Museum

No 164 (Vol XLI, n 4, 1989)

Museum architecture :
beyond the temple
andbeyond

. . . e . . . . . . .

Quotable quotes
'What a strange time we live in:
museums are turning into churches,
and churches into museums!'
Jean Cocteau

Museum, a quarterly published by the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization in Paris, is an international
forum of information and reflection on museums of all kinds.
The English, French and Spanish editions
are published in Paris, the Arabic edition in
Cairo, and the Russian edition in Moscow.

A well-known architect on the eve of the

inauguration of a museum he had designed: 'Today it looks pristine; but
you'll see, tomorrow they'll muck it all
up.'

More on museum in the Nordic

countries.. .
To complete information given in Museum

The east wing of the National Gallery,

Washington, D.C., created by the architect
I. M. Pei: view of the ceiling and part of a
mobile by Alexander Calder. (Photo:Arthur
Gdette)

Central courtyard in the Staatsgalerie,

Stuttgart, Federal Republic of
Germany. Architects: James Stirling,
Michael Wilford and Associates.
Wolf Tochtermann

No. 160, on museums in the Nordic

countries, readers should note that the
Christian IV crown featured on the front
cover is on permanent display in the Royal
Danish Collection at Rosenborg Palace
(Copenhagen) and was photographed by
Lennart Larsen. The photograph of the
open-air museum at Maihaugen (Norway),
on the back cover. was taken bv Leif
Stavdahl.

Editor-in-Chief: Arthur Gillette

Editorial assistant: Christine Wilkinson
Design: George Ducret
Editor, Arabic edition: Mahmoud El-Sheniti
Editor, Russian edition: Irha Pantykina
ADVISORY B O A R D

CORRESPONDENCE

O m Prakash Agrawal, India

Azedine Bachaouch, Tunisia
Craig C. Black, United States of America
Patrick D. Cardon, Secretary-Generalof
ICOM, ex officio
Ga1 de Guichen, ICCROM
Yani Herreman, Mexico
Jean-Pierre Mohen, France
Luis Monreal, Spain
Syeung-gil Paik,Republic of Korea
Lise Skjnrth, Denmark
Vitali Souslov, Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics
Roberto di Stefano, ICOMOS

Questions concerning e d i t o d matten:

The Editor, Museum,
Unesco, 7 place de Fontenoy,
75700 Paris, France
Tel.: (33) (I) 45.68.43.81
Fax:(33) (I) 45.67.16.90

Subscriptions:
The Unesco Press,
Sales Division,
7 place de Fontenoy,
75700 Paris, France
Each issue: 48 F. Subscription rates
(4 issues or corresponding
double issues per year): 156F
Copies of individual articles may be purchased
from: Institute for Scientific Information, (Att.
Publication Processing), 3 SOI Market Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19104(UnitedStates of America).

Typeset by Coup, Sautron

Printed by Vanmelle, Ghent

Printed in Belgium
@ Unesco 1989

Authors are res onsible for the choice and the

presentation o the facts contained in signed
articles and for the opinions expressed
therein, which are not necessarily those of
Unesco and do not commit the Organization.
The designations employed and the presentation of material in Mzseum do not imply the
expression of any opinion whatsoever on the
part of Unesco concerning the legal status of
any country, territory, city or area or of its
authorities, or concerning the delimitation of
its frontiers or boundaries.
Published texts may be freely re roduced
and translated (except where repro uction or
translation ri hts are reserved, indicated by
provide that mention is made of the
author and source.

'

,
I

o), f

MHseHm ur-chitecture:

beyond the temple und. . beyond

e

From the Editor When the building is all right.. .

INTRODUCTION
Yani Herreman A new canvas for new creative talent: contemporary trends in museum
1
architectttye 196
Dinu Bambam Ten Commandments for the museum architect

201

WORLD R O U N D - U P
Fidelis T. Masao Museum architecture in the United Republic of Tanzania:
living with a mixed legacy 204
Vladimir Reviakin New trends in Soviet musettm architecture
A Museum report The low profile of the Israel Mttseum
Dominique Pilato Sowe controversial cases-the

210

214

example of France

215

An interview vith Museum architecture in Latin America: whatfittiwe?

Jorge Gazaneo

221

Charles Correa India: from aphilosophy of ages, architecturefor today

223

Mounir Bouchenaki The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Museum: afirst in the Arab world

PROGRAMMING
AND M O N I T O R I N G
Patrick OByrne and Programming: a tool that stands the test of time 233
Claude Pecquet
Marco Fdippi with Auditing the museum environment: a project in Italys
Chiara Aghemo, Piedmont region 235
Giancarlo Casetta,
Carla Lombardi
and Marco Vaudetti
Eiji Mizushima What is an intelligent tntrseum? A Japanese view 241
*

Features

.
I

A CITY A N D ITS MUSEUMS

Alojz HabovStiak Bratislava, from the Stone Age to computerizatiotz 244

RETURN A N D R E S T I T U T I O N
O F CULTURAL PROPERTY
Theft of culturalproperty called epidemic at sixth
session of Unescos Intergovernmental Committee 248

WFFM C H R O N I C L E

WFFM Newsbrief

249

Extracts from an interview Architecture and exhibitions: new settingsfor new art 249

FRANKLY S P E A K I N G
Wolf Tochtermann Museums-fiom the ground

ISSN 0027-3996
Mrisertm (Unesco, Paris),
No. 164(Vol. XLI, No. 4, 1989)

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New feature logos designed by Julien

252

230

The late Georges-Henri %viere was world renowned as Frances most

eminent museologist. Less known was his hankering to be a musician; droll
as it may sound, he is even reported to have considered a song he wrote for
the American jazz singer Josephine Baker his most important work! But the
complicity between music and museums is not as far-fetched as one might
think. Have not museums been c d e d modern-day cathedrals, and what
self-respecting Paris guide would omit the classic reference to Notre Dame
as a ~ymphonyin stone?
In the same fashion7this number of M n , devoted to the current state
and future prospects of museum architecture, may be considered a kinin$of
concert. About this concert we now offer some modest programme notes.
The overture is by Yani H e r r a a n , of Mexico, who chairs IGOWs
International Committee on Architecture and Museum Techniques Like
my good overture, her introduction provides inviting snatches of the
thematic matter to come. It also Pays down a conceptud framework to
ensure that, no matter how disparate in t e m s of tune or tone, what foflows
Wdl Ita?& Up a haXJIlOIhiOUS Whole, After this BVeTtMPe Comes brief
scherz-Dinu
Bambams iUustrated advice to museum architects.
In the strict historical sense, &e number of M ~ s e u mYani Herremm
presents to us is far from a classical renderiig. The p ~ ~ d eGraecor ~ ~ s
Roman symmetry of the templehas today been virtually bamed from
museum xchtecture, A leitmotiv amounced from the outset-and which
reappears time md again throughout this number-is the attempt to move
beyond the temple and find new ways of combining line and form that are
more congenial than right mgles and ceremonial staircases to museums everdiversifying hnctions. There are even efforts to move still further, be^^^^
the beyond-the-temple stage to. .. what? The musewdsupemarket,
museumlcountv club, museum/street theatre? As with much modern
music, the most daring expressions do not suit the tastes of everyone.
Explicitly rejecting the temple, imovators in contemporary Soviet
museum architecture are reponed by Vladimir Reviakin to be beguiled by
folk forms, the traditional architecture OP: Central Asia, for example. The
vernacular idiom dso looms large in the thinking of Jorge Gazaneo, who
reminds us that, so to speak, the rough urban tango is not enough for the
vast spaces of his native Argentina. He suggests that the-tested mrd
budding techniques may-like the % ~ ~ g o uand
r ~ uenduring
s
village
zdmbd-be better suited to the less frenzied reaches of Latin America.
Similarly, a kind of song of the eartl$ may be heard in Wolf
TQChter
conlTibUtiOl2 to O U I FlFrddy $Xd&Ig colUmn, Where he
advocates the use of local building materials, and in M~seumsaccount of
how the Israel Museum was snugly fitted on its hilltop site.
Living with the legacy of architectural history has proved to be
problematic for the museums of the United Republic of Tanzania,
according to Fidelis T. Masao. There, a specifically African melody has
e

., *

When the building is all right...

I9 5

begun to emerge, but it is only really audible in one setting-naturally, the

Village Museum. For the rest, and though the-future may bring a change,
he prefers the neo-Moorish mode of museum architecture of the 1930s to
the not-always-successful attempts to adapt other buildings to museum use.
On the other hand, integration of past and present does seem to have
produced a successful medley in the brand-new National Museum of
Tripoli (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya), presented here by Mounir Bouchenaki.
In fact, the kinds and functions of its display equipment and other facilities
have a distinctly futuristic ring. Similarly, Charles Correas raga draws
sustenance from an ancient philosophy for museums of today.
Harald Szeemanns interview in the regular Chronicle of the World
Federation of Friends of Museums is the solo performance df a connoisseur
who, fittingly, believes that architecture should recognize the very personal
nature of art, its creation and its appreciation.
The review of five controversial cases of post-war French museum
architecture, by Dominique Pilato, comes as variations on the theme: how
to build a modern museum. Dissonance, even cacophony, are to be heard
here. And how could it be otherwise since (and this is another leitmotiv
running through the entire number) there is far from always harmony
between the aesthetic Zan of post-temple museum designers, on the one
hand, and the fantastically widening array of technical possibilities available
to museum builders, on the other.
Happily, then, technical virtuosity resounds in what could be described
as three cadenzas to this numbers treatment of museum architecture.
Just ten years after their Museum article introducing the programming
technique of museum construction, Claude Pecquet and Patrick OByrne
take stock of this techniques progress. Eiji Mizushima outlines the need for
and nature of a museum that is intelligentboth computer-wise and
electronically, basing himself mainly on his experiences in Japan. Finally,
Marco Filippi and his Turin Polytechnic team point out that no building is
dead. They present their work in monitoring the life of museums at the
intersectionbetween evolution of the structures of buildings, on the one
hand, and environmental changes outside and within, on the other.
Like many encores, the last two articles in this issue of Museum bear no
relation to the concert just concluded but do have intrinsic interest. The
first reports on current developments in Unescos efforts to promote the
return of cultural property to its countries of origin, or its restitution in case
of illicit appropriation.
The second, our regular feature A City and Its Museums, looks at
museum life in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. N o relation to architecture?
O n second thought, we are mistaken: the Slovakian capitals museums
clearly live and breathe through their buildings, old and new, grand and
cosy.
In I 849, a certain Martin Nadaud told the French Legislative Assembly:
Quand le btiment vu, tout va (When the building is all right, everything
is all right). An exaggeration? Probably. Yet this number of Museum
shows only too well that, in museum architecture, if the building is not all
right, then nothing is right.

I. Musezsm also wishes to thank Yudhish&ir

Raj Isar, former editor of this magazine and now
Director of &e International Fund for the
Promotion of Culture, for his valuable advice in
conceiving this number.

With this issue, Fernanda de Camargo e Almeida-Moro and Alpha

Oumar Konar are leaving Museums Advisory Board after many years of
generous and fruitful participation for which we thank them both most
sincerely. And we are pleased to welcome Yani Herreman, who has joined
the Board.
A. G.

A new can
tive talent:
contemporary trends
in museum architecture
Yani Herreman
Born in Mexico. he holds a degree in architecture,
museology and history of art and is a teacher at the
Manuel del Castillo Negrete Restoration Centre.
he was previously Director of the Department of
Museology of the Museo de las Culturas (Museum
of Cultures) and co-ordinator of museographical
projects for the Instituto Nacional de Antropologa
(National Anthropological Institute), he has participated in the planning, design and co-ordination
of a large number of important museographical
projects in Mexico and is currently Director of the
Museo de Historia Natural (Natural History
Museum), Chairwoman of ICAMT (ICQM International Committee on Architecture and Museum
Techniques) and Executive Secretary of the Permanent Secretariat of ICOM for Latin America. Member of Mttseum's Advisory Board.

Drawing by Julien

It is widely hewn that museums are

currently experiencing a b ~ o m In
. many
parts of the odd the construction of
new museums or new wings, and the
rem~dellingand conversion of museums,
ape undergoing an expansion that could
even be described as spectacular. The
p ~ ~ p of
s ethis issue of M245eum is to
analyse that trend.
Highly industrialized countries such as
the United States have witnessed ver the
last few years the budding of an impressive n~n-rherof museums, a large propoltion of which have been reCQgdZed
as major architectural works. Similar
deyelopments have taken place in the
Federal Republic of Gemany and Japan,
among others, while Canada has spent
thousands of millions of dollars on new
museum buildings. According to Donald
McMichael, Director of the National

Museum of Austrda, a new museum

budding is erected each year in that
CQuntV.
The picture in the developing
countries is quite different, both in figures atad in timing. For instance, the
Latin h e r i c a n boom got Off to a late
start and doubtless lacked the drive supplied by a strong econ~my.It was none
the less in those countries that an h o vative idea concerning the role of &e
contemporary museum first saw the light
sf day and had the most tangible repercussions, i.e. that of democratizing culture. Despite the serious worldwide political and e c o n ~ ~crisis
~ i cthe past decade
has+verd-witnesse$
the opening and
equipping of an unprecedented number
of museums in Africa, the Middle East,
Asia and Latin h e r i c a , priority having
been given to conserving buildings that

A new canvas f o r new creative talent: contemporary trends in musettm architecture

were part of the national heritage rather

than to the construction of new buildings. Even countries with serious economic problems, such as Mexico, have
opened numerous museums: the total for
the entire country increased from 191 in
1968 to 5 I I twenty years later, ten or so
being new buildings.*
These figures show that in our day and
age museums occupy a special place on
the socio-cultural scene. And it cannot be
denied that the message and the image
communicated by those museums are
partially expressed in their architecture.
Bearing in mind that we are witnessing
a totally unprecedented phenomenon in
museum history, it would undoubtedly
be worth our while to examine its underlying causes, its impact on contemporary
society and its future repercussions. We
need to recognize that the outward form,
the proliferation and the cultural importance of museums are the result of
technical, economic and social factors,
in the same way as any other form of cultural expression. Whereas previously the
museum was considered to be a temple
of the muses, and like an con remained
majestically remote from the community
by the sobriety of both its exterior and its
interior, what are we to call the multiplicity of modern museums, covering
such a wide range of styles, shapes, sizes,
purposes and functions? In order to
grasp the essence of this phenomenon it
will be necessary to consider the questions, What is a museum? and What
does society want from a museum?
Z%e mttSeumsplace in society

Without wishing to get involved in a

long-standing controversy, I shall simply
mention that in 1972 an important
regional meeting on museums held in
Santiago de Chile reached the conclusion
that the museum as an institution should
play a genuine and regular part in the life
of the community it serves. In 1977
C. Pecquet and P. OByrne took a closer
look at the following questions: (a)
whether the museum would become a
factor in socio-economic development
or an institution of marginal importance concemed merely with the wellbeing that goes with the refinements of
life; (b) whether it would increase
mutual awareness-and hence closeness
and understanding-between
different
groups of human beings or be yet
another valuable and staunch pillar of the
economy in the wider context of development as a whole; (c) whether it

I97

would turn out to be no more than a

special institution designed to delight the
most cultivated minds or an instrument
for educating the people; (d) whether it
would become a centre of cultural activity or an institution reserved for tourists.3 Two years later Hugues de Varine
made an important point when he declared that
culture is being invaded by trade and industry. Collecting works of art is increasingly
becoming a commercial activity that takes
place in a context where cultural and economic factors are of equal importance and
forms part of a universal system in which
supply and demand are influenced by advertising, the media and pressure of all kinds.4

Ten years have elapsed since then. The

questions continue to be asked, dcspite
the fact that innumerable museums corresponding to all the different approaches
mentioned above have been built. The
museum has not only perpetuated its role
of political institution, inasmuch as it
helps to bring a country academic, cultural and social recognition,$ but also
emphasized it by developing another
activity, i.e. fund-raising. It is not to be
wondered at that Andrea Dean wrote on
the subject of the development of
museums that the transformation of
museums from dusty depositories for an
lite into socio-cultural centres for the
masses had made them fiercely competitive and business-minded and that their
most convincing argument was that
museums enabled a city to increase its
revenues and prestige and expand its
tourist industry.6It is here that the architecture has a vital part to play, as the
museum needs to be turned into an eyecatching, not to say striking, receptacle
for exhibits in order to carry out its function of publicity agent. The museum
becomes as important an attraction and
source of delight for visitors as the works
it contains.
By strengthening one of the major
social services, on the other hand, the
museum has also turned into a means of
communication, a social centre and an
instrument for democratizing culture, in
addition to fulfilling its familiar educational role. Hollein considers the
museum to be an institution in which
numerous activities take place: the architect creates an autonomous work of art
intended for works of art and for man.7
These two different approaches coexist, and each of them has been adopted
by decision-makers, politicians, museologists, architects and museum curators.

I. G. Maslen, Museums: A Global View.

Australia: Economic Pragmatism, Self-reliance
Sustain Expansion, Museum News, SeptemberOctober 1988.
2. M. A. Madrid Jaime, El Sistema Nacional
de Museos en Mxico, Boletn del Museo Franz
Mayer, November-December 1988.
3. C,Pecquet and P. OByrne, Muse dhier
et daujourdhui, Architectwe, No. 402, 1977.
(See also their article in this number of
Museam-Ed. )
4. H. de Varine, Le muse peut tuer ou faire
vivre, Techniques et Architecture, No. 326,
September 1979.
5 . Pecquet and OByrne, op. cit.
6. A. O. Dean, Estilos cambiantes en
arquitectura, Facetas, No. 75, 1987.
7. Museumsbau in der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland. Museo municipal de arte de
Mnchengladbach, Inter Nationes (Bonn), 1985.

