Museum Architecture Matters

Abstract

Using a series of illustrative examples throughout, we make an argument for the inclusion of sociological studies of museum architecture in museum studies, as well as advocating a series of methodological positions for future research. In short, the aim here is to provide students of both the museum and architecture with a route into the field -as well as a preliminary bibliography -while making the case for the need for increased engagement with the physical material of museums. Drawing on the widened scope of analytical possibilities represented by contemporary sociological analyses of architecture and the built environment, the paper sets forward an understanding of museum architecture as having a complex and entangled relationship with the museum institution and the variety of users of such (both actual and potential). Developing a threefold typology with the polemic intention to encourage increased research engagement with museums' architectural forms, the paper is motivated by a desire to both showcase and advocate for the wide scope of analytical possibilities associated with sociological analyses of museum architecture.

Architecture, Time, and Cultural Politics

“…The aim of converting the entire world to capitalism via globalising free trade bore the imprint of Victorian colonialism, as did the incorporation of colonised societies into commodity exchange (Celik, 2010; Greenhalgh, 1988; Roche, 2003). The building was crucial to this aim, not just as a backdrop, but as actually adding temporal meaning to the objects displayed therein (Jones and MacLeod, 2016).…”

“…Not only did his design make use of the out-of-the-ordinariness of glass and its stark contrast with the heavy, dark stone of other major buildings, the relational meaning of the extensive use of glass on a building in 1851 and 1951 is also not unbroken (pun intended) despite the formalistic similarity of the material (Fierro, 2003). Contemporaneous accounts suggest that being in and around this building, form was experienced highly affectively, both in terms of the building’s users and in adding relationally to the display of objects (Jones and MacLeod, 2016). In the case of the Crystal Palace the building gave context for the display of very large materials, and helped to create a futuristic cultural context for displaying and viewing objects.…”

Assembling the New: Studying Change Through the ‘Mundane’ in the Museum as Organization

“…Latour, 2005;DeLanda 2006), it may be located in a broader shift towards embracing 'non-representational' theory in museum studies (e.g. Grewcock 2014), and has gained some attention by heritage scholars (Bennett and Healy 2009;Macdonald 2009;Harrison et al, 2013;Waterton and Dittmer 2014;Jones and MacLeod 2016). Referring to both 'a process of bundling, of assembling' (Law 2004: 41-42) and the 'properties of specific assemblages' (Bennett and Healy 2009: 4), assemblage theory encourages a broadening of how we conceptualize the museum (Waterton and Dittmer 2014).…”

Unrealizations: The making and unmaking of two Japanese-designed extensions to European museums

“…A focus on museums is particularly revealing. One reason is that ‘museums are frequently highly contested sites, around which arguments about meaning circulate’ (Jones and MacLeod, 2016: 215). Another, and in this case perhaps even weightier, reason is that the institutions at the core of these cases are cosmopolitan and universalist, that is, directed towards the global and transnational.…”