MUSEUM BRANDS.
HETEROTOPIC CROSSOVERS
arch. Anda-Ioana Sfinte
1. MUSEUMS BETWEEN LOCAL AND GLOBAL missions, aims,
purposes
Museums had, from the beginning, a strong relationship with The other. As
time passed, the relationship changed from displaying him as exotic to negotiating
authority, identity, authenticity and acceptance.
The institution is linked both with the place/identities displayed and the
place/identities of the place where it is located, bringing into question different
dualities.
dualities
local
global
continuity
discontinuity
unique
universal
inclusion
exclusion
material
immaterial
selfness
otherness
Nowadays museums promote culture and symbols at an international level,
frequently through spectacular activities and iconic buildings. Architecture
becomes as well a form through which local and global forces are being disputed and
negotiated.
Ordos Museum
New museums like the one designed by MAD in Ordos, Mongolia, are more
than a simple enclosure created to accommodate and expose valuable objects or ideas.
The building itself makes a statement by interpreting a collective identity. Standing
in the center of a new city, built in the Gobi Desert, the museum architecture is a
reaction against the systematic plan of the city, which showed no consideration
for the residents. The proposal a blob-like form wishes to integrate the new
building into the surroundings through form and finishing (reflecting polished
metal louvers) and to become an expression of local history and tradition. The
heterotopic museum facade separates not only the inside from the outside but also an
urban, discrepant reality from a timeless one.
2. THE
PRIMARY
IMPORTANCE
OF
VISITORS
AND
THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF MUSEUM BRANDS
old vs. new museology
elitist public
wider public
the simple display of objects
narrative discourse
placing objects in a conceptual context
organization of knowledge
questioning and challenging themes
neutral and passive position of the
visitor
central and dynamic
constructing, sharing and negotiating
meanings and values
authoritarian voice
interpreting the exhibition
understanding an exhibition as a
subjective and progressive process
participation
a single discipline
multi-disciplinary
homogeneous public
heterogeneous public
Museum brands are value brands measured in name awareness, perceived
quality, associations and visitor satisfaction.
3. MUSEUM CROSSOVERS
a. Why do museums go beyond their walls
The shifting from old to new museology led also to museums transgressing
their limits.
Through this extension, museums meet their potential visitors and their
needs halfway, but the museums that went into the street dont solely address to their
common public. At the same time, their motivation for going beyond their walls is not
only that of wishing to perform social work in a wider setting. The American
Association of Museums names, in its brochure edited in 2012 Trends Watch as
main reasons for taking it to the street, the weak economy (meaning less paying
visitors), the cultural authority diminution (the blurring of high/low culture
differences) and the rediscovery of localism (eventually as a reaction against
globalism).
b. Social impact of different museum crossovers
i. Crossing over the physical boundary museums on the streets
o In between museums and street
The threshold between inside and outside isnt always just a physical
delimitation, be it transparent or opaque, thin or massive. It sometimes becomes
spatial a communication liaison between museum and street (like courtyards or
plazas). In this context, these spaces are often pretences for organizing cultural
events which question the solitary, formal and official character of the
institution.
Pompidou Centre
The plaza in front of Pompidou Centre is an invitation to improvisations
which blurs the differences between high and low culture and dissolves the clear
inside/outside distinction.
The Riverside Museum
At The Riverside Museum in Glasgow, the area in front of the museum has
been transformed into a civic space and put to an informal use in order to attract a
less accessible public like bicyclists and skateboarders. The events that take place
here create a stronger interrelationship between the museum ant the community
it services.
o Beyond the walls Satellites
Contemporary museums engage in various activities, not necessarily
interconnected with the main exhibition, but rather with their cultural and social
role at the community, locality, areal, national or international level. Museums
involve in solving not only basic, but also social, transformative and evolutional
problems, concerning the self, the family or group. In order to do so, museums go
beyond their walls and run all kinds of activities which are not exclusively
addressed to the visitors. Some of the manifestations that take place outside the
museum consist of placing representative satellite buildings which mark their
affiliation.
The Wall [Vggen]
The Wall is an installation placed by the Copenhagen Museum in various city
plazas. By proposing this LCD wall, a connection between past-present-future has
been created. It interactively illustrates the urban transformations which took
place (through the medium of stories, images, events, cultural tendencies, ways of
life, identities etc.). It facilitates communication and encourages interaction and
sharing of information. The act is seen as a way of shifting the interest on public
participation in accumulating knowledge and on discovering the consequences of
the past.
ii. Branching inside and outside borders
Museum brands are, as I said before, linked to name awareness, associations
and perception. Thus, using the same name for newer locations cuts short the process
of making a name and a brand. It also assures the communities involved of the interest
the institution pays to get closer to their needs.
Tate (Britain, Modern, Liverpool, St Ives)
Guggenheim (New York, Venice, Bilbao, Abu
Dhabi) + closed (Berlin, Las Vegas)
Guggenheim, seen as the first global museum because of its worldwide spread
branches, received many critiques because its expansion did not mean only getting
closer to a wider public, but also commercializing exhibitions. The attention shifts,
in this case, from the art collection to the architecture as a work of art, used to raise
the number of tourists.
iii. Travelling collections and museums
Nomadic Museum
The Nomadic Museum represents the travelling home of the exhibition
known as Ashes and Snow (pictures and movies depicting the human/animal
interaction in a try to rediscover the primordial harmony between them), by Gregory
Colbert.
Since its foundation in 2005, the museum has been located in public plazas in
New York (2005), Santa Monica (2006), Tokyo (2007) and Mexico City (2008).
This nomadic museum exceeded boundaries and borders. It had a high
social, international and trans-cultural importance, emphasized by its placement in
public places.
iv. Virtual space museums
The blurring of the boundaries between
leisure / education / consumption
transforms the museum websites into places of
(re)presentation / information / exhibition / marketing / kindling.
The future of museums in the information age (Ross Parry at the Museums in the
Information Age: Evolution or Extinction? debate, The Science Museum, London
2012)
social
ultra-socialization and personalization
situated
providing specific content to the visitor
based on his location
sensory
recognize and use accordingly the
blurring of the boundary between digital
and not-digital
semantic
the ability to make online connections
between items
v. Museums of the border crossovers Immigrant Community
Museums
For immigrant communities the museum space becomes helpful in the process
of accommodation to a new society and, in the same time, a keeper of the native
values. It gives them the opportunity to assert their own authority, to socialize and
manifest solidarity.
4. IN CONCLUSION
Museums are caught between local and global forces, but this is not a bad
thing. It gives the opportunity to creatively respond to the challenges raised. Their
position
between
the
dualities
discussed
earlier
(continuity/discontinuity,
uniqueness/universality, inclusion/exclusion etc.) needs to be continuously negotiated
and reasserted. Understanding that, we must also ask ourselves what happens with the
fixed built environment in the face of these changing positions.
Architecture should mediate these tensions and disclose the position of the
institution. It is not easy to create equilibrium between all the factors involved, but the
actual question is rather:
What aspects, taken from the museum aims and purposes, should prevail?