YanHerreman

IQ8

played by the architectural image in

strengthening the dominant cultural
%art galleries, which represent the su- ideology and the nature of the relationpreme museum example for a large part ship between the touristic aspects of the
of the general public, tend to be classified museum, its social prestige and economic
in the first category. They stii make up role, on the one hand, and its architecthe majority of the museums being built ture? on the other. The replies to these
and are most readily associated with the questions are . S Q U S ~in~ tectonic
~
terms,
concept of a socio-cultural centre. In but in fact have a socio-museologicd
addition, they are the largest recipients of foundation. It is at this point that mufinancial assistance. Todays art galleries seology has a crucial part t~ play as a
have changed radically, even though their SQnSeptudSienSe.
main objective is still to &splay works of
There is no doubt that the architects
art in order that they may be viewed. creatvity and sensitivity are at the heart
Happenings, block-buster temporary of a successful project. Museum buildexhibitions, large-scale spectacles and ings are no exception to this rule, though
other activities of varying WQ&, which nowadays architects increasingly colare SO much in vogue today, have given laborate with curators and museologists,
them a new dimension. I none the less who are more familiarwith muse~logyin
agree with the remark made by J. M. general and with museums and their
Montaner and J. Oliveras to the effect requirements in particular. Many archithat the innovations itatr~ducedin the tects ashowledge the importance of
19jos and 1960s were the main cause of their contacts with the museologist or
the changes in the spatial aspects and museum &rector while working on their
form of art galleries: The size of the designs. Such interdisciphav has
works ofthe North American expression- become possible p d y as a result of
nists, the spirit of pop-art, the aims of developments in museology and partly
hyper-realism, land art, minimal and owing to a change of attiaide on the part
conceptual art, video art and hap- of museologists and the architectural
penings.* As far as the other types of profession towards society.. h h u r
museums are concerned, it is t u e that in Ericksson, architect of the already
general they have also been characteristic ~Z~IIXXS Museum of hthropology in
of the new museological age or, in other Vancouver, Canada, said that architecwords, have begun to c o m m d the pres- ture was much more than merely just
tige they deserve by virtue of their num- mother problem for a museum, since it
bers, qudty
importance.
in- could determine the museums very
stance, natural-history and scaence-and- structure. It was required, he went on,
technology museums are a response to not only to take into account factors such
the individuas growing need to keep up as the exhibits, the site, the spatial organal
with the scientific and t ~ ~ h d o g i cproization, the techical equipment arad
gress characterizing QUI age. The new other fittings, but also to make the
museums of this h d that are being built museum meaningful in relation to the
in increasing numbers can loogicdy be physical and social environment of those
defined as major social services. One who looked at it and used it. Io
such is the CitC de la Science et de
Phdustrie (City of Science and Industry)
in Paris, which Maurice Levy described
as a superb tool for arousing popular
interest in science.9 Like the National
Air and Space Museum in Washington, Up to now we bave exmined the socioD.C., it demonstrates the extent to museological aspects of the questiion; we
which the buildings image has an shallnow turn to the strictly architectural
influence on the community. Architects aspect.
Museums have always held considerand museologists, however, have begun
asking themselves questions concerning able appeal for architects. %e relationthe ex.tent to which the new architecture ship between culture and building is paxhas helped to develop understanding of ticularly clear and obvious in a museum,
art and science, the degree to which the as is demonstrated by the great works of
budding in which it is housed contributes architecture built to house muheums
to acceptance of the museum as an insti- since their beginnings. Our present era is
tution, whether architectures d serves to no exception, because3 contrariwise, the
build monuments reserved for initiates cQntruStiQnOf m U S ~ W l l ha Some CO
and tourists, the importance of the part satisfy a social need that justifies to a

ana

greater or lesser extent their numbers,

which are often excessive, and their
frequently unnecessary luxury and ostentation.
Just like any other kind of building,
museums have changed over the years.
The magnificent examples we see today
are the direct result of earher developments-probably
those that occurred
during the 1960s~that is, the consolidation of museology as a science, changes
in the approach and aims of museums,
the inclusion of other disciplines in the
pr~fession of museology (comunacations, computer science, the application
of psycho-educational principles, sociology, emiQlogy,etc.), deVdOpment in
errhibit conservation, the progress achy huge
ieved in the field of m ~ s e ~ l o gand
U these factors
techologisal advances. A
lead to m d y new functionsand activities
within &e museum, fun~tionsand activities that are planned along clearer,
more precise and one might say more
professional h e s . E s requires purely
architecturalp l k n g t o take secondglace
eo museologicd planning. Athough the
latter does not give rise to new f~nctiions
or approaches it does c d attention to
them, ranks them, assigns them spheres of
activity based on painstaking s.tudies and
analyses their relationships, staff requirements and equipment in accordance with
more precise aims. Museologisalplanning
techques, together with contemporary
~tanuseology,lay bare the compleity and
heterogeneity of the museum as an institution and as a building. Architects such
as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd vright and
yokara kBd,all.$ hSh.U$hgIIlOrC? remote
examplessuch as Leo van Henze, drew up
lists of aims and requirements, but it was
notunti the above-mentioned period that
programming m~thodobgyenabled museologists to establish their aims with
greater accuracy and made it possible for
the architect to use form and space in the
contemporary museum in a way that served those
In addition to the question of space
and form, which is determined by h e
creativity of todays architects, the visitors itineraries and j l o o phns
~
favoured
by contemporary architecmre are distated by a variety of factors, including in
particular:
Fhe ever-increasing number of visitors,
who in some cases constitute enormous crowds (the National Air and
Space Museum in Washitagton handles
up to jo,ooo visitors a day).
The type of visitor, as increasing attention is being paid to handicapped per-

A new canvasfor new creative talent: contemporary trends in museum architecture

sons, who require special facilities

inside the building.
The behaviour of the public (we now
know more about visitors habits and
the dynamics of their movements).
The activities staged in the museum.
New ways of arranging the exhibits
leading to changes in the route taken
by visitors.
Certain aspects of the conservation of
exhibits.
Consideration should be given to the idea
of providing a large central area from
which visitors can obtain an overall view
of the museum, and a route that avoids
giving the impression of a maze. The
Museo Nacional de Antropologa
(National Museum of Anthropology) in
Mexico City (architect: Ramirez Vasquez), the Vincent Van Gogh National
Museum in Amsterdam (architect: G.T.
Rietveld), the Yale Center for British Art
(architect: L. Kahn), the east wing of the
National Gallery of Art in Washington
(architect: I. M. Pei), are among examples
of museums that have introduced such
innovations.
Following on closely from that, the
reception ureu is especially important
inasmuch as it outlines the different
options open to visitors and gives them
the opportunity to get into the right
frame of mind for their visit.
The transformation of the museum as
an institution into a cultural centre for
numerous activities concerned with
communication, where social dynamics
or relations have been set up and into
which purely commercial or consumeroriented factors have been introduced,
gives a new dimension to the services
und areas intended for the public, with
the opening of shops, cafeterias or restaurants, auditoria, etc.
The increasingly diversified und speciulized internul functions of the museum in
terms both of co-ordination, to quote
Pecquet and OByrne, and of logistics
have led to the emergence of areas that
are better defined with respect to their
size, height, technical requirements, their
links with other parts of the museum and
their interrelationships. For instance, the
storage area or reserve has acquired
specialized and highly specific features
to enable it to fulfil its function. The positioning of the exhibits, the fittings, the
air conditioning, the amount of space
used, the finishes, etc., are determined
on the basis of an extremely detailed survey of the museums requirements. The
same applies in newer areas such as the
educational services.

I99

Permanent exhibition u r e a have been

a feature of museums ever since their
origins. They too have evolved, and a
distinction may be drawn between two
different approaches: the use of a large
open space, which offers the greatest
flexibility by making it possible to
change displays, and that of smaller,
fixed, gallery-like areas designed to
house specific kinds of works. There is a
third, intermediate, approach that was
first adopted by the Scandinavian
countries during the 1960s, whereby a
large space is subdivided in accordance
with the requirements of the exhibition,
and small galleries are used for less bulky
works.
It should be mentioned that temporary
exhibition meus are gaining in importance and consequently in size and
technical sophistication. The ease with
which international cultural exchanges
take place, the efforts to promote massive
exhibitions and their appeal for the general public have made this sector a particularly important one.
Q

The inclusion of security instullations in

the design process is a further point that
reflects the contemporary spirit prevailing in architectural planning. Such
considerations should take account of
factors as varied as the site of the building
itself and the installation of hightechnology equipment.
Consemation is undoubtedly one of
the branches of museology that has developed the most, to the point of becoming essential. Nowadays it covers not
only the restoration but also the conservation of collections and is consequently
directly connected with two areas in the
museum building, the storage and the
display areas. The deterioration of
museum exhibits is inevitable, but unfavourable environmental conditions can
ody speed up and aggravate the process.
It was the &erdiscii-hary co-o&ation
between architects and restorers that first
aroused awareness of the importance of
*

8. J. M. Montaner and J. Oliveras, Los museos

de la tiltima generacion, Barcelona, G. Gz,1986.
9. M. Lew, The Center for Science and
Inhustry. Gi&.g a Sense of Human Endeavor,
Architeartres Capitales, Electa Moniteur.
Io. A. suckle, Elporqu zenttestros &,os,
Barcelona, CEAC, 1984.
s .

YaniHerreman

200

the amount of lighting, the relative humidity and e n ~ i r ~ ~ ~ ~pollution.

~ ~ e n t It
al
should be added that the conditions
imposed by the collections do not correspond to the requirements of users,
whether museum staff 01 visitors. T'lis
major dilemma poses a crucial problem
SO far as the design of display areas is
concerned, and has had an efect an the
form and interior layout of the buildings.
The same may be said of environmental
control, there being W O trends: the use
of high technology, based exclusively on
ultra-modem techicd equipment, and
attempts to find more architecturally
oriented solutions, by the choice of
vo~umes, angles, finishes, colour and
other tectonic elements.

