for preserving history, appreciating the artistic icons, and recording the human science invents. The visitors of museums now are from every place, different cultures, different ages, and coming for different purposes. In this paper, the evolution of the museum concept from the ancient times to the 21st century will be discussed. Through this study, the main ideologies for museums in each era will be highlighted, passing through the emergence of museum concept and the changes happened due to the changes of world culture form high to public culture and how it could be affected by the new digital design technologies.

Museum of Ancient time B. The idea of establishing a museum or expressing it backs to the B. C time. The museum was an important feature in the ancient schools and libraries. During the rule of the Pharaoh Akhenaten B. C a big library was built upon his request in Tal El Amarna region, it was full of antiques and precious collections [5].

Some cloned pieces of old precious pieces with the same materials was found in Larsa in Mesopotamia Iraq now , back to the second millennium B. C, these pieces have been used for educational purposes, other parts of Babylonian city had been discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley, these parts show how the kings Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus were caring about collections while they were ruling Babylonian.

Sir Leonard Woolley also found a collection of old pieces and a tablet back to the 21st century B. C in a room found in an old school located near his area of discoveries, this tablet was explaining the life during the 21stcentury B. In Asia, especially China, the emperor Shang Dynasty who ruled the yellow river valley area old China during the 3rd millennium B. C was interested in making collections. Also, did the emperors Shih Huang-Ti and Near Sian, and their tombs had witnessed on their care of collecting precious and rare pieces, which were guarded by a group of terracotta warriors and horses, as in Fig.

The art in China was not only sculptures or paintings, but also included glass, metal works, and poetry. An academy for handwriting and drawing was built at this time by one of the Hun emperor Wu-Ti B.

Museums of Medieval from the 5th to the 15th century. The spread of Christianity during the medieval times in Europe emphasized new changes in the religious ideology and culture of this era, which gave the church a great importance to princes and diplomats.

Collections had a great importance for economical purposes, as it had been used for funding arms during the war. Also, the cloned pieces of these collections have been used for trading, which was including some treasures of the emperor Charlemagne, who ruled the Romanian empire , and the king of Franks , who had a number of palaces in Nijmegen and Anglhaim, which had been contained many treasures, columns, golden and silver lights, and bronze doors, after that it had been divided between the church and princes.

Because of the waterways connecting between Europe with the other countries, and harbors like Lombardy and Tuscany on the Mediterranean Sea; a continuous communication between these countries and the church in Rome, in addition, trade traffic around the world depending on selling collection has been made. The collections were moving between owners from different countries. Most of the shoppers were bishops like Henry of Blois the bishop of Winchester , who bought some ancient statues during his journey to Rome in , and delivered them to England.

Museums of Renaissance from the 15th to the 17th century. The start was by the king of Hungary Matthias I, who put the Romanian antiques that have been collected in Szombathely castle, and the paintings in Buda. Also, did Maximilian I of Austria, who preserved the paintings he had collected in his palace in Vienna. In France, the passion of making collections had started during the ruling period of Frances II , and Henry II following their father, then the king Louis XIV who made a collection containing more than painting for artists from Italy and Paris, some of these pieces have been transferred to the grand gallery of Louver to present to public during occasions, and the other collections have been preserved in Versailles palace.

In Spain, the Holy Romanian emperor Charles V was keen on making his own collection, which is now presented in the Prado museum in Madrid. Other items presenting the Italian artworks were added to the Spanish royal collection by the Italian king Philip IV [5]. In England, King Charles I was fond of collection since he was the Prince of Wales; he gathered many art pieces across Europe, and paintings of the famous artists at that time like Antony Van, as in Fig.

Delphine Aboohi. Download PDF. A short summary of this paper. Basso Peressut Prof. Architecture as a driver of urban regeneration 6 2. The narrative space 21 2. When studio becomes gallery 23 3. 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 visions»1.

Unfortunately, the most highlighted example of this phenomenon, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao designed by Frank O. Gehry, that succeeded 1 S. MacLeod, edited by, Routledge, Oxon , p. 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. 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.

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.

As architecture is experienced, it is made by the user as much as the architect»1. 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.

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 , by the Candian architect Frank O. 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 repeated»2.

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. Hudson, A. Macdonald, G. Fyfe, edited by, Blackwell, Oxford , p. 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.

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. Due 6 R Parry, A. 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 architecture»7.

I would like to return to the delicate relationship between museums and technology. In , 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 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 century»9. 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.

The simultaneous human being is already used to navigate between different spaces and times, in high speed velocity. 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.

Allen, D. Gauthier, K. Pozzi, edited by, Mela Books, Milano , pp. Miles, L. Zavala, edited by, Routledge, Oxfodrshire , pp. In order to do so, we took in exam four museums in Britain.

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. Figure 3. Light tones show high levels of integration. 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. 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.

Zavala, edited by, Routledge, Oxfodrshire , p. Figure 4. Figure 5. What exhibition?