his second period) and Frank Gehry, the

last exponent of deconstructivism. They
had all had a m~dernisteducation and
retained certain aspects of it in thek work
while adding new elements. Strangely
enough, creative architects such as Philip
J ~ h s o nand James Stirling std $0 not
consider themselves post-modernists,
even nowadays. Stirling, who is universally recognized as being among the great
architects, has disavowed the new group,
despite, or perhaps owing to, the irony
characterizing his work. Certain features
of post-modernism ape none the less
apparent in it, su& as &e considerable
interest he takes in the urban environment, !is use of colour and a certain
eckcticism in combinhg contemporargr
and traditional demmts, In !is museums
the
lighting, the proportions and the
n e
as a f o m
finishes
are considered to be the essential
of a~~~~~~~~~~~
pomes.
In addition, it must be said &at the
The major examples, and indeed the
design and building of museums is a form
majority of the xcktects concerned, are
of architecture in its&. Independently of
European, North American or Japanese.
the museokx$d aspect, it has now beAs we have already had occasion to point
come part and parcel of the architectural
out, a strong economj~favours and
profession and is consequently governed
encourages the design and construction
by styles, trends and schools as an archiof buildings, including museums. This
tectural work. As we have already
state of affairs does not mean that vdupointed out, the modem movement conable COntribUtiOnS a%e not being made
tains a wealth of examples. The museums
in other countries. For Latin h e r i c a
built its wake followed its precepts,
del ~
~
~
~
~ entio ti on~may be made
~ of the Museo
~
which may be summed up as realism
Oro in San JosC, Costa Rica, Museo
with regard to structure and function. The critic Jane Holtz Kay wrote that El Tmayo, Museo de Historia Natural
n e work of Mies van der Rohe, a giant modern museums have become a blank y ArqU&Qk@33 NdeXkO civy,
vdaof the modern movement, embodies the canvas for the architect to WO& on. As hemosa-Tabasco and Xdapa-Veracruz
pleasure and skill bound up with the use we have seen, there is ample proof of respectively. Colombia, B r a d and
of glass, steel and the geometry of right this. However, as far as the shapes are Venezuela also possess new museums. In
angles. His work reflects his belief that concerned, the major architects of the this issue of M w u m the reader wibl
industriabizationis both the problem and 1960s had a predilection for anontimental come across other developing countries,
the chid 'solution of QUI age. He wrote buildings resembling boxes, with rela- OP instance India, the Libyan Arab
that if the process of industrialization tively few apertures, although this situ- Jamabriya and the United Republic of
were brought to a successful conclusion ation was about to undergo a radical Tanzania.
QUI economic, technical and artistic
It has not been possible in this introchange.
plOblem would be .QlVed,'I
The 1970s witnessed the birth of a new duction to review all the works of that
h o t h e r leading architect of the formalism that completely transf~rmed varied and magnificent group of archimodern movement was undoubtedly Le the relationship between form and tects who have made incursions into
Corbusier, who, together with Frank content, on the one hand, and structure museum design. None the less, our perLloyd Wright, Gropius, Candela, Nie- and function, on the other. "here were egrhatibtions have shown eVdenS&Of the
mayer, Nervi and LOOSamong others, considerable divergences beltween the importance of the museum, which is a
developed the technical and expressive new movement and modern architecture, prime example of a social institution, for
potential Qf concrete.
particularly with respect to the d e s laid the creaxive architect-cum-mist . WhatThe major changes that took place in down by the latter.
ever the nature of its contents, the
architecture during the 1960s must be
Then came a point where modern museum building is in itself an integrated
e
disthguished from what came to be architecture could be considered to be- and complete work of art.
known as the international style or long to the past.'3 The post-m~demist
modern architecture. Charles Jencks era thus began With a type of architecture
called them 'late m~dems', a term he that offered museums its techniques,
coined in 1977to describe a group of ar- language and ideals, just as mohmism
II. P. Drew, Aratu Isozaki, Barcelona,
chitects Who Were sometimes Sonfused had done in its time.
6. G&, 1983.
with the post-m~dernists. The recurThere emerged architects such as Hans
12. Dean, op. cit.
rence of modular elements on the fa- W~llein,James Stirling, Arata ISQZ&(in
13. Drew, op. cit.
~~~~~

Fades, the emphasis on constructional or

structural details, a logic taken to extremes and numerous affinities with industrial design are all features of two
important architectural works regarded
as belonghg to the late modern movement: the Pompidou Centre in Paris and
the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in
East Anglia, United Kingdom. The former was conceived as an enormous
Meccano construction, with a conception of space that is both simple and
linear. The joints and structure are stated
very explicitly and link it direcdy tQ
constructions of industrial design. The
aGade itself was reversed, the escalators
being encased in large plastic tubes on the
outside of the building. The latter building is v ve red by an outer envelope, leaving a 2.4-metre-wide space in which the
services are h~used.The inside is regular,
being the same in all directions and giving
the impression of having been designed
specificallyin accordance with functional
requirements of a structural and technical
nature. Before the construction of the
Sahnsbury Centre, w d s and roofs were
considered separate elements, but in this
building they were integrated to form a
single structure. Both centres are marvels
of modern teShnQlQgy.

201

Ten Commandments
for the museum architect
Dinu Bambaru from Canada
gleaned these messages working
at home and abroad

Pick the ultimate in bizarre building

materials, kee ing in mind that their
upkeep shod be utterly impossible.

t;

Forget that there might be such things as

collections.

?
Forget that there might be such thiigs as
visitors.

Bestow on every inaccessible nook and

crmny the title cStOrerOoms.

Make sure that the coMectioms are hemmed

in by &e greatest possible number of
water conduius.

Ten Commandmentsfor the nzuseion architect

203

To control relative humidity and

temperature, place blind faith in a
centralized air-conditioning system.

Offervisitors total hands-on contact

with the works on display.

And above all, design a museum that is a

monument to the glory of the
.
architect-thats you.

useurn architecture
in the United Republic of Tanzania:

living with a mixed legacy

Fidelis T.Masao

Like many Mrican and other developing

couratries, the United Republic of TanzaBorn in 1940 in Uru, Mo: i, United Republic of
nia has since hdependence had to learn
Tanzania, B.A., University College of Nairobi,
1961; M.A. in Anthropology at University of to live with a mixed legacy as far as
Colorado, United States, 1971; Ph.D. in Archae- museum architecture is concerned. O n
ology at Simon Fraser University, Canada, 1977. the one hand, there had been some
Curator of the National Museum of Tanzania, Dar efforts to provide adequate and attractive
es Salaam, 1972-77. Since 1978, Director of the
museum spaces. O n the other, the buildNational Museums of Tanzania.
ings we inherited were arfrom sufficient
to shelter and exhibit to the public significant samples o our abundant natural
and cultural heritage; yet efforts to house
greater mounts of that heritage in
appropriate settings-whether by reconverting structures not originally htended
to be museums or by building new stuctures designed as museumshave laced
daunting problems caused by another
part of the legacy we received with Independence-poverty.

When discussing museums in the

United Republic of Tanzania, I have
always found it practical to treat the subject under t h e e main administrative/
ownership categories: national museums, regional museums and private
museums.
National museums may be said to have
come into existence shortly alter Independence abmost t k i q years ago when,
by an Act sf Parliament, the hithet~to
f i g George V Memorial Museum was
renamed the National Museums oTanganyika and, later, the National Museum
of Tanzania. At present, the National
Museums of Tanzania consist of the
National Museums headquarters in Dax
es Salaam, the Village Museum at Kijitonyama, near Bar es Salaam, the h s h a
Declaration Museum at
Arusha, and the Natural History
Museum at Bomani-hsha. Currently
under constructbn is the Butiama
Museum at Musoma, while the Dodoma
Arusha Declaration Museum, part of the
proposed National Museums of Ikonomic and Political History, is still on the
architects' drawing board (Fig. I).

L
'

start. soon).

Museum architecture in the United Republic of Tanzanid: living with a mixed legacy

An integral part of the move to decentralize government operations from Dar

es Salaam to the regions, begun some
fifteen years ago, were proposals to establish regional cultural institutions, especially museums. No sooner were the
elaborate plans for regional museums
put forward, however, than the fervor
gradually started dwindling, so that
today only four out of twenty regions
has a regional museum. Administratively, these are managed by the regional
authority under the direction of the
Regional Cultural Officer. All four
regional museums tend to concentrate
solely on aspects of history and culture of
the community they serve.
The most prominent of the private
museums are those established and run
by religious agencies, particularly the
Catholic Church, the Bagamoyo Historical Museum being a good example. In
addition, there are specialized museums
established and run by institutions such
as the National Parks, the Geological
Survey of Tanzania, etc.
With the exception of the National
Museums headquarters in Dar es Salaam
and one of the regional museums, none
of the museums now in operation is
housed in a building designed and meant
for museums. On the contrary, already
existing buildings not necessarily suitable
for museums were acquired and, with
minimum modifications, reconverted.

Architecture of buildings
convevted into museums
The Arusha Declaration Museum and
the Natural History Museum, both of
which are at Arusha, are examples of
museums using buildings designed for
other purposes.
The Arusha Declaration Museum is
now housed in a small building which,
until 1967, was used as the social welfare
hall for the Kaloleni Community in Amsha. In the absence of a more convenient
place to hold the historical meeting from
which Tanzanians' political and economic blueprint, the Arusha Declaration, emerged and was publicized, the
modest meeting hall was chosen for this
auspicious function. Consequently, the
building attained an unusual historical
significance whose perpetuation led,
logically, to converting it into a small
political history museum on 5 February
1977.This coincided with another major
historical event, the merging of the two
political parties, the Tanganyika African
National Union or TANU (mainland)

and the Afro-Shirazi Party or ASP (Zanzibar) to for as a single political party,
Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), for the
United Republic of Tanzania.
The building is constructed of stone,
concrete and glass, with timber windowand door-frames. The floor is composed
of a compressed bed of stone and rubble
over which a layer of about IO centimetres of concrete has been cast. The
walls are built of stone rising over half
way to the eaves, after which 5-mm-thick
glass, held in place by wooden frames, is
used throughout the building. The castconcrete roof is multitriangular in cross
section, and both on the side and front
elevation is supported by reinforced
concrete pillars. The original partitions,
which had created three small rooms and
two meeting halls, have been maintained.
The three rooms are now being used as
offices for the principal curator, his
secretary and the museum's education
officer. The larger of the big rooms is
used for exhibition purposes while the
smaller has been converted into a library
and also for occassionalstaff meetings. In
planning the building, the architect provided for a courtyard, which now leads
to the exhibition lid. In the courtyard
are facilities for toilets and an $-purpose
store.
Obviously, the architecture of this
buildldg, while quite appropriate for a
social welfare hall, was bound to create a
number of problems when used as a
museum. For example, it lacks a workshop for preparing exhibits and other
functions, storage space for collections
and objects not on display, space for
conservational and curatorial facilities,
etc. Technically, the building has also
been found to be faulty and incompatible
with sound museum conservation principles. The lavish use of transparent
glass all over the building allows too
much light into the exhibition hall. Consequently, the exhibits (mostly photographic and archival) deteriorate quickly
and have to be replaced at a greater frequency than we can cope with.
The wooden window-frames also
cause a serious problem, allowing water
to leak into the room, especially during
the rainy season, which encourages devellopment of damp conditions conducive
to the growth of mould and acceleration
of decay. The cast-concrete slab roof has
also contributed to the already damp
conditions: over the years, the slab
has-due to expansion and contraction-developed cracks which despite its
steep gradient has let in water during the

205

The Arusha Declaration Museum.

Natural History Museum, Arusha, after

renovation.

All illustrationscourtesy of t h e author

Fidelis T. Masa0

206

\N

Scale 1 500
Final extensan

P h of the Germaan Boma as it was before

~tXlOV~tiOn.

rainy season and necessitates constant

repairs which the museum's already overstretched budget can ill afford. Finally,
the toilets and general facility area should
have been located in a more suitable place
than where they are, directly fasing the
e f i b k h hd.
Despite these pr~blems, measures
taken by the authoritiesto spare the budding and use it as a museum should be
UIldelStoQd, for the demand for buildings to house socio-cultural activities is
always greater than the supply.

budding with SO many partitions and

small rooms for exhibitions. Under instructions from the department of antiquities, which is in charge of historical
buildings in the United
zania, structural renovations and alterations had to be minimal. lhlthough most:
post-construction structural partitions
were demolished in the conversion process, we still had to deal with an
overabundance of s m d rocpms. Consequently, other than the Sub-district
Office, whish was still being used within
the museum omp pound for administrats
we had to h o c k
ive p ~ ~ p o s e(offices),
d o m all the doors SO that there could be
free entry and circulation from one exhibition room to mother, Themes for exhibitions have also had to be conceived in
t e m s of components, so that whde each
room caters for a component of the
hol le, each component leads from the
previous to the foblowing one. To achieve
this, the rooms are numbered in sequential order.
h o t h e r arshitectural problem we
have had to face is insufficient natural
lighting. Hn fact, some of the rooms in
both the Captain's Dwelling and Guard
House have no windows at all and thus
require total relimce on mificial lighting.
Related to the lack of sufficient windows
is the problem of free circulation of air,
especially when there are large groups of
visitors and the temperature outside
happens to be high. This creates a rather
hot and unpleasant misrochate in the
~QQKT.I.5.

The Natural History Museum at Arusha

is another instance where use has been
made of an existing building, one (in this
case) whose history dates back to the
G e n " colonial period, that is, a long
time before there were my museums in
the c o ~ ~Ast the
~ . sketch shows, the
building was the headquarters (Boma) of
the German administration in h s h a
and was used for the same purgose first
by the British md &en, until a new administrative block was c ~ n s t ~ ~ c t in
ed,
&e post-Independence days. In the absence Of b d S to finance the COfaStlXlCtion of new and modem buildings, the
National Museums board of governers
had to accept the building and use it as
the nucleus and phase one of the proposed National Natural History Museum. Nevertheless, before the building
could be used for this purpose extensive
exterior and interior renovation and limited modscations had ta be made,
One of the mmy pr~blemswe had
to grapple with was how best to use a

The building has, however, exceptionally thick cement walls and very high
ceilings, features which have been found
to be advantageous. The thick walls keep
out disturbing noises from outside mush
better than more modem constructions
and do not easily allow rain-water to seep
in to cause dampness. High ceilings also
render the rooms cooler especidy durhg
the day, when it is hot outside.
Our hands are tied, to a large degree,
when it comes to ex+rimenting with efficient use of space for museum purposes
in such buildings; after all? they were not
built as museums. Hovever, with the
IOW priority accorded to museums, especially in an African context where they
are sometimes looked down upon as m
imposition of the earlier ~ ~ l ~ npower,
ial
We hQddSOunt QUreh3indeed lUCkJ'
to have inherited such basically sound
structures for museums, and luckier still
that we have at least a few structures
designed as museums. The two buildings
which form the headquarters of the

Museum architecture in the United Republic of Tanzania: living with a mixed legacy

207

National Museums of Tanzania, and

those at the Majimaji Museum at Songea,
are the only ones in the whole of the
country which were built solely for use as
museums. A look at one of these
complexes sheds light on further architectural issues now confronting our
museums.

Built as a museum
For the so called old building of the
National Museums headquarters, the
architect was instructed in July 1938 to
design a building not costing more than
E8,ooo, the architecture to be Arabic in
character but not too ornate. The architect was also shown the site where the
proposed museum was originally intended to be built, but he advised against
the choice of the site because, as he
argued, all government offices are situated on this front and in the event of new
ones being erected in the future, their
design could not be in conformity with
the museum, which would be overshadowed. He therefore recommended that
the building be erected in the Botanical Gardens. The suggestion was accepted by the managing committee
which also proposed the requirements of
the building for the architect to consider.
Without overlooking the question of
cost, the architect presented two
schemes, with some variations but resulting in the same overall space of about
5,090 square feet (473 m).
At the building rates of the time, either
of the two schemes could have been built
for the specified sum of E8,ooo, but the
first plan was chosen simply because it
allowed for two exhibition halls rather
than one long one as in the second. Other
details of the building were as follows:
The two exhibition halls would have
overhead lighting, cross ventilation
would be provided by the high louvred
windows, wall space to be used for exhibitions in cases and on shelves, an
entrance porch leading into a large vestibule in which exhibits such as maps could
be displayed, the height of the vestibule
to be 24 feet (7.3 m) from floor to ceiling,
an Arab door from another building to
form the entrance to the vestibule, offices
for the curator, a library which could also
be used as a committee room, a workroom, and a staff lavatory as well as a
public lavatory to be provided. Alldrainage was to be concealed in the walls and
floors, the floor of the entrance was to be
tiled, the floor of the vestibule was to
have mahogany wood blocks and those

The old building and part of the new

building of the headquarters of the
National Museums of Tanzania.

The old building of the National Museums

Headquarters, previously known as the
King George V Memorial Museum.

The new building of the National

Museums Headquarters, Dar es Salaam.

Windows in the Euro-Arabic style,

old building.

Fidelis T. H a a o

of the museum and curators office were

to have SedalWQQdblocks, while the rest

buildings in Dar es Salam. The mvuli

wood joinery, the d e s in the vestibule
and the wooden-block floor in the e&bition h d s and library have ~ S stood
Q
the test of time very well.
Unfortunately, however, the rain gutters on the roof could have been made
bigger, for over the years they have
tended to become blocked. The glass
c e h g over the exhibition hall, though
enhancing the aesthetics of the building,
was perhaps not such a good idea as it has
proved difficult and sometimes dangerQU to keep dean. FindJJ, the cord
stoneswhich were used in the constmction are rather ~ O ~ Q Uand
S tend to let in
water.

would have cement floors.

Concerning construction, it was
recommended that the architect build the
main walls of cast concrete, while the
partition walls to the lavatories were to
be of concrete bhcks.
w d s were to
be plastered with coats of distemper and
the ceilings of the exhibition halls, front
md rear wings, were to be similarly
treated. The steel girders carrying the
main flat concrete roof would be supported on steel stanckons all cased in
concrete, plastered and distempered to
match the w d s and ceilings. The concrete flats s u r ~ - ~ ~ ~the
d i lantern
ng
lights
and glass ceilings of the museum halls and
over the front and rear wings were to
Too Eow for the ~
~
~
haw a patent felting laid over them as an
Branchai
additional security measure against leaks.
They would be drained using rainwater As opposed to the old budding, v h c h as
pipes ha+ng large beads designed tQ suit has been pointed out has a unique character, the SO called new building-that is,
the building.
The roof of the vestibule was to be of Phases I and 2 ofthe three-phased expantimber with boarding laid on the rafters, sion of the National Muse= and built in
with patent felt roofing laid over the 1963 and 1968 respectively-has been
boarding, and the whole being covered found wanting in many museum-specific
with semi-circular Itdian roofing des. details and features. B shall spare the
The ceiling under this roof would be reader the boring details of meetings
especially designed and lined vith a bemeen the museum authorities and the
patennt Celotex lining, d of it to be architect which decided on the design of
distempered. pabl joinery work such as the budding. SuffiSe it tQ pQhtOut that
door, WhdQW, etS., Were &O be Of public pleas to expand the then King
mvuli (mahogany) timber. The architect George V Memorial Museum housed in
incorporated most of these details, in .&e old building date back to the eve of
addition to t ~ wide
o doors at the rear, Independence when, in June 1959, the
one leading to the exhibition halls and the Tanganyika Standadrd carried an editorial
and readers letters a s h g the gove~nQtherto &e Work .I-QCPOm.
It is important to note that the building ment to act in this regard.
In 1961, the then curator outlined a
was planned SO that it could easily be
extended, but that when it was decided Sheme for the deVdQpliaaent Of the
in 1963 to embark on an expansion museum: to house the ever-increasing
ns,
material relating
scheme, a new b u i l h g was erected on a ~ ~ l l e c t i ~particularly
site so laid out that it was not necessary to the prehistoric and historical developfor the two buildings to touch each other. ments in the country. NSQincluded in
Cons~~~ciion
work started in 19-38 and the proposed scheme were two airon 7 December 1940 the museum was conditioned galleries for natural history,
an oceanarium and a reptile park. The
officially opened to the public.
Board
commissioned Mr H.French of
If we were to evaluate &e designs of
the building and their suitability, we the architectural fim French & Hastings
should have to give the managing to produce sketch plans to incorporate
committee of the time and the architect a the proposed extensions. The p~oposed
great deal of credit. TQ s t a t with, the errtension was to be undertaken in stages,
choice of the location, the Botanical Gar- the first stage to C Q S ~in the region of
dens, is really ideal, as the museum has in 43 5,000.
In the archives it is mentioned that the
fact not been overshadowed by other
buildings. The Euro-Arabic architecture, design of the new building was the result
exemplified in the semi-circular win- of close co-operation between the archidows, and the semi-circular red tiles for tect and the curator. Consequently, at
the roof, render the building quite the completion of Phase I, the National
unique and beautiful. Fifty years later it is Museum acquired a building with two
still ionsidered one of thi &ost beautiful exhibition h d s , one wi&-on the

209

The vestibule. Note again the decorative

tiles.

ground floor-195 m2 of floor space and

the other 322 m2, plus storage space of
412m2, two offices, a vault for hominids
and other priceless collections, a darkroom, a laboratory, toilets and another
3 52 m2exhibition hall, on the first floor
approached by a staircase from the
entrance hall. Phase 2 of the expansion
has provided more storage space, six offices, accommodation for the Department of Antiquities, a loading bay, staff
toilets and a garage. Phase 3 would have
provided a library, a lecture theatre and
one more exibition hall, but this has been
frozen due to lack of funds.
Despite the newness and the assertion
that the new building was the result of
close co-operation between the architect
and the curator, we have found the new
building defective and indeed rather dif.ficult to manage. Overall, the c e h g s are
rather too low, thus creating accoustic
and climate problems, not to mention the
difficulties the limited height would
impose if we wished, for instance, to
display the skeleton of a dinosaur such as
the Brachiosaurus Branchai which has
been found in our country.
The building has too many windows
which, while they supply enough air to
the exhibition halls, have of late been
found to impose a security risk. As a
result the museum has had to spend
badly needed money to block off some of
the windows while others have had to be
burglar-proofed by fixing steel grills.
Both Phases I and 2 had concrete walls
with a flat cast-concrete slab for the roof.
The concrete walls have presumably
proved too heavy for the foundations and
the soil and, as a result, large cracks have
developed in the walls. Some of the
cracks are so big that they impose such a
security risk to staff and visitors that
money has got to be spent to rectdy
them.

Furthermore, no sooner had eight

years elapsed since completion of
construction than the roof started leaking
profusely; this not only damaged exhibits
but also raised the already high and
uncomfortable humidity in the exhibition halls and storage areas. To be rid of
this problem, we have had to put on a
new roof of corrugated iron sheets.
The overall feeling is that either the
architect did not understand museums
well or the curator, an expatriate on
contract, was not really interested in
seeing a suitable museum building come
into being. Obviously, the architect's
supervision of the contractor was rather
lax, whence the shoddy product, a
building with many architectural and
structural defects.
All these faults and shortcomings notwithstanding, we are happy to have a
building for the museum. No doubt we
shall continue to use the building for a
long time to come, for even if we find the
financial resources for several new
buildings, we could, in fact, never have
enough for the country's cultural and
natural heritage. Our experience has
made us very explicit and thorough when
dealing with architects responsible for
the Butiama Museum now under
construction, and to this end we have had
several meetings with Mr W. M. Feruzi
of Archplan International who are the
architects for the proposed Arusha
Declaration Museum at Dodoma, in the
hope that these two museums will be
architecturally and structurally sound
and responsive to their intended purposes and functions.

Plan of the proposed new building being

an extension of the National Museum.

New trends
in Soviet museum architecture

%aa&

Reviakin

Born in 1939, graduated from the Moscow Architecmre Institute in 1962. Candidate in sciences
(architecture). Author of more than forty plans for
museums, including those built for regional ethnography in Omsk (Siberia) and Blagoveschensk
(Soviet Far East), and fine arts in Arkhangelsk
(northern RSFSR), Izhevsk (Udmurt Autonomous
Republic) and Tambov (central RSFSR) and the
Ho Chi Mi& Museum in Hanoi (Viet Nam).
Author of Fine Arts Museums (1974), Exhibitions
(Architecture and Expositions) (1975), Architecture
of Museums for the 1980s (1979), Historical and
Regional Ethnopaphy Museums (1983), Architecture of Lenin Museums (1986) and Recommendations on Museum Design (1988). In press: World
Museum Architecture and Museums of Science and
Technology.

The history of museum archtecture' is

long and controversial, beginning with
bddings modebled on temples and pdaces and evolving irato a wide variety of
modern types of edifice. Each stage of
development has been productive in its
own way and contributed to h e creation
of certain laws, whch became accepted
as k o m s in the everyday activity of
museums. Today, as never before, accepted views are undergoing radical
change. H a h g been in the profession
for twenty years H note with great pleasure
that contemporq renewal of the life of
Soviet society has dso brought about
long-awaited changes ira design and
of museums.
constructio~~
Reconstruction has started in practica&
hportant museums in the
country, mong them the Hermitage and
Russian Museum in Leningrad, and the
Tretiakov Art- Gallery, P u s h Fine

Arts Musem, Historical Museum, Museum Of PQkJX~CklIlicsand Centrd Le&

Museum ira Moscow. In addition, no less
than 335 new museums have been
opened in the last six years. These include
&-he
Museum Of PdaeontOlQfl Xld
G h k a Music Culture Museum in Moscow, the Kazakhstan History Museum
in A.kna-Ata, the Museum of Modem
A r t s at Yerevan, asad the Ethnography
M u s e u at Sadarabad (Armenia). WMe
SOpI1&of these Peppresent new XC&teCtUprd
departures, no less ingenuity anad professional. howledge were required to fit
new museums into old buildings, as was
the case with the Museum of Clocks in
Claipeda (Lithuania), the Amber Museum in Kaliningrad (on the Bdtic Sea),
&e Bicycle Museum in Shaulai (Lithuaria) and the Forgery Museum not dar
from MSSCOW.
TFhe d m of ~KXXlst~CtiQn
of &eady

New trends in Soviet museum architecture

The Palaeontology museum in Moscow

(architects Y. Platonov, V. Kogan,
V. Nagikh, L. Yakovenko)-one of the
worlds major natural history
museums-recently moved to new
premises. The building also houses the
Palaeontology Institute of the USSR
Academy of Sciences. This view of the
exhibition hall demonstrates one of the
main principles of inner-space
or anization: a visitor can see large
exkbits from different levels.

211

existing museums and building further

ones (in reconverted or brand-new
premises) is to make more and more of
our magnificent but rarely exhibited collections accessible to the public at large.
Any architect will confirm that to work
on a museum project is today a most
desirable challenge since it offers every
opportunity to express ones own creative credo, and ones own interpretation
of problems.

image and artistic interpretation that

should be given priority. In the design of
the Revolution Museum in Vilnius, Latvia, the dynamics of historical development characterized by a kind of coming
together found original expression: the
construction is formed by eight different
adjacent volumes which seem to merge.
Architects working on plans for new
museums are also taking into account
climatic as well as national differences,
since conditions vary widely from one
region to another of our vast country. A
Portico-and-fieze:
good
example of this principle is the Fine
a fagade of the past
A r t s Museum at Nukus, Kara-Kalpak
Among the specific architectural features Autonomous Republic (Uzbekistan).
accepted for decades all over the world as, The climate there is sharply continental
indispensable for any museum building with wide variations and, particularly,
were: a faade with a portico topped by a great heat; the characteristic feature of
frieze of allegorical figures representing this construction is a star-like dome
the fine arts, and, inside, a grand formal covering the inner courtyard (see photo),
staircase leading to an enfilade of sym- surrounded by exhibition halls. The halls
metrically laid-out exhibition halls from are separated from this courtyard by
whose ceilings hung stylized glass light- blank walls, serving to preserve the exhiing fixtures. Such an approach to design bits from dangerous temperature shifts.
has become rare. The source of each new Special attention is also being paid today
project is now the urge to find original to construction of memorial museums.
architectural solutions. It is mainly on Heated debates are, for example, being
the initiative of the museums themselves held as to the type of the future memorthat the traditionally isolated museum ial that will commemorate the Second
world has started to open up to new, World War.
more lively tendencies.
Evolution of museum structuresis also
The starting point for any project is dictated by newly emerging museum
the profilethe personality-of the functions, and these functions of modem
museum. Thus, in a local museum the museums far surpass the traditional
design should be not only functional but storage and exhibition of cultural objects.
also symbolic of the region. In a mem- A museum can serve as a centre for holdorial museum, on the other hand, it is ing not only exhibitions but also meet-

Central exhibition hall of the

Ethnography Museum in Sardarabad
(Armenia), showing regional motifs.

I . Reference is made here only to buildings

especially constructed for the exhibition of
collections.

Vladimir Revidkin

212

nosoued aroumd hmer conkyards.

-2w
4
w

ings, debates, festivals, concerts and

other f ~ m of
s enteertakrnent. ]From the
architectural point of view, this calls for
the diversification of premises, including
of course the usual laboratoies and
workshops, libraries and offices for
research work, large lecture md cinema
halls, and, in addition, rooms where different kinds of societies can meet for
recreational and other activities, d of
which need much space.
In museum design we see the traditional division sf space being complemented by various new h d s of spatial
distribution. Tempora~yexhibitions are
mong those functions that ape becoming
m ~ r eand more hportmt in the life of
our museums, for example, and they
have specific requirements in terms of
space. We have, in this regard, the
example of the Exhibition Hd in
Vilnius, founded as a separate branch of
the Fine Arts Museum for the sole purpose of housing t e m p o r q exhibitions.
Storage is another basic museum hnction now being xc&tecturally reinterpreted. Little by little, crowded dark
basements are being repplaced by welllighted spaces with modern equipment,
open to researchers. He is significant that
the reconstruction of the Tredakov
Gdery started with the creation of new
storage areas. .indapIy, the experience of
the Lvov Art Gallery (UBSahe) and the

new approach to storage space.

SmaEEer m m e ~ m ~
braad7 mmeams aad
mmegm &o&d~om
In recent years, researchers CQnducted
various studies aimed at determining the
types of interests XIlOng different groups
Of IT1USmm YkkQrS.
lXUTled O u t that to
every museum corresponds a certain type
of visitor. This fact is now taken into
account when creating different types of
museums, or m a h g them more specialized. New museums are as a d e rather
s m d , since intimacy makes for better
layout and understanding of an exhibit.
In the city of Penza, &ere was even
created a One-Picture Museum.' mere
is thus a strong tendency to turn single
large museums into a several smallerscale institutions, and to open new
branches to cater to weu-dehed groups
of visi" Small museums xe tending to
band together in specialized museum
associations, of which more than thirty
now eit.
yfienprepxing constmction plans, architects haw traditionally worked on the
assumption that a museum is an autonQ~QUS
body with special but immutable
needs. n e COT& of &he a~ChXeblrdmd
decorative concept was, quite rightly,
formed by the type of ~ollection,the
status of the museum md its f o m s of
activities. However, plans never took
into account that, in ten 011 fifteen years'
timG the museum's collections, hnctions and staff w ~ u l dgrow md change,
which has resulted in real d i f f i ~ ~ l t k
Sooner or later, reconstruction of the
building becme unavoidable, but was
hanapered by the rigid scheme of the
original design, md by lack of land. EXtblIlately, this situation is now changing.
Take, for example, the collection of the
Kaunas Fine Arts Museum in Lithuania.
me first tag$ of ~~CQnStlnacdQn
produced a n e building
~
intended to exhibit
works by M. R. Ghurlieis, a Lithuanian
&st md composer. "hen the basic collection of the m u s e u grew, and there
appeared a need for additional space,
which led to the constmction near by of
a new picture gallery of CQI-CQ~~X configuration. h o n g the d w e h g houses
in the ancient part of the city has recently
risen yet mother new building for the
still-expandhg ~ ~ l l e c d o na, structure
that draws one's amendon through the
vivid character of its architecture.
CQ~StIXct~Qn
of an kdepelldent buading which can provide CQI-IX-IIQ~ storage
and workshop facities for several
museums is another possible sohion to

'

New trends in Soviet museum architecture

the problem of overcrowding faced by
each of them separately. Such a building
should be equipped with top-notch
restoration laboratories, and could serve
as a kind of museum bank. Our experts
have already worked out theoretical
concepts and projections for such
complexes.
Another of the most important issues
in museum architecture is lighting. To
create a properly lit environment in an art
gallery, for example, architects tend not
to rely exclusively on artificial lighting,
but also to use a variety of lightproviding architectural devices. The
Alma-Ata Art Gallery has, for example,
been built as a pyramid resting on a
snow-white parallelepiped. In Tashkent
(Uzbekistan), with the highest number
of sunny days per year in the USSR,
architects used another lighting device:
glazed walls. This solution may not seem
suitable for a hot climate, but modern
technology has enriched the architectural
arsenal and made it possible to overcome
many constraints. In the Tashkent
museum, specially treated glass with protective properties was used.

preparation to justifying their exhibition

intentions, while completely ignoring
other basic factors, such as the traffic of
visitors, building materials, etc. This
situation is slowly changing, as museology and architecture in the USSR
come into contact more and more often.
A sign of the times is the revival of
Only by working together.
open competitions challenging a variety
What exactly is the process of program- of talents-a common practice in the
ming? That is to say, what determines the 1920s. Owing to one such competition,
choice at each crossroads along the criti- the Kaluga Cosmonautics Museum
cal path of design and implementation? design was chosen,3 as were those of the
Before an architect starts actually draw- Revolution Museum hVilnius (Lithuaing up blueprints a programme should of nia) and a museum in a remote Caucasian
course be prepared for the future mu- mountain village, Mestia (Georgia).
seum, from which the design specifi- Unfortunately iome projects that won
cations are derived. This stage is quite open competitions (e.g. for the Laquer
important since it defines the functions of Miniature Museum at Palekh (central
the particular museum and its basic quan- RSFSR), the Car Museum at Togliatti on
titative characteristics (types and dimen- the Volga, and the Museum of Literature
sions of premises, number of exhibits in at Orel (central RSFSR) still remain to be
museum halls and reserves, even eco- built.
The best results are brought about, I
nomic parameters), and also its probable
future reconstruction possibilities, as feel, by the joint efforts of architects,
well as its incorporation into the fabric of artists and museum staff working on a
other cultural institutions.
long-term scientific programme for a
For decades museology and architec- museum. It is here that the most fruitful
ture developed side by side, but separ- discussions take place, and that germiately. Architects thought they could skip nates the real work which will last up to
information on the actual collections the opening of the museum, and beyond.
since, for them, an exhibition was just an Although the role of the architeci is of
abstract notion. It is evident, then, that great importance I, an architect myself,
architecture was always predominant am not inclined to overestimate it, and
over exhibition requirements, which believe that only by working together
resulted in the appearence of monu- can museum professionals, architects and
ments to this or that particular architect artists reach what is, after all, their
or, at the other extreme, insipid uniform common goal-designing modern mubuildings with no character at all. seums.
#
Museum professionals, on their side,
confined their participation in design
[Transkzted from Rzssidn]

213

Art gallery at Kaunas, Lithuania,

(architect, L. Gedgaudene). The complex
was designed to lend itself to possible later

extension.

..

A model of the regional ethnographic1

museum planned for Ufa, Bashkir
Autonomous Republic (architects,
G. Isakovich, V. Reviakin, A. Kostin and
N. Sulimova). Part of a historical and
cultural centre in the old town, the
building features elements of traditional
Bashkir culture.

See Museum, No. 152 (No. 4, 1986).

3 . See Museum, No. 163 (NO.3, 1989).

2.

The Israel Museum and a me&h-cenna$anry

Crusaders Monastery-friendly
neighbours.

At a time when the trend (01temptation)

is to build museums a5 monuments standding apart from and often towering
above their surroundings, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is a novel architectural
attempt at integration into the environment.
TVe did not want a solitary monument, XChitect d
! Pdd2UXfeld told LUY2dscape Architecture magazine about &e
museums prize-winning 1959 plan he
designed with Dora Gad, but rather a
series of relatively small units that could
grow into a village of inmconnected
SUbes. It WOU%$ hug the k
d hl the
way that the ancient vdages around Jemsalem merge with their surroundings.

The res& is a museum that has both a

resolutely modern flair and a literably low
profile wis-2-wis its architectural and
natural setting. Far from overwhelming
the nearby Crusaders Monastery, for
example, it complements that twelfthcentury complex like a friendly neighbour. It also seems to rise a h o s t orgaraisally from the dense groves of venerable
olive trees that S U ~ I - Q U I Iit,
~ and this was
not a product of happenstance.
Quite the contrary, recalls Zvi Miller
of the JMiUer-Blm fim3 which was
emtmstedwith preparing &e terrain. FCX
once, the budding architects and landscape architects worked hand in hand.
Past president of the International Fed-

eration of Landscape Architects, ;ZVi

A4iUer explained to Museum that in elrais
case, builders and landscapers were not,
as sometimes happens, braehers-andenemies. The decision to integrate the
KtUSeuKl With its f3IVkXlmentfOlT?Xd M
initial bond of co-operation that lasted
throughout the different phases of planning and construction-and, in fact,
continued aftemards since the museum
has continued to grow over the years as a
cumulative, open-ended design.

The museum Rising almost organican8y

from the venerable ofives gsves that
surround it*

Some controversiul cuses

-the exumple of Frunce
Dominique Pilato
Born in 1963; holds a Masters degree in the history
of art from the Sorbonne, Paris, with a dissertation
on The Construction and Interior Design of Art
and Archaeology Museums built in France since
1960, and a diploma from the Ecole du Louvre.
Her professional experience includes work on the
Grand Louvre site and with the Caisse Nationale
des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, the Muse
des Arts Dcoratifs, and the Camets du Design.

The Andr Malraux Museum of Fine Arts,

Le Havre. Exterior of the museum facing
the harbour.

The construction and interior design of

museums has been a subject of inquiry
for many years, especially in the Federal
Republic of Germany and the United
States. In France, however, museum
architecture only began to arouse interest
with the policy of major museum
construction works whose latest developments we have recently witnessed.
With the Muse dOrsay, the Cit des
Sciences et de lIndustrie de la Villette,
the Institut du Monde Arabe and the
Grand Louvre, museum architecture has
become a fashionable subject and has
received abundant media coverage.
However, all this excitement about
museum architecture does not seem to

have affected the museums outside Paris

which existed long before the Georges
Pompidou Centre; if nothing else, this
goes to show the general publics lack of
interest in them. Yet a considerable
amount of research and experimental
work has been going on in the French
provinces for many years, and the most
prestigious achievements are in fact the
fruit of this research. It is perhaps stating
the obvious to note the difficulty that
some of these museums have in making
themselves known and finding their own
identity. The fact is that, despite prestigious alterations, some French museums are experiencing serious problems
in functioning adequately.

The hserior of &e h & 6 Makaaax

Museum Of Fine Arts, showing the
permanent e f i b i ~ o area
n and &e
m e z a a h e floor.

Counting the overseas departments

and territories, France has nearly
1,400 m u s e u ~ ~ some
~ s , forty of which
have been built from scratch since the
Second World War, or are still under
CQn.~IXICtion.''Che prOpX&Dn of new
museums in the total number is
consequently very small. Only since the
1950s has there been a move to design
buildings specifically adapted to the
function of presenting and preserving
~ollectionsand receiving visitors.
The f~Jowingobservations are drawn
from the findings of a survey conducted
m o n g professionals directly involved in
the construction of new museums, such
as architects, curators and planners. "lis
research has made it possible to take
stock of developments and trends in
museum architecture in France and to
highlight some othe I-nistAes or shQrtconaings of the past &rqr years. While
&ese may be acceptable and mderstandable where old buildings are concerned,
they seem in many cases inexplicable
when it comes to projects initiated from
scratch. The shortco&gs pointed out
by &e curators and museum specialists
questioned on the subject are not cited
here with a view to stirring up conflict,
but in an attempt to learn from the experience of projects carried out between
1960 and the b e ~ n l l h gof the I$bs
whose architecture continues to arouse
COntroVePSy.

me fomer Fine Arts Museum in Le

Havre was destroyed in 1944. The new
building, designed by the xc&tect Guy
Lapeau in 1958, was inaugurated in
1961and is one of the first exmples of a
variety of cdmral lacilities coexisting
under one roof. The basically multipurgose character of the museum was decisive in piding the architectural design.
M&mum flelribaq was required, with
see-th~ugh areas which i n t e r l ~ ~ k
Wdlhcaut being entirely Self-cQntdned.
The building covers a total usable sudace
Of 4,840 lm2, Of W h k h three-fifths X e
multipurpose !3&b%On Xes. 'Flac
museum function has therefore been predominant from the beginning. From this
stemmed the second piding principle of
the project: flelribility in the treatment of
natural overhead and lateral lighting.
This detemined the choice of a glass md
aluminium structure. '%hefrme is in sectional steel, with wind-braces and glass
panelhg on the maira faGades. The archtests' idea was to obtain flexible .lighting
by means of the c e h g stmcme,
comp~sedof a combination of transparent and opaque bh6k S6p2XeS. n e
squares were to be interchangeable, black
One abQW the public and tranpXent
ones above the exhibits, depending on
the layout of the exhibitions. In practice,
this interchange never proved feasible,
because of the substantid work involved.
%e whole museum has an abundant
supply of superb natural lighting-

Some controversial cases-the example of France

whose praises were sung by the Norman
landscape painters of the nineteenth century-but this lighting has little or no
modulation, despite the installation of a
paralum on the roof of the museum.
The abundance of lateral lighting means
that some of the exhibits have to be
viewed against the light. Finally, theglass
walls are by no means inexpensive to
maintain. The Andr Malraux Museum
of Fine Arts in Le Havre was the first in
a long line of buildings which, having
done away with walls, have been disparagingly called supermarket showcases.
At the time, its architectural design was
totally at odds with the approach advocated by the Directorate of French
Museums, which was more in favour of
an enclosed space, a protective capsule of
a building. The project was, however,
acclaimed by the major architectural
journals and in 1962 received the Reynolds Prize awarded by the American
Institute of Architects, its fame having
spread far beyond the frontiers of
France.
Paradoxically for a museum, glass
walls mean less exhibition space; the Le
Havre Museum is a museum without
picture rails. To remedy this shortcoming, the paintings on the ground
floor were hung on cables suspended
from the ceiling. Their transparent texture and uncertain stability led the curators to replace them by mobile wooden
partitions which could be fixed to the
floor, of a kind widely used in the 1960s.
The exhibition hall is composed of a
large open space measuring 56 x 32 x
7 metres, divided by two fixed mezzanine galleries (on the north and east sides)
and a few steel columns supporting the
structural framework. The whole area
has been designed from a threedimensional standpoint, that is, not as an
exhibition area but in terms of volume. In
its time, it was the first example of an
undifferentiated exhibition area in which
the itinerary is freely chosen and not
predetermined; its affinity with the
National Museum of Modern Art (Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris), in the
period before 1984/85, is obvious. Today
there seem to be second thoughts about
this approach to space as an undefined
area that leaves the curator free to arrange
collections and organize their presentation.
For this museum, and most of the
buildings discussed here, the architects
had in mind possible changes in the interior layout, but made no provision for
extensions: when space runs short, the

217

museum is doomed to asphyxiation or

arrested development.
Situated as it is on the sea front, at the
edge of the town, the museum has strong
poetic appeal. Against the west faade a
monumental sculpture by Georges Henri
Adam represents a stylized weavers
shuttle, a symbol of the transatlantic
liners plying between France and the
United States. Set in such surroundings,
the museum is inevitably caught up in a
flow of seafaring activities, the site and
the architectureeach setting off the other.
But while it is splendidly situated, it is far
from the city centre, in a residential
neighbourhood devoid of activity. The
artists essentially aesthetic vision has
created a museum which is unable to
attract the local population.
To sum up, the museum is architecturally superb, with its light and space,
but has never been functionally convincing to its users.

The treatment of space:

a fiequent dilemma
A new building project, ideal though it
may be for a prospective study of the
interactions between the functions and
operation of the facilities it is meant to
provide, does not always succeed in
solving the problems of treatment of
space. The Museum of Archaeology in
Nantes and the Departmental Archaeological Museum at Guiry-en-Vexin provide two examples of opera&nal paralysis due to unsuitablepemises.
The former was inaugurated in 1975,
with little publicity apart from protests
by a Nantes painter against the addition
of a contemporary building to a museum
complex comprising both the Thomas
Dobre Museum dating from the nineteenth century and the sixteenth-century
Jean V Manor. An underground gallery
links all three buildings. Only a few years
after its inauguration, the museum
proved to be unusable and had to be
closed to the public. A series of errors
created the situation leading to this decision:
The museum is unrecognizable as such
from the outside. The building has no
specific image or identity in the city.
The museum was designed with four
ground-floor entrances. As there are
not enough staff to man the four
entrances, only one is open. At the
same time, no provision has been made
for accessby 6andicapped persons.
I . Germaine Barnaud, Ripertoire des muses et
are spread Over Iwo rollectionspubliques
de France, Paris, Editions de
floors. As visitors are prohibited from la Runion des Muses Nationaux, 1982.

Dominique Pilato

218

using the lift, they have to use the one

and only staircase, which makes circulation inconvenient.
There are no directions 01 signposting
inside the museum.
There is no system for controlling the
light streaming in from huge windows.
Throughout the museum, particularly
on the ground floor, the lower halves
of the windows have been blacked out
by wooden pme1s-s~ as to increase
the &splay s u d a c e a n d the upper
halves are hung with venetian blinds to
control the light. These arrangements
conflict with the original architectural
design.
There are problems of weatherproofing
and insulation: the temperature is too
low and there is no hygrometric
cont1-01. his has meant that the
pre-Columbim collections originally
intended for the museum have not
been put on display.
Certain areas were see: aside for outside
terraces, but no dowance was made
for a carpentry workshop and a
cultural-activities room. Farts of the
exhibition area on the first floor have
been closed to the general public for
use as a workshop and a childrens
area.
Last but not least, the museum suffers
from the fact that its working facilities
are scattered over various levels of the
three buildings, with the library,
secretariat and curators office on the
&rd floor, the deputy curators office
on the second floor, a second deputy
curators office on the first floor, and
the meetiing-KlQm Qn the IIleZZanhe
floor. As can be imagined, the $isperS d Of these plX3Tlke th0UghOut the
museum makes co-ordination very
difficult; it would have been more
rational to group these complementary
activities together.
Would not thorough programming have
made it possible to avoid this unsatisfactory distribution of space?
\York O n the ~U~-2n-~C!Xkl
MUseum began in 1982, but its curator was
not appointed mtil the end of 1981, in
other ~ ~ r d when
s,
the architectural
design had been approved. The plans
were drawn up by non-professionals,
and equipment needs do not seem to have
been adequately defined. In fact, the
museum is organized along the h e s of a
nineteenth-century museum. N o provision was made for either a projection
room or a restoration workshop. The
latter occupies the space originally itatended for the reserves of the temporary

exhibition room. The c q y workshop has been set up in a corridor, as have

activities for schoolcaildren. All these
arrangements are hidden from public
view by various expedients, but they
detract from the harmony of the building
and the pleasure of the visit. The reserves
are too s m d , which means that the collection ol stone objects is stored in the
c~urtyard.The temporany exhibition
ro-oom has a surface area of only 5 5 m,
and the display units are kit modules.
There is only IQ m of office space for
four people, which accounts for scarcely
more than I per cent of the total floor
space, only 2 per cent of which is set aside
for information and education activities
and 48 per cent for display. E s means
that the museum c m o t really Ml its
educational function. Moreover, the
exhibitionrooms themselves are not large
enough. For security reasons, the curator
is prevented from installing reconstitutions or casts. The need for additional
working areas is patent. FOUIyears &er
the museum was ~ p a e d an
, extension
was already being considered.
Now that museums have become
cdtural centres, the quality of the t e c cal equipment and facilities is at, least
as hportant as that of the exhibition
areas. Yet the importance of additional
working areas is not always taken
into account when the objectives are detemined. The presence of a museum
specialist, who alone can specify CODservation needs, is essential at elkis stage.

A miweam iB a
At the end of the 1990s~the municipality
of Mwsedes decided to build &e Centre
Bourse (shopping centre, offices and a
residential budding covering 40,000 m)
between &he maikm CaIlbnebkke th%aorQUghfare and the Old noa.
In 1967, xchaeobgical discoveries
brought construction work to a halt.
Excavations continued for ten years, culminating in the listing of an area of nearly
a hectare as a protected site. It was here
that the remains of a Roman vessel dating
from the third century A.D. were discovered. In 1979, the Centre Bourse
was inaugurated. On the ground floor of
the shopping centre an area set aside for
an Ulldefined C U l t u r d pUpXX!, pQibly
a cultural centre, was f i n d y docated
for the construction of a museum, the
Museum of History of Marseilles. The
museum had to be fitted into an already
built-up area. The first section, of

Some controversial cases-the example of France

4,000 m, is devoted to the origins of the

city in ancient times; a second section is
planned for the medieval and contemporary periods. Meanwhile, the excavation
site has been laid out to receive visitors.
The museum, with its broad expanses of
glass, opens out onto the archaeological
garden, thus emphasizing its character as
a site museum.
The museum is unique-and is the
only example of its kind in France-in
being incorporated into a shopping
centre. One of the shops on the mall was
purchased and so arranged as to provide
direct access to temporary exhibitions.
The idea was to attract shoppers to the
museum. One of the driving forcs behind
the project was the firm determination to
get away from the museum as a consecrated institution. The educational function is reflected in the distribution of the
floor space: 29 per cent of the total surface area is set aside for exhibition purposes and 23 per cent for cultural and
educational activities.
Despite these good intentions, the
functioning of the museum is hindered
by the fact that it has been difficult to fit
it into a space which was not designed to
house a facility of this kind. The display
area is composed of disparate interlocking compartments without any real
unity. They were difficult to arrange, and
this has led to a waste of space. As in
Nantes, there is inadequate interaction
between some of the museums func-

219

tions. The reserves are too small, and to

reach them it is necessary to go through
part of the museum, the entrance hall and
the library. Although it would be a vital
facility, there is no real restoration workshop. By contrast, the entrance hall is too
large-over 300 m. As there is no system for controlling access to the museum
(for which an entrance fee is charged) via
the temporary exhibition room (to which
admission is free), the gallery linking
these two areas has been closed off. The
layout of internal space is still a problem
peculiar to certain new buildings.

In Orleans, the new museum

goes unnoticed
The Museum of Fine Arts in Orleans was
built as part of the project for the rehabilitation of the centrally located Place
Sainte-Croix. The plan was to flank the
cathedral, on the southern side, by the
regional council building and the prefecture annexes and, on the northern side,
by the museum adjacent to an annex of
the municipal offices. The cathedral is
thus surrounded by a complex of admistrative buildings, deserted after
5 oclock in the afternoon-a no-mansland resulting from the demolition of
several old buildings, including a block of
houses some of which were listed as protected buildings. The construction of the
new museum was subordinated to a vast
urban development project. Its external

of ~
~
The Museum of astory
View of the site showhg the archaeological garden and the Centre Bourse.

The Museum of %e Arts, OrlemS.

EXt&&X S h Q W h g &e

l
+
d
l
Z
%
%a$I&.
h

architecture was designed without any

genuine regard for the need to adapt an
instimion of this h d to its urban function.
A competition organized by &e municipality was won by Chistian Langlois, chief architect of the Senate House
inParis. His project p ~ ~ i d for
e da single
fasade design for d the buddings around
the square, including &e m u s e u , in
order to stress the unity of composition.
TO avoid offendin consemative local
taste, Christian Langlois opted for
c~do1~14ty
to &e maim features of classical achtecmrre. His reconstitution,
prompted by a concern for overall har~ Q I I ~is, f a . i M down t~ the last d e d :
a freeS&3PwefX$de, a g d e v T d l X6ldes
at street level, rectangular windows,
swicdy@lar
lines, corner pav&ons
Zllld Shte KIQfing. f i e r e is lnO&hg to
&S&@lish the KlUS6YJm frQm the other
budclings, md indeed it gasses unnoticed
nw. the Place Saante-Groix.
The interh- layout of this new b d d ing raises the same problems as d rehabilitated monuments. Museography
has had to submit to the constraints of a
given space, and not the reverse. The
interior design was entnusted to the architects Pierre some1 and Jean BuUeu1.
Inaugurated in May 1984, &e new
Orleans museum is one of the most
important museums outside Paris-a
bdt-up sudace area of 8,000 mz3superb

collections f r ~ m
&e Wddle Ages to the
present days displayed on five of the
seven levels of &e building, a h1l rmge of
ancdary fac&~es(resemes, a lecmre Bad,
a documenta~oncentre, a Lbrary, etc.), a
well-defined itinerary, starting from the
top on the s e ~ ~ floor,
n d accessible by a
lift, and proceeding down to &e lower
levels, with efficient signgosting inside
the museum.
The arcktects self-imposed design of
the fasades has, h~wever,heedered with
&e intemd organization. There is no
need for a pllethora of widows in a
museum in which pantings by Old Masters predominate. As &e s p m e t r y of
the rows of
governs the 10cation of the f l ~ ~ rthe
s , architects had
to p r o d e fQH.&e bSelTbKl Of Spk-kVek
to offset the strictly determined height
of the intervening areas md so g i n additional Boorspace. Christian Langlois
wanted no alteration in the design of the
~KU-~-ROQParcades to install a I ~ ~ d i ~ g bay; QbjeCts have thus t0 be UdOXkd
~~t-of-doors,
with the inevitable security
problems involved. Fmally, there we no
relaxation areas (cafeteria, bar) in the
III1IS&UPz1, though &S
WQdd haVC? beell
an asset for a project ~f this size and
~ ~ haved provided
d
a BQCUS ~f conyiyi&ty in a square where it is sadly laskimg.

~aows

n e s e few exaples highlight the sometimes difficult rdations bemeen architects and cwatorse n e aivabay sterns
from mistakes made after the Second
World Wa, wkch were p d y due to a
lack of my precise replations concerning museums. To that may be added each
sides i@K9rmCeOf &e Q&&rS p~OfeSSion.
The subject itself is a seed-bed of conflict
bemeen sden6sts compIyy1Lg with precise d e s for conssemation and at times
reluctant to accept new ideas, and architects prompted by equdy l e g h a t e
aesthetic concerns. A & ~ ~ g h &prol
spective consideration of &e issues inV Q ~ V V &conducted
~,
jdintly by both parties, w ~ u l d
have been the o d y way of reducing misunderstandings m
a
s
a
d bdding
Up the CQnfidelaceneeded for th2 Success
of the projects undertaken.
H

Franslated from F~ench]

Museum architecture
in Latin America:
what future?
An interview with Jorge Gazaneo

o\

J.G.: Well, in the United Kingdom and

the United States there have already been
cases of brand-new office blocks turning
out to be utterly dysfunctional after as
little as five years because the architects
were not aware (or made aware) of the
rapid evolution of internal communications technologies. The result was
that floor and ceiling ducts were soon so
clogged with wiring that rebuilding
became necessary. The very same fate
could befall museums.
Museum: How can one go about
ensuring interdisciplinary co-operation
between specialists who are not used to
working together?
J.G.: For those already embarked on
their careers, its not at all easy, although
use of programming techniques can proMuseum: What are some of the mGn vide a good framework. But I think the
trends in museum architecture in Latin main place to begin is during the training
America that you would like to see
strengthened?
Jorge Gazaneo: Like most of the world,
we are trying to go beyond the mammoth temple museum, so typical of the
classical concept of the institution-and
so unsuited to the present needs of
museums and the technologies now able
to serve them. I am convinced that we
must move beyond the museum designed
and built to the greater glory of .. . the
architect who designed and built it.
Museum: How can that happen?
J.G.: For one thing, team-work should
come to be the norm, not the exception.
Specialization-of the architect, the
structural engineer, the museologist, the
museum educator, the security expert,
and so on-is all well and good. But if the
specialists dont work together from the
very outset, we are courting disaster.
Drawing by Julien
Museum: What kind of disaster?
Jorge Gazaneo, Argentina, is an architect
and the Director of-and professor of
post-graduate design at-the Centre for
Conservation of Urban and Rural Heritage at the University of Buenos Aires,
Director of the Centre for Advanced
Studies in Conservation at the University
of Belgrano, Treasurer of ICOMOS,
three-term Vice-president of ICOMOS
for Latin America, and past President of
the World Heritage Committee. He also
has more than a decade of close cooperation with museums to his credit. He
seemed, then, a logical museum ally to
ask about the future of museum architecture in his part of the world.
44j

222

An interview with Jorge Gazaneo

of people like architects, museum pro- ing is wedge-shaped to suit the flat-iron
fessionals and so on. I see a real crisis in plot of land on which he had to work; its J.G,: Well certainly not the architects!
faculties of architecture, to take but one height is in tune with the earlier gallery And, to be frank, I not sure Id
example. Architects training doesnt b u i l h g next door and with the neigh- leave such a crucial task to museum protake account of the fact that our world is bourhood, of which Pei did a very cae- fessionals either, at least not alone.
moving beyond the culture of the ma- ful survey, by the way; and its form,
c h e and into the post-industria! era, while contemporary, in no way contra- J.@. [brzghteningj: Well, perhaps it
where the coming together of architec- dicts the classical style of the city as a should be done by those with a finger on
ture and other specializations is abso- whole.
the pulse of public concerns and tastes, I[
lutely essential. It is simply no longer Museum: You have been critical (and mean by communicators, by people like
possible for an architect to cope alone, self-critical) of architects and their train- YOU.
particularly when the structure to be ing. What about museum professionals Museum: I thought you said you wanted
built is as c~mplexand varied as a mu- role in museum architecture?
to aVQid-llQt coulrt--$iater!
seum.
J.G.: &, 1thought you might be going
to ask me that! WeU, of course, one cant
expect museohgists and museographers
Context apd scaE+hand
to
Understand all th!? in and O u t and
andglove
what may seem to be foibles of us archiMuseum: What other developments tects. w h a t can be reasonably asked of
WOdd YOU !&e to encourage?
them, however, is that they formulate
J. G.: Context and scale need to be taken and explain fyom the outset a very dear
much more fully into account when idea of what they want their museums to
museums are designed. Latin America is do and how they want them to do it. We
not only a coUlection of huge urban need clients who h o w what theyre
centres; but there are also vast tracts of a s h g for. We need a hand that is not
space that are sparsely populated-think
going t~ change shape and function every
of Patagonia and the north-eastern part five minutes as we struggle to design md
of Brazil-with distances SO great as to make a glove for it.
defy the imagination of most Europeans. Museum: A few years ago, you took pape
Hn these under-populated but seemingly in an Argentine scientific expedition that
endless reaches of land, museums can spent four long months ira Antarctica. If
play a vital role in preserving and pro- you had to do that again, what museum
moting a sense of histQry, identity and would QU want to take along with you?
dignity--aaad, more prosaically, in main- J.G.: None, none at d;
at least none that
taining the fabric of everyday life and 1know.
comunicdon.
Museum:
?
h o t h e r point about context concerns 1.G.: Because you cant transplant a
local building materials. To take a hypo- museum; youve got, as Ive already said,
thetical example, how would we react if it to look at the context first. In the event,
were propposed to build a glass-and- there are rock and permanent ice, and
aluminium museum in one of k g e n - temperatures varying from minus ten to
tinas northe~~~most
cities, Jujuy?
minus fifty degrees, not counting the
The aluminium, glass, air-condition- wind-chill factor. %ere is also the fact
ing equipment, and so on, would prob- that the m ~ u m
working period
ably have to be brought in from overseas, during which the museum ccpuld be
perhaps Europe 01 North h e r i c a . 1s c
is only three to four mod^
that really mcessary?
a
her point is &at the means of
attractive and t h e - t e s t e
transport-even the giant Hercules airwhich much of Jujuy is built? They craft-would severely limit the maxiwould be stmcturally sound, ecologi- mum volume and weight of each stmctucally appropriate and a good deal ral element that cod$ not be built in sitg
cheaper, and, if the architect were and would have to be brought in.
creative enough, could produce a very Museum: Our Antarctic museum is
beautiful museum indeed.
beginning to sound like a f o k d a b l e
ith no facetiousness intendodd you like to be its architect?
YOU! f i e le SO since
ed: would you also advise adobe bricks J.G.: NO
for a museum in, say, Buenos Aires?
-and I probably should have said t h i s
. [h~gbs]:WeLI, certainly not for earlier-long before you consider the
ashington D.C.! There, H. M. Peis conditions in which, and the materials of
new east wing of the National Gallery is which, a museum is to be built, its messa wondefil example of how the architect age must be defined. Even if its visitors
can take context and scale into account are to be mainly penguins, its message I . See article on page z33-Ed.
and use modern materials. Feis build- has got to be defined.
2. See cover-Ed.

INDIA:
FROM A P H I L O S O P H Y OF AGES,

A R C H I T E C T U R E FOR T O D A Y

Charles Correa
Born in 1930;studied architectureat the University
of Michigan and the Massachussetts Institute of
Technology; has been in private practice in Bombay since 1958.His work may be seen in various
parts of India. In 1974,Time magazine nominated
him as one of 150persons around the world in its
cover story on new leadership. He was awarded the
Padma Shri by the President of India; in 1979 he
was made an Honorary Fellow of the American
Institute of Architects; in 1980he was awarded an
Honorary Doctorate by the University of Michigan; in 1984the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold medal by the Prince of Wales; and in
1987the Indian Institute of Architects Gold Medal.

.;
.a

AU illustrations by courtesy of
!$
I*

theauthor

People living in warm climates develop

very specific relationships to their environment. During the day we need but
minimal protection, such as a chhatri (an
overhead canopy); in the early morning
and at night, the best place to be is outdoors, under the open sky. When we
walk on a beach in the evening, or cross a
desert and enter a house around a courtyard, it is the quality of light and the
ambience of moving air that form the
essence of our experience. At these
moments, responses are triggered in our
minds, responses conditioned by thousands of generations of life on this planet.
Perhaps they are primordial memories of
a sacred landscape, of a lost paradise. In
any event, they condition very powerfully our perceptions of the environment.
Thus while the little red schoolhouse is
the educational symbol of North America, in India-as in most of Asia-it has
always been the guru sitting under a tree.
Not only does this image of the Lord
Buddha and the peepul tree seem more
sensible to us than sitting inside a stuffy
box; it also appears far more conducive to
enlightenment.
Religious ceremonies in Asia have
always emphasized these open-to-thesky spaces, and the quasi-mystical sensations they generate within us. Hence,
while the cathedrals of Europe (like the
little red schoolhouse) are all variations of

the closed-box model, the great Islamic

mosques in Delhi and Lahore are at the
other end of the spectrum: they consist
mainly of large areas of open space surrounded by just enough built forms to
make one feel inside a piece of architecture. So, too, the great Hindu temples of
southern India are experienced not just as
gopurams and shrines, but as a ritualistic
movement through the sacred open-tothe-sky spaces that lie between them.
This movement, called the padakshina,
is a pilgrimage around the inner sanctum.
In the example of the Buddhist stupas,
this pradakshina takes the form of a
circular pathway around the central
stupa-which is a dome structure of solid
earth; in the centre of which is buried a
wooden column representing the axis
mundi.
This ying-yang relationship (open-tothe-sky space surrounded by solid builtforms, and vice versa) generates figure/
ground patterns in which the open spaces
can act as areas of visual rest between the
enclosed volumes-a principle of enormous potential for museums. For not
only does this pattern create the opportunity to provide a combination of concentration and relaxation, it also opens
up the possibility of offering the visitor
alternate paths through the various sections of the museum. As we are all aware,
many visitors to large museums are

Charles Cowea

224

....

__

c.-.-Y"

,..._

. . . . . . . . . .

.. _ . . _ l _ . _ _ . "

. . . . . . . . . .

- . -. . .

. . .

- .

I.

.I-y._

interested in d y a portion of the material; yet they have to drag their weary
feet though endless corridors to reach
the particular collection in which they are
interested. In fact, since a major cultural
centre like the Louvre, in Paris, actually
consists of several large-size museums
strung along in a TOW, .like pearls in a
necklace, why could not these units be
organized in a m m e r which ~ O W S
independent access to each one? Futhermore? 3 the open-to-the-sky space is
conceived as a pedestrian spine2then the
spectrum of ~ h ~ i cavailable
es
to the visitor can be ma.xfized-and experienced
with delight!
These various ideas have gradually
~oalescedin my mind over the years into
a particular typology of museum architectllre, one which seems to have
considerable advantages in the Indian
context. It is Uustrated here by four
projects. The first, a Memorial to Ma-

hama Gandhi at k e Sabamati Ashram

at h e d a b a d where he .lived, was designed thirty years ago and was seminal
to my conceptu&zation of this process.
The second, Wharat Bhavan (a museum
for the visual and perlomakg arts in
Bhopal), carries the theme further. In
the third, the Crafts Museum in Delhi,
the pedestrian path has become literally
a metaphor for the In&an street as it
moves from village to temple to palace.
The fourth, the Jawahar Rala Kendra in
Jaipurl reassembles &ese ideas within the
parameters of the ancient Vedic concept
of architecture as a model of the C O S ~ O S .

This memorial museum is erected in the

Ashram where Mahatma Gandhi resided
from 1917to 1930 and from w&ch he
started on his historic march to Dandi.

Gandhi Memorial Museum: open modular

units around the watercourt.

Mahatma Gandhi's last possessions.

\
1
4

\
\'

$/

Built by the Sabarmati Ashram Trust in tion of modern industrialized prgducts),

homage to the memory of the Mahatma, light and ventilation being provided by
and to propagate his ideas, the Sangraha- operable wooden louvres.
layawas inauguratedb 1963 by JawaharThese elements combine to form basic
lal Nehru. In it is housed a priceless modular units 6 x 6 m, in a typology
treasure troye of letters, photographs, analogous to the villages so central to
and qther documents which trace the Gandhi's thinking. They are grouped in a
freedom movement launched by Gandhi, casual meandering pattern, creating a
including hundreds of volumes edited by pathway along which the visitor prohis secretary, Mahadey Desai, as well as gresses towards the centrally situated
the 30,000 letters written by Gandhi or water court (refreshing in the dry heat
addressed to him, some original, others of Ahmedabad). Some of the units are
on microfilm.
enclosed by walls; the various displayThe materials used in the construction cum-study places so created being
are similar to those in the other buildings counterpointed by areas of visual rest
in the Ashram: tiled roofs, brick walls, where the visitqr can qeditate. This constonefloors and wooden dqors. The only figuration generates a wide spectrum
addition is the concrete channel that acts of conditions, varying all the way from
-bQx to gpen-to-the-sky, the
as beam and rainfall conduit, and which
permits expansion for additional
fications from one zqpe to another
rum being signalled by
construction to be added in future, No
glass windows are used anywhere in &e
building (in deference t9 Gandhi's rejec- in bght and air movement.

Charles Correrc

226

Bharat Bhavan: the sosrtyard.

Because &e c o k " wd, by its very

nature, be added to KI time &e Sangrahalaya is a living structure which can grow
and modulate. Recently, more units were
added, extending the pattern. 'This process will continue as more photographs9
letters and other documents are collected, each generation of young Indims
making its contribution and paying its
homage to the Mahatma.

Progressing caaal&

(k)n-$iT)

The site for this arts centre is on a gently

sloping plateau overlooking the I&e at
Bhopal. The natural contours of &e site
haye been used to create a series of terraced gardens and sunken couqxdsoff which are located a n u b e r of cultural facilities. These cover a wide spectrum and include a museum of tribal art,
a library of In&m poetry (;1all the
seventeen major languages), gableries for
contemporary art, ~ ~ r k s h for
~ plith.~
ography and sculpture and a studio for an
artist-in-residence. In addition, Bhaat
Bhavan houses a fdly fledged theatrical

India: fmm aphilosophy of ages, architecture for today

Crafts Museum: exterior of a

haveli from Gujerat.
repertoire company and extensive facilities for the performing arts, including
the antarang (indoor auditorium) and the
bbairang (open-air amphitheatre) overlooking the lake.
As one progresses through the terraced
gardens and courtyards, one comes
across these various facilities in a casual
manner, making them easily accessible to
the citizens of Bhopal. Illumination and
ventilation within the building are provided by overhead lights from the concrete shells and from slots along the
terrace parapets. In addition, the openings onto the courtyards and terraces
have two sets of shutters: the inner ones
consist of a combination of glass and
hinged panels for ventilation; the outer
ones consist of large wooden doors,
closed at night for security.

As varied as India (1975)

The great temples of the past (at BA,
Borobudur, Srirangam, etc.) were structured around sacred open-to-the-sky
ceremonial pathways, a concept, as

227

Charles Conea

228

mt~~tioned
earlier, of crucial relevance
to architecture in warm clim~~tes.
'This
Crafts Museum, casual tmd accepting of
the artisan's vernacular, is organized
around such a central pradakshina. As
one travels down this veritable spin%one
catches glimpses of the principal exhibits
displayed on either side, e.g. the Village
Court,the Temple Court and the Darbar
Goun. One can visit any particular
exhibit 01, alternatiyely, progress
through abl the various sections in a
~ ~ n t i n u o sequence.
us
At the end of the sequence, one exits
via the roof garden, which foms an
amphitheatre for folk dances, as well as
an open-air display area for large terraa m a horses and other haradicrdts. n e
images of these scdeless non-buddings
echo the old bathing ghats, such as those
at Vamasi, or at the incomparable
Sxkhej in Ahmedabad.
The initial stage of the Crafts Museum
was completed in 1977. The final stage is
CUrlWltly Under cQntructiQn. In it,
ancient buildings of extraordinary merit
(for instance, an old wooden hazreli from
Gujarat and a stone temple from Tamil
Nadu) are being incorporated into the
new construction to make the architecture a collage as varied and pluralistic as
India herself.

This museum-cum-cultural centre for the

city of J&pur, dedicated to the memory
of India's great leader Jawaharaal Nehru,
is based on the ancient Vedic concept of
architecture as a K C K ~ of
~ the CQSIIIQS.
These mythic beliefs, vhich go back
~hhoUFi.IldOf Year, perceive the fQOrm.5
and events which constitute the visible
world as being significant only to the
errtent that they help us understand the
non-manifest layers that lie beneath.
Magic diagrams, called ya~ztras' explain
the tme nature of the ul-biverse. Of these,
the vasttt-purush-mandahs f ~ mh e
basis of architecture. Thus buildings are
conceived as models of the C O S ~ O S - ~ Q
less I
Each vastu-purush-mandah is a perfect square, subdivided into identical
squares, creating a series which stms
from I and goes on Eo 4, 9, 16, 2 5 . . .
right up to 1,024..In temple architecture,
the most commonly used mandalas are
those of 64 and 81 squares, with the
various deities allocated places in accordance with their importance and with the
mystical qualities inherent in the diagram. The mandala is not a plan; it
represents an energy field. Its centre
signifies both shttnya (the absolute void)
as well as bindtt (the world seed and the
source of d energy). In
this centre is located

%lpreme Principle. AccWding to %-Hillduism, when the cycles of reincarnation

are finally over, arad the atma (individud
soul) is released from each one of us, it
rdmana, that is, EO the centre
of this energy field.
The analogy to the black holes of
GontempQraPyphysics is t d y astounding. Energy devours itself, and the individual soul (after completing d the
cycles of reincarnation) goes not to an
eternal reward in Heaven or in the Gapden of Paradise, but down the voltex at
the centre of the black hole. How incredible h a t such a concept should have
UrfXed SO many thousands of year ago.
As Bachelard has pointed out, the
intuitive insight of the artist (or for that
matter the seer) cannot be explained
through the cause-and-effect stmcture of
scientific reasoning, but, &e a depthcharge, explodes in the centre of our
being, releasing to the surface the debris
of our unconscious.
Jaipur is a city built in the seventeenth
century by the astronomer h g , Mhhapaj
Jai Shgh. The master plan is based on the
Navgrraha, a vast~~-pur~~s~-mandala
of
nine squares. In this unique city, Jai
in& embarked on a tnily extraordinary
adventure. He sought to combine his
passion for two of the most p ~ ~ e & l
myths he h e w : on the one hand, ancient
and sacred yantric beliefs; on the other,
the latest tenets of contemporary science.

Indid: fiom a philosophy of ages, architectwefol. today

27-9

Jawahar Kala Kendra: a mdel showing

the nine squares.
Hence his choice of the nine-square mandala, corresponding to the navagraha of
the nine planets. The void in the central
square he used for the palace garden, and
because of the presence of a hill, a corner
square was moved diagonally across.
The plan of the Jawahar Kala Kendra
invokes directly the original nmgraha
mandda. One of the squares is pivoted
to recall the shift in the original city plan
(and also to create three entrances). The
functions of the museum are disaggregated into nine separate groupings, each
one corresponding to the mythic qualities of that particular planet. For
instance, the library is located in the
square of the planet Mercuiy which tra-

I-

ditionally represents knowledge; the

theatres are in the house of Venus, representing the arts; the central square, as
specified in the ancient Vedic Shastras, is
a void, representing the nothing which is
everything. The external walls of each
square are sheathed in red sandstone, in
which is inlaid a white marble symbol of
the corresponding planet.
Each one of these nine squares is
30 x 30 metres, defined by a masonry
wall eight metres high. It is totally
autonomous, connected to its neighbours only by doorways aligned centrally
along the main north-south and east-west
axes. This allows each of the squares to
have its own archetectonic expression,

true to its symbolicmeaning and its function. Organizing consti-ucticjtl on these

principles allows consklerable flexibzty,
since the contents of each square ir the
mandala can be designed-and
constructed-at
different points in time,
which is a distinct advantage in the
stop-go context of the Indian economy,
The corstruction is of masonry walls
with columns and slabs. Expansion joints
run between the various squares, which
allowed construction of the project to be
undertaken simultaneously by thtee
separate contractors, each workhg independently of the othersi
U

Ground-plan of the Nat-Mandir in Konarak (left),

corresponding to the divisions of the Yantra of the Nine
Planets, or Navagraha (right). The symbols of the yantra
are: square = Venus: bow = Merctity; snake = Ketu;
triangle = Mars; lotus = the Sun, at the centre;
sword = Rahu; crescent = the Moon; circle = Jupiter;
man = Saturn. After the Mahdala Sarvasva.

The plan of Jaipur city based on the nine square Yantra

in which on square is displaced and two central squares
coin bined.

Mounir Bouchenaki
A member of Unesco's Division of Cultural Heritage. Historian and archaeologist, former Chief
Curator of he~~~~i~ Antiquities Department.
*Worked on various sites in the Mediterranean
basin. Publications: Cits antiques d'Algyie (1978),
Fouilles de la ncropole occidentale de Tipasa (1976),
and a variety of articles in specialized journals.

AU photos by the author

The National Mtiseum, also known as museograpkcal tecKques, incluuding

the Libyan Arab Jmahiriya Museum, the use of audio-visual media.
was inaugurated on IO September 1988in
hoeher original feature is the siting of
the presence of President Mummar
and the Director-General of
Federico Mayor. The first
museum devoted to ~
i
b
thereby opened to the public represented
the realization of an idea conceived by
the Libyan authorities a l ~ - ten
~ ~years
t
earlier. The establisbent. of a cultural
institution on this scale, drawing on
both national and international skills
thanks to Unesc~'scatalytic role, is a museographicd achievement unprecedented
in the Arab world.
In the museum, which occupies an
area of about 10,000mz and was constmcted by the Skanska civil engineering
company, the visitor can marvel at the
many civilizations that succeeded one
another on Libyan soil from the Lower
Falaeolithic CQ the emergence of modern
s~cietyalter the revolution of 1969, and
contemplate the rich and extensive collectbns of the museum of Libyan naturd
history. All the exhibits are displayed in
accordance with the most advanced

the museum in the heart of the citadel of

aya AJ-Hamra (the Red Castle).
ago its massive walls
~
~
~ ttomm era were lashed
by the waves of the sea, but since then the
coasthe has been pushed back several
hundred metres by mems of modern
technology. Having abandoned its
defensive role, the citadel, a bastion
ensconced in the old city of Tripoh, has
been converted into a culmrd complex.
Its ancient buddings now house a number of Sp~C&ZedmUSeUm., StOrerQOms,
a restoration laboratoryy,a library and
some of the administrative u n i t s of the
Department of Antiquities. One may
wonder why in 1976 the Libyan authorities, in consultation with experts from
Unesco and the International Council of
Museums (ICOM), chose the site of the
foamer Italian Museo Archeologico for
the establishment of what was then c d e d
&e National Museum.
Going back in b e , we find that
during the Itahan occupation of Libya a

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Museum: .first in the Arab world

road was bored through the Essaraya ElHamra citadel from one side to the other
which was sheltered from the sea. A part
of the complex of buildings was used as
the Governors headquarters. Later, in
1934,when the citadels defensive role
was no longer considered necessary for
the old city of Tripoli, most of the premises was converted for use as a museum.
An archaeology museum was built along
the newly laid road inside the citadel.

An original architectural
decision
The citadels location in the old city of
Tripoli and its position in relation to the
modern town certainly had a decisive
influence on the choice of site for the
Museum of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
Overlooking the esplanade and the piers
of the harbour, the citadel walls now
form one of the boundaries of the famous
Green Square, the citys forum and
gathering place for all the countrys
major festivals.
This was the site chosen for the
National Museum, in spite of doubts
about the adequacy of parking space,
which has since been considerably expanded through new developments along
the coast on the access route to the citadel. There were also doubts about the
appropriateness of the--_architectural
conception, which entailed the construction of a new building in a historical
zone, with no possibility of further
expansion in the future. Another source
of concern was the cost of the project,
given the constraints imposed by the
nature of the ground in the vicinity of the
coast and by the pre-existing buildings.
The originators of the project set about
devising a most fitting and innovative
solution to these difficulties, primarily
by turning to account the citadels exceptional location and the many sites available around the new museum.
Scrupulously following ICOMs
recommendations concerning scientific
and hence architectural planning, the
directors of the national project carried
out a great deal of preparatory work
between 1976 and 1981, compiling
inventories, making collections of objects
for the scientific programme, and drawing up architectural plans-in
short,
working on a conception of a national
museum that would be more than merely
a spruced-up version of the Museo
Archeologico. This new conception was
worked out with assistance of Unesco
and ICOM specialists.

TheGhirza mausoleum, reminder

of the pre-Roman Libyan tribes. In the
foreground a fountain from the Ottoman

period.

The Sabratha Hall, recalling the Punic

and Roman site included on the World
Heritage List.

231

As for any museum, the aims were to

preserve and display the countrys movable cultural heritage. It therefore needed
to be a lively place where each visitor
could find both recreation possibilities
and material for information and learning. Special care was also taken to cater
for young people by enhancing the
museums educational dimension. It was
therefore designed to serve several different cultural functions, not to forget
documentation and research.
The Museum of the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya is a general museum containing not only archaeological finds but
also the finest collections from the old
Natural History Museum as well as
exhibits representing Libyan folk arts
and traditions. The decision to juxtapose
these different collections obviously
influenced the architectural design and
interior arrangement of the museum. By
using the space available between the two
tunnel entrances cut through the citadel
walls (the eastern one serving for the
main visitors entrance and the western
one for the service entrance and access to
the technical installations), the architectural and engineering consultants,
Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall and
Partners, increased the floor space of the
exhibition halls by 2,000 mz. The new

Mounir Bouchehaki

major historicalperiods, An axonometric buildings, which have been converted to

plan ushg a carehlly chosen colour sys- serve new purposes, to the modern
tem makes it easy to locate the dilferent building which has been slotted in among
gderies ^of the museum, and a large the patios md covered passages. The
illuminated map of Libya displays the whole site therefore constitutes a largecountry% great historical sites by means scale museographical entity serving a
of itineraries and flashing lights.
variety of purposes.
Six months after the official opening
Visitors therefore have a choice of
different circuits.
ichever route they ceremony the Museum of the Libyan
choose will take them through marble- Arab Jamahiriya had become one of
paved rooms where they can admire Tripolis major public attractions. By
objects displayed with exquisite taste in early March 1989 over 50,ooo people
tems of design, execution and seleceion had visited &e museum. The original
of materials. A complete visit of all the style of display, the architectural and
rooms ranges from the display of 30- museographical integration of a m ~ d e r n
million-year-old fossilized tree-trunks building into an ancient setting, the numfrom Wadi Ajal to that of modern Libyan ber and variety of explanatory panels in
development projects, with errhibits Arabic and English and the use of video
representing every stage of Libyan his- monitors in the main galleries showing
tory in between. A less exhaustive visit short documentaries enhance the funcmight take a particular theme 01period tioning (and the image) of a modern
such as traditional agriculture, the in- museum devoted to the history of Libya
terior decoration of a house in Tripoli and of its people. Libyan museologists
or the resplendent decor of a house in and their counte~-p~ts
h other Arab
the oasis of Ghadam2s. The museums countfies
elsewhere would $0
to
facilities include a conference room keep an eye on this ginal al eqePiment as
with s~ultaneous-intebretationbooths. time goes by, to see whether it manages
ARwady a major att~action
TKs room is also used for documentary to fulfil the ambitious cultural role it has
h o t h e r hovation htroduced by Hig- fih shows. The public need not go assigned itself in the city and to what
gins Ney and Partners, the firm contrac- dXQugh &e mUeum to get to the extent it c m s e v e as m example or even
ted for interior decoration, is that visitors conference room or the large temporary a 1-11ode1.
emerging from the access tumel find exhibition hall at the mezzanaine level
themselves in a spacious hall containing (which has already exhibited ~ o r k by
s
exhibits that ate markedly representative young Libyan mists).
of Libyan civilizations. For example, one
The administrative units are on the
of the Libym-Pwic tombs at Ghirza has fourth Boor. The storerooms and a restobeen rebuilt in the h d , stone by s t ~ n e , ration laboratory have been hcpused in an
I. A committee set up by Unesco in agreement
and &e fmous mosaic of Ziten has been old building adjacent to the museum. A. with the Libyan authorities. Its members were Ms
Beyond the hall fumigation room has also recently been U. Qlofsson (Sweden), Professor L.G. Lobato
set into one of the WAS.
(Portugal),Professor J. Jlinek (Czechoslovakia),
the visitor enters a gallery. in which there set up in the old premises. Within the Professor
A. Daschewski (Poland) and Professor
is a specific object to signal each of the citadel, corridors and stairs link the old J.V. Corney (United Kingdom).
museums exterior matches the appearance of &e other buildings scattered
around the citadel, and inside it occupies
four levels. The ground floor, with direct
access from the Green Square thmugh
the eastern entrance, consists of a visitors reception area and a large concourse
that serves as a starting and reference
point for visits to the different galleries or
to the educational centre. This central
point is one of the museums h o vations. Its incorgoration in the museum was strongly recommended by the
advisory committee that monitored the
execution of the project from the start
of work on the shell right up to &e formal verification and acceptance o the
completed interior work and the installation of &e exhibits. The educational
centre, which can accommodate up to
fifty children, comists of W O halls. Its
layout is highly flexible, and its facilities
may be used by pupils to carny out varids opractical work and to watch
f i h s on video monitors.

ana

Programming:
a tool that stands the test.of time
Patrick O'Byrne
Architect and programmer: four years specializing
in operational research (programming, planning,
standardization) in Montreal, Canada. Developed
the architectural programme of the Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris, then appointed by the French
Ministry of Cultural Affairs to co-ordinate, with
Claude Pecquet, the programming of several
museums, including the Museum of the Nineteenth
Century in the Former Gare d'Orsay and the Louvre Museum, Paris, and the Museum of Modern
Art, Lille (donated by Masurel). Co-operated in the
creation of the Pierre Levy Museum, Troyes.
Member of the ICOM International Committee on
Museum Security (ICMS).

Claude Pecquet
Museologist and the programmer responsible for
the planning of the operational programme at the
Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris. Developed the
programme of the Museum of the Nineteenth Century in the Gare d'Orsay and the Louvre Museum,
Paris, the Pierre Levy Museum, Troyes, the Universities of Bouak and Khorogo and the Cultural
Centres of Yamasoukro (Cte d'Ivoire) and Thann
(France). Member of the ICOM International
Committee on Museum Security (ICMS). Contributes to the work and publications of ICMS.

c2

a-

Exactly ten years ago, we produced a and its interaction with other factors that
special number of Museum on museum makes programming a profession.
programming. It was divided into two
We shall not go back over the question
parts. The first' clarified the function of programming as a tool, as we termed it
and importance of programming as the in our previous article, but we shall try to
basis preliminary to any design project, answer the question Museum has asked
whether it be the reorganization or re- us today: How has programming develmodelling of an existing museum or the oped in the ten years since the special
creation of a new one. In the second part, number? First and foremost, what
different authors presented actual cases, impact did that number have? The reply
national and international, of program- is, as ever, a complex one, both optimisming applied to museums. We were tic and pessimistic.
fortunate to be among those who deIt is optimistic in that since we decided
veloped the programmatic approach to to specialize in the programmirig of
the Pompidou Centre project, and have museums and cultural facilities we have
subsequently improved the method's had a constant flow of work in France
effectiveness through other projects of all and abroad. This implies that numerous
sizes, from the Muse d'Orsay and the projects have had this logical approach as
Louvre to the many small projects of the the basis of their development. OptimisFonds Rgional d'Art Contemporain tic also because we know that the special
(Regional Contemporary Art Fund).
number was a great success interIn each case we have been able to nationally, and we still receive frequent
confirm the relevance and usefulness of requests for copies. Optimistic, finally,
the approach, both to large and complex because in museum circles, and particuprojects and small simple ones, because larly at ICOM, there is more and more
programming is simply the logical talk of the need to develop a programme
necessary thinking that must precede . before undertaking a museum project,
any project. What should be done? For even if this talk too often remains just
whom? How? What means are available? that, due to lack of funds.
These are the questions that the programInversely, our reply is pessimistic
mer must adequately answer.
because even now too many museums
and cultural infrastructures are designed
or converted without any serious preOptmsm/pessmsm
liminary study. Pessimistic, equally,
Needless to say, if this were simply a because too many planners at every level,
case of common sense anyone could pro- from the state to small bodies, are ungramme; but there is more to it than that. aware of the existence of programming or
It is necessary to take into consideration consider it superfluous, expensive and, in
several different and often complex disciplines: town planning; architecture;
cultural facilities; management; conserI . 'Programming: A Tool at the Service of the
vation; lighting; security; and many Curator,
the CommissioningAuthority and the
more. It is the weighing of each factor Architect', Museum, Vol. X X X I , No. 2, 1979

A museum director, a curator, an it is this d o ~ ~ ~ ~which

- ~ ed
n t be submitbecause too many p r o g r m e studies are elected official 01 an administrator ted, after approval, to the designer, SO
carried out cheaply by amateurs with suggests reorganizing, developing, re- that the project can be developed. Either
little training and an inadequate constructing or even creating a museum. the basic programme is given directly to a
c a m a n d of the problems specific to Namrably he could go directly to an ar- ~ h ~ s designer,
en
or it is used as a means
museums.
chitect, a decorator or a scenographer, of selecting one designer among many,
In the last twenty years, museums explain his intentions and wait for the through a competition, for example. The
have changed considerably. Prom simple result. Obviously, it is not this
program- can help the cfient, not only
galleries with picture rails and display considered and risky course that we shall h s e t h g Up the conditiQns for Such a
cases watched over by sleepy guards, foblow here. Our hypothetical client goes competition but also in judging the
they have become veritable maches, to a qualified programmer, preferably projects submitted.
and that is why we described program- one who understands the specificity of
thfortunately, the p r o g r m e r s job
ming as a tooP. The museum m a c h e is museums. A contract is agreed upon for is all too often cut short once the designer
composed of ever-more sophisticated the de~elopment of a schedule of has been chosen.
at are the
facilities and employs ever-more qua&- conditions as a platform for the f u m e consequences? Experience has shown
fied personrad.
architect, decorator or scenographer&at the p r o g r a m e is &e]ly to be
this is the programme. Part of the ignored for reasons that are only more
contract betpveen the client and designer, or less -acceptable, often aesthetic 01
Masewm ia &e beadEines
d i s dosment will define as precisely as techical, and this diversion from the
What d d y newspaper would have put a possible d the needs to be met: architec- programme is hard for the client to conmuseum on its front page twenty years tural, t e c i c a l , as concerms museum trol.
ago? Le Monde in its special business facilities and in t e m s of functioning.
edition for Saturday, I April 1989, did 4aaere will be needs associated with
so :an article entitled Les musies ouvrent essential, required activities (reception,
boutique [PddUSeWtlnS open ShQp] de- stockage, laboratories, offices md so on);
at in fact happens when the designer
scribes &e Louvre pyramid. ln &e s m e with equipment ( c h a t e ccpntr~l,gresen- is chosen arad why is there still imprtant
newspaper on Friday, 31 March 1989, tation, vertical circulation, security, WQrk for the prQg~XCtKler
to $0 OnCe this
there was a t w ~ - c o l u marticle on the etc.); and needs defined by the way the choice has been made?
AG&AJE accelerator; destined for the museum will operate (pers~mel,openFirst of d,
it is necessary to judge how
research laboratory of the MusCes de ing hours, etc.). For each of these, it will weEl the project, which is a f o ~ ~ ~
visual
~al,
France. On IQ F e b r u q 1989, Lib&- be necessary to define the required per- representation, corresponds with the
ation devoted a full page to an article f ~ m m c e(dimensions, overload, ca- programme, a written representation of
entitled Le devenir MusCe de la plan&e pacity, etc.); their specilicity (the func- the clients needs. ms demands howlv e Museum Future of the Planet], tions they must fuEl and how) ;and their edge and expaience few people ~ Q S S ~ S S ,
wMe Le Monde spoke indirectly about spatial and functional relationships.
particularly when the project is in its
museums under the headhe %e Temple
Such needs are defined by way of dia- initial stages; one must h o w how to
et ses marchmds me Temple and its l o g bemeen
~
the user-the person who decipher the symbolic h p a g e of the
must m the museum-and the pro- akclaitecmral plan. At the sketch-design
Merchmts].
The museum as merchant, as labora- g r a m e r . They are &e result- of a num- stage, the project usudy expresses only
tory, as activities, as entertainment, as ber of facts, constraints, requirements general intentions, the organizational
meetingplace, as promoter not ody of and aims. The facts concern what exists principle for the major functions and
its cdmre but also of its patrons pres- (the ~~llection,
the personnel, the public, their expression as volumes. It is a proptige, and the museum for research-all
etc.). The constraints and the require- osition f
d Of potentid, but Whkh ha
these roles are replacing the museum ments axe the limits of &e project (the not yet been subjected to a didogue
gallery Of Our JroUth, and W a do SO budget, the building if it already exists, between client and designer.
more and more. Such a c~mpexmachine and the administrative, techicd or
It is essential to establish this dialogue
requires webl-researched planning.
t o w n - p l ~ glegislation). The aims in order to amplify the progran, to
There can be no q~estionof providing conce111 the projects ambition (t.
enrich it with the positive elements of
an expensive mechanism which breaks ~ ~ ~ o d e r nthe
i z e way the museum func- architectural creation and, at the same
down imediately because it has not tions, to devel~pnew functions or to h e , c ~ r r e cany
t errors or malfunctions
been pr~per1yadjusted. There have been attract a new public, etc.). This will take
the project. These error are Qd&(?Jl
&e
too many more-or-less important unfor- more or ]less time depending on the scope result of the architects excessive desire to
mnate experiences of this h d .
of the project.
leave his mark.
~houldlike to point out is that it is a pity
n e p r e - p r o g r m e is established as a
A museum is often an exceptional and
that programming methods have not res& of this dialogue and is a synthesis of prestigious undertaking, where the
been more widely accepted by clients, the facts, constraints, requirements and designers p i ~ ~ ~ dcan
i t be
y developed
curators and architects.
aims that have been e
more hbly than in less importatat projPerhaps the previous number of mitted to the various interested parties ects, and it often happens that the conM245e%??2 Qn p r O ~ ~ a m m hused
g
tQO
who accept it or mend it. A second tainer (the architecture or scenography)
technical a ter~-~-~inology,
We shall XIOW phase of talks leads to a more detailed QVePhadQWthe contents (the Work t Q
try to explain a programming operation definition of each of the aspects of the be displayed); the appearance becomes
and the relationship between the protag- pre-pr~grmme.Thismore derailed syn- paaore important than &e exkence of the
thesis is called the basic programme and museum itself. It is ~ Q Qoften forgotten
onists in a more anect~dalway.
the long run, useless, Pessimistic, lastly,

a-

that a display case has only one function:

the protection or conservation of the
work to be shown. When it is possible to
do without it, it is essential to do so in
order that the relationship between
object and viewer be as simple and direct
as possible.
To make up for these errors and accidents, to help with reading the project
and, above all, to help measure the
consequences of each decision taken
during the development of the project, it
is possible to give the programmer the
responsibility of overseeing and assisting
the evolution of the project (the phase we
call convergence, prograe/project).
During this delicatephase, which is decisive for the application of the programme
and the development of the project, the
programmer assists the user in his
relationship with the designer, so as to
prevent the mweum becoming the expression of a power other than that of the
works to be exhibited-to prevent, as Pol
Bury has said, the artists tender flesh
from being torn by maniacs with their
volumes and their gratings, the cannibal
builders of space.

/Translated from French]

Auditing the museum

environment.:
a project in Italys
Piedmont region
a

Marco Filippi

There is no such thing as a dead building. Every house or office block has a
Engineer and full professor at the Depamnent of
life of its own as the materials of which
Energy of the Polytechnic of Turin. Also teaches
it
is built age and change, both intrinsiphysics of installation, and the problems of lighting, acoustics and climate control in buildings at the cally and in response to the internal
Turin Faculty of Architecture. Was principal and external environments. The need to
researcher in the project reported on here.
monitor structural and environmental
variations over time is of particular
Chiara Aghemo
concern in museums, given that: (a) they
Architect, Ph.D. in energetics; specializes in issues must shelter and protect objects that
of the internal physical environment of buildings. themselves are often very fragile or
otherwise vulnerable, and (b) they are
Giancarlo Casetta
places of considerable public traffic.
Accurate museum monitoring is esEngineer concerned with designing the installations pecially important when additions to
of civil and industrial buildings.
buildings or other structural changes are
envisaged,
and architects require conCarla Lombardi
siderable amounts of diverse data.
Associate professor in the Department of Energy at
Conservators and architects can take
the Polytechnic of Turin and teaches physics at the steps against deterioration of collections
Turin Faculty of Engineering.
they are in charge of only if they know
which factors cause deterioration and
Marco Vaudetti
how they cause it. The most important of
Architect and associate professor in the Depar- these factors are now well known:
tment of Architectural Planning at the Polytechnic The humidity of the surrounding
of Turin; teaches, inter alia, museum design at the
environment (which varies through
Turin Faculty of Architecture.
time) and the materials capacity to
absorb moisture are responsible for dimensional variations, not to mention
dangerous movements from one point
of the object to another of elements
dissolved in water.
Electromagnetic radiation from the sun
or other light sources, by causing
chemical change, causes fading of the
surface colour and a general change in
the matter of which the object is made.
Moreover, radiation, by increasing the
temperature of the surface hit by light,
can cause harmful mechanical tensions
between different points of the object.

23 6

Temperature differences from whatever

source, whether they depend on
location or time, cause humidity displacements inside the object and
&ensional variations. The temperature itself, if too high, can affect the
capacity of h e material to react against
the forces to which it is subjected, thus
becoming itself the cause ofthe object's
losing its shape.
Besides these factors, museum location in
urban areas, where road traffic has
greatly increased in the last forty years,
exposes the collections to a further cause
of stress connected with the vibrations
that can reach objects through building
s t m ~ ~ r and
e s furnishings. Similarly> a
large number of particles and s
of various types -inthe air and the presence of larger quantities of different gases
than belo& (SO, NO, CO,GO,, etc.)
have yielded new types of chemical deterisration w&ch aye either
ial or
deep and &ave,in general,
man
inciease in the speed with which the
already h o w n types of c

Marco Fiilippi, Chiara Aghemo, Giancarlo Casetta, Carla Lombardi, Marco Vaudetti
noms of the several disciplines concerned (architecture, furnishings, en-

A%ditingmmegm ~ v i ~ o n m e n %
qH6zlity: problems and m e % ~ o d

vironment control and installations)

made it possible to devise and implement The initiatives, programmes and research
new strategies to audit the environment described above are addressed padcuand prepare specific instruments for mea- larly to museums housed in existing
suring the physical environment varia- buildings. These may be of historical or
bles. h important contribution to the architecmral interest or ones which for
development of this approach was the some other reason are part of the cultural
prior bibliographical search carried out or envkonmentd heritage. In some cases,
with the aid of the ICCROM library. their history is synonymous with radical
About 800 bibliographical references arad sometimes unfores,een changes in the
were found, classified and stored on a buildings themselves. h tems of such
buildings,
is Wl@E. Acc0rCh.g to
magnetic support.
hfQ~l3latiQn
g
h
X d from EEC Survey,
In May 1986 these methods and instruments were adopted as reference points around 4d o n of the 5,367,359 monulor a special project entailing cognitive ments in EEC countries are t~ be found
suweys on the theme of display in in Italy, and the number of these housing
cgnservation in about IOO museums, museums is very high. When it is rememarchives and libraries in Piedmont. 'Fhe bered that less than I. I per cent of the
two-pear project, financed by the Itdian national budget is docated for the care of
t~od
Government to the erntent of about this heritage, it can be ~ ~ ~ d e r swhy
$8 &on at the end of 1986, was pro- local authorities are increasinglyworried,
pOed by the Region of PiedlmQntand the and why there is a graving interest in
P~lytecl-u-icof Turin together with perfecting instmmeets asad methods for
checking museums' state of health.
ENEA' arad is being carried qut by
What does 'checking a museum3sstate
49ieponte in Turin. 3 The specific aims of
of health' mean wday in t e c ~ c a md
l
the project axe:
I
How %heprojec%
began
To create an idomation system (data scieQ3c tems?
Seriously concerned about conservation
bank) about display and c ~ n s e w a t i ~ n In a periad when many museums face
merous pr~blemsthat they find it
of the m u s e u collections, the Culture
conditions in the yaria9us mqseum
u4t to stay q x n , it means: (a) ex
and C d m d P ~ ~ p e rBoard
t y of the Piedcentres being examined.
egion commissioned, in 1984,the To judge the actual simation of the iring everythg that might jeqm-dize
variois museum centres so as ta continuity and standards in displaying
Depaments cd Energy and of Architeccollections to the public; (b) indicating
detemine: to vhat
mural Planning at the Polytechis: of
the CQ~diton
under which SU& couec' ~ u r i nto undertake a research proility of the budding tions are &gly to deteriorate and become
gran-" to establish bstniments and
ITlethQds KI be Used
mUSeUmS an$
for the hnction it fulfils; the adequacy shabby; (c) indicating the factors that
of facilities for their htended public; might hinder the satisfactmy upkeep Qf
s i m i l a r institutions when d e h g with
the miQ-oclimate and lighting control; a budding; and (d) studying the hy-Qut
p~~blem
concerning
s
display and conser=
vation.' The main aim bf the Regional
and sdety provision (againstaccidents, techiques and technologies wbch d a w
a museum best to exh&i<its treasures and
fire, theft and Tanddism).
AdministraGon was to provide organizations and institutions involved in To judge the priorities for action and horm its visitors. In order to carry out a
diagnosis of a museum, our prsjict dee s t h t e &e cost of raising the premmuseum matters with back-up documenVelQped
~ e t h O dWhkh

dQW:
ises cgnsidered to a satisfactory stantation and technical assistance facilities to
The
identification
and
coblection
of data
dard.
be used at the planning and execution
illustrating
the
state
of
the
museum
To
promgte
the
use
of
instruments
for
stages in the physical and b c t i o n d reorenvirorgnentand ~f the institution as a
suweying the physicd-envirolament
ganization of the museums which already
whole, according to preestablished
variables
exist. It was intended, in addition, tg
categories.
make the staff in the field of cultural To create a new prof~ssionalis~
marked
by on=going t r h i n g characterized The organization of the data obtained in
grQperty consemation aware of new
such a way that they cm be compared
by a yder; more interdisciphary
techniques,
more generally to deand assessed according tQ established
oach requkd by technicians in
velgp scientific research in. this field. By
criteliaa.
ultural property field.
identifying h e environment as the link
h ~ d and
s the techno- The judgement of the present condition
bemeen &e objects to be conserved and The ~ ~ ~ t adopted
of a museum, f i n h g the interrelationtheir co~~t&er,that is, the collectias logical expertise gahed through the exships existing between requirements of
and &e budding installations, the team ecution of this project will be made
the building and needs of the museum,
WOrhg h the PQl~~~Chnih:
LUldertQQk available to a regional back-up facility for
and pointing out the inevitable ~ ~ n t r a research about the museum environment documentation and tecltanical assistance
dictions between them,
quality, as regards not only climate and (Fig. 1).
On the basis of these considerations, an
lighting bur alsa display and security.
o gbeen
y devised.
operative p d ~ ~ d ~ l has
h interdsciplinary scientific apIt involves two successive steps of invesproach which conformed to needs and
e

a:

Auditing the museum environment: a project in Italy3 Piedmont region

23 7

Regional centre of display and consewation

--- - - Indirect tasks

Direct tasks

Training bodies
I

Research bodies
I

4! I\
B

Training and up-dating

Research and development

1

I
I
=
o -s
u
2.

G
rJ
W -.

o e
s.

o
os.

W
O
u
CD 3
I
.
2.
5.
o

-.

%,

E
m

3
O

I
tigation: a qualitative survey (first-level
auditing) and then a quantitative survey
(second-level auditing). In the phases of
the qualitative survey there is first an
investigation into the environment quality of the museum in its widest sense.
This is done by analysing the facilities
linked to the type of building, to the
provision of installations of different
kinds, to the scientific organization, to
display techniques in storerooms and
exhibition halls, to the visitors safety and
to the security of the collections and of
the building itself, etc. Information such
as that regarding climate control, natural
and artificial lighting, noise, vibration,
size of the environment and furnishing,
visitors safety, deterioration of containers and objects exhibited is particularly useful in underlining the seriousness
and frequency of critical situations with a
view to reaching the minimum quality
levels set for these facilities.
These phases are accompanied by
the creation of thematic drawings, developed on the basis of the previous

architectural survey carried out on the

building which houses the museum
examined. They contain coded information on: (a) the building housing the
museum; (b) functions, horizontal and
vertical traffic; (c) museum programmes;
(d) architectural features of the building;
(e) display and storage techniques; (f)
natural lighting; (g) artificial lighting and
climate control (both in the building and
in the showcases); (h) noise and vibration; (i) safety of the users; (j) objects
(classification and state of deterioration
of the objects displayed); and (k)security
of the objects.
This information is included on the
thematic drawings by quickly recognizable symbols (with a caption next to
them) and is presented floor by floor
with photographs in order to give a full
contextual picture of the phenomena
discovered.

Fia. 1
TKe operations of a regional institution for
display and conservationin museums.

I. In addition to the authors, the research

reported on here was conducted by Enrico
Bonifetto, Anna Maccario (architects), Livio
Bongiovanni (engineer) and Ferrando Caon and
Giuseppe Vannelli (technicians). The regional
representatives in the research team were Dr Sara
Coltro (the official in charge of liaison with the
University) and Dr Dino Raiteri (the official in
charge of Museum Services in the Piedmont
Region).
2. ENEA is a national, publicly owned
organization concerned with research, studies and
ot projects in the energy and environment
elds. Recently this organization has allocated
funds to the instrumental analysis of museum
environments.
3. MBA Piemonte is a society with
headquarters in Turin. It was founded to develop
and oversee the project Allestimento e
Conservazione nei Musei, nelle Biblioteche e negli
Archivi; Indagini Conoscitive ed Ipotesi di
Intervento (Equipping and Conservation in
Museums, Libraries and Archives) financed in
conformity with Article I 5 of the Law of
28 February 1986,No. 41.

Ea

23 8

Marco Filippi, Chiara Aghemo, Giancarlo Casetta, Carla Lombardi, Marco Vaudetti

Qmnbtative assessment
nroughout the quantitative survey
stages, data are collected in order to give
numerical support to the qualitative survey already carried out. At this stage, the
actual measurements of deterioration and
comfort are taken and compared with an
overall requirements reference sheet displaying universally recognized threshold
values. This is done with the help of
carefully prepared survey sheets on
which the variables are described and
arranged:
By listing and cataloguing the characteristics of the building arad its various
installations.
By t a h g measurements of the values of
the physical environmental variables,
for example, luminance, relative humidity and air temperature, surface
temperamre and humidity content of
the wds.
By investigating ~ ~ ~ d i tunder
i ~ nwhich
s
the objects are displayed, and facities
of the exhibition halls and storerooms.
In this way a data bank is created, showing the actual situation by mems of
quantitative data grouped under the
headings already used in the qualitative
survey. The first-level auditing (without
measurements of physical variables) and
the second-level auditing (measurements
of the physical variables suitably correlated and compared) come thus together
to give a picture of the complex display
and conservation situation existing in
museums.
Using and processing the qualitative
and quantitative data obtained, it is ~ Q S S ible to go on to evaluate the levels of
functioning, comfort, safety and security, and to define building quality indicators (for the evaluation of the reliability
of display techiques and technological
installations) and environment quality
indicators (for the classification of the
environment in relation to single values
and evolution over time of the physical
variables measured) and provide a judgement of the actual situation (Fig. 2). For
the definition of judgements about the
situation, Table. I shows a suggested
check-list of a museum's requirements;
the judgement could be in the form of a
diagnostic table showing in summary
f o m the .incidence both of shortcomings
in respect of the overall requirements
reference sheet (index of spread) and of
the gravity that these shortcomings
present (index of seriousness).

TABLE
I. A suggested check-list of a
museum's requirements
_____

Architectiwal
Compatibility of the building with its
museum functions
Structural suitability of the premises for a
change in their function
Possibility of enlarging the premises to s u i t
the museum's programmes
Organic unity Othe collections and the architectural style and type
Level of interrelationship between the building and the display system
Typological flexibility of the budding to accommodate different display types h o u g h
time
Obstacles to access by handicapped people
Building deterioration
Architectural and historic environmental
safeguards
Assessment of the decorations and furnishings which are integral p m o the
budding
Devices for the control of a
k velocity in the
environment
Protection against physical and chemical
deterioration agents

Safeguarding
Flans to safeguard the collections in case of
emergency (e.g. fire, natural disaster, etc.)
Devices for the safety of visitors and operators
Number of surveilh.ce personnel
Anti-intrusion devices
Fire-detection and fire-extinction devices

To pass judgement on display and

conservation in museums is a complex
operation requiring: (a) a c ~ n t i n u o ~ s
reading and interpretation. of every thematic drawing, either totdy or partially,
~QJO
by W
a careful
~ examhation of t h
quantitativedata; (b) the personal p d c i pation of the staff responsible for the
management of the museum; and (c) the
definition of the overall requis-ements
reference sheet with pre-established
thRhdd Values for conditions anan$Services.
The methods of auditing h e environment quality described above have been
tested by the PQlFeChnic ttXEJ3 by
CXryktg O u t SUlTej7,
b O h SUPnmCT
and winter, in six musems of different
sizes and features .in &e Piedmont
Region: the Palazzo Madama in Turin,
the Museo Civico at Biella, &e Museo
Civico at Susa, the Museo Civico Craveri
at Bra, the Museo Civico at Savigliano,
the Museo di Antropologia ed Etnologia
in Turin. In the luture, plans of the different museum stmcmres studied will be
stored on a magnetic support using a
computer-aided design (CAD) unit, md

.I

Auditing the museum environment: a project in,Italys Piedmont region

data on environment quality will be filed
and processed automatically. The filed
data will form a memory for the moment
at which the premises and display will
have to be modified.

Architectural
su Ney

Thematic drawing of
the first level
(qualitative survey)

The tools developed

.)

When measuring the above-mentioned

variables, the problem is to identify the
different points and times at which to
carry out these surveys. Obviously, the
environment does not have a uniform
nature as far as the spatial values of the
variables are concerned and there is no
point in estimating these variables by
taking measurements at a single point. It
would likewise be unproductive to take
measurements at too many points, as
such a method would be difficult to
manage when it is remembered that
the variables fluctuate with time and
measurements must therefore be taken
frequently. It is necessary to divide the
environment up in such a way as to allow
a few strategically placed probes to
indicate the critical areas, while also
obtaining values for variables at other,
less critical points allowing a tolerable
error margin. This problem has already
been faced in some cases by following
two different strategies. First, surveys
are made at short intervals with portable
instruments at a large number of points,
and then empiricalspatial correlations are
sought among the values of the given
variables. The areas of risk where it is
important to keep the variables under
control are also revealed in this way.
Secondly, physical and mathematical
models are formulated of the spatial distribution of the variables under examination, which are to be studied by
measuring particular points.
The environment varies in its behaviour through time in relation to the
outside climate, the number of visitors
and how well the air-conditioning or
heating plants work. It is, therefore,
necessary to carry out continuous surveys for sample periods including all the
influences to which the environment
is normally subjected. Measurements
might for example be taken of the relative
humidity and temperature at particular
points for a whole month in each season
of the year with sampling frequency
linked to the rate of variation of the
variables surveyed. In this way much
data is collected which needs to be
further processed in order to obtain more
complex parameters capable of explaining more accurately the dynamics of col-

23 9

Measurements phase

Thematic
the
seconddrawing
level of
(quantitative survey)

Report on the
actual situation

-.

1
Processing

Building and
environment
quality indicators

Judgement of the
actual situation

I
Minimum values of
performances
(check-list of
requirements)

lection deterioration (for example, temperature gradients: average, maximum

and minimum values in a day, in a week
or in a season). For this analysis, and to
summarize the results, a computer is
necessary. The results of the analysis can
be presented in the form of diagrams
both for rapid consultation and to assemble a picture of the variable value distribution in space and time.
Our research team decided to set up
two sets of instruments for surveying the
physical variables; the systems yield
different but complementary results.

The conservators suitcuse (CS)

The CS (Fig. 3 ) has been conceived in
such a manner as to allow it to be used
widely throughout the region by the
conservators of single museums; this is
possible due to the low cost of each CS
(about $2,000).
The essential technical specificationsof
the instruments in each CS are given in
Table 2. The instruments in the CS have
been designed to be easily yet highly
functional: the total weight of the suitcase is about 6 kg and it is not very bulky
(external dimensions: 48 X 34 X 95 cm).
The suitcase is made of 6-mm plywood
and is padded inside. The instruments
have their own batteries (each instrument

Remedil action

Fig. 2
Logical diagram of an environment
auditing.

Fig. 3
The conservators suitcase.

Marco Fil@pi, Cbkra Agbemo, Giancarlo Casetta, Carla Lombardi, Marco Vaudetti

240

and data-processing centres. Because of

its characteristics and cost (each system
SOSS approximately $15,000)its use is
less widespread than the CS. The DAS is
made up of
main sybsystems: one is
for the collection of external climatic data
and one is for the collection of the
internal micro-climatic data. The standard external subsystem is connected
through a signal transduction box to a
group of five probes d o w h g survey of
the following variables: i ,relative
humidity and temperature, luminance,
wind velocity and direction. The standard internal data system is directly
connected to t h e e 'sateutes' which can
be placed within a radius of menty
metres f r ~ mthe central system. He is
possible to c o ~ ~ ~ae total
c t of fourteen
probes to each sateuite to survey the fol-

can be used non-stop for several hours,

seelTable 2). It is easy to find spare pans
and reppain: work is straightforward. The
feabres of the instruments assembled in
the CS allow immediate measurements at
particular points, thus permitting the
conservator to collect initial data required
to assess the causes of the deterbration of
the objects at any given place and to
gather other useful infomation, for
example, for display pur pose^. Por every
t h e e CS the inclusion is envisaged of one
themohygrograph and one humidity
measurement system for the inside of the
WallS.

The datd-acquisition system (DA)

The DAS has been conceived to allow
c~ntinuoussurveys over long periods of
t h e in close contact with the research

TSABLE
+.Technid specibicatknsof the instruments in the conservator's suitcase
_____

Autonomy of
operation

Instrument

Measure range

Resolution

Thermometer with:
probe for air temperature
probe Sor surface temperature

- IO/+

120C

0.1

"C

IZO OC'

0.1

OC'

Hygrometer

O/IOO Y03

0.1 Yo

O/IO,OOQ

alx

IO h'

Io lx

IQ

- IO/+

20 hx
4 h'

Luxmeter with:

- probe for h " c e

G

10,000

lx

- probe for ~ u m k a "

G

100,000

0/100,000

v\i meter
Flexometer

lx

h'

50/1600p W / h
0/5000

Thermohygrograph

mm

- 15/+ 45 "C

7/14days

O/IOO Yo

Humiditygaugeinsidethe waP

Continuous.operation.
Dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperature.
3. Reative humidity.
4. This apparatus, by showingvariations of electrical resistance inside the material according to its humidity content,
allows a differentialqualitativeevaluation of the content itself.
I.

2.

TABLE
3. Technicd specifications of the instruments the data-acquisition system
Sub-system

Probe

External

Air temperature
Relative humidity
Wind velocity
Wind direction
Luminance

Internal

I.

Measure range

Resolution'

- 20/+

0.1

"C

OC

I Yo

o/yo m/s

0.1m/s

0/360"

lx

I"
IO

52C

0.1

0/100,000

Air temperature

- 20/+

Relative humidity
Luminance
Surface temperature

O/IOO Yo

Resolution relative to the probe-transducersystem

5.2

O/IOO Yo

lx
"C

I Yo

Ix

0/10,000

Ilx

- 20/+ 52 "C

0.1

"C

lowing variables : air, relative humdity

and temperature, surface temperature
and luminance. Both subsystems xe
equipped with a unit for the magnetic
recording of the data acquired. Udata
are then transfenred to a computer for
subsequent processing and filing. The
management of the data is made possible
by a specidy written software package.
The essential technical specifications of
the probes used hthe DAS are shown in
Table 3.
The DlhS d h W the dkStiQn of a
large amount of pre-processed data over
a long period of time. The small dimensions of &e probes and their quality
ensure that they are easy to position and
that they d o w the analysis of the spatial
relationships inside a room. The simultaneous survey of the variables outside
the room makes it possible to assess the
internal envkoment's response in relation to the external one. The whole system d o w s the creation of a data bank of
use for historical and statisticalanalysis of
the physical environment situation providing complete and accurate information on key variables when architecturd changes are considered.

What is an intelligent
museum3
#

Y
The central control-room of the
Yokohama Science Centre.

A Japanese view
Science museums are undergoing dramatic transformation today. The British
Born in 1916 in Yokohama. Graduate of Tokyo Museum in London and the Deutsches
University of Science, in systems engineering.
Joined Japan Science Foundation in 1981and has Museum in Munich early became models
since been responsible for exhibition system design for our National Science Museum,
for science museums. Planned and designed the Japans leading museum in this area.
Japan History Pavilion at Tsukuba International Both European forerunners were orienScience Expo in 198f.Leader of Display Engieerted towards collecting the heritage of the
ing Study Project and Museum Engineering Study
Group. In 1987/88,visited the Cit des Sciences et Industrial Revolution. Prominent disde lIndustrie (Paris), and the Centre National de la coveries and inventions that altered lifeRecherche Scientifique (Atelier de Bellevue), on styles and life itself are exhibited along
scholarship from Japan Science Foundation.
with portraits of celebrated figures.
Naturally, they focused on their collections. Thus, Madame Curies experimental equipment, Newtons reflecting
telescope, and Watts steam engine provide
perennial pleasure to people who
F
9
appreciate their historical significance.
In Japan today, a radically new type of
science museum is being built in several
places, referred to more often as science
centres rather than museums. My involvement in science-centre construction
and exhibit design has led me to propose
a special construction system, which is
now eliciting interest and which aims to
6
produce what I call the intelligent
museum. In t h i s connection, a museum
engineering study group was formed
f..
here
severalyears ago and is now engaged
1
8 Photos by courtesy of t h e author
in research on and evaluation of exhibit
Eiji Mizushima

2
~

design and museums architectural

design. This article outlines our experiments and conclusions, with special
reference to museum architecture.
There have been three stages in
modern Japanese museum architecture.
The first was technological innovation in
terms of structure, represented particularly by steel and concrete. In some cases,
the museum itself was endowed with a
monumental quality due to its structural
characteristics. The second stage saw
stress on innovation in electricity, lighting, hygiene and other facilities. Facility
improvement stemmed from a concern
for comfort in the exhibition environment and good conditions for preservation. The third stage is information:
recently completed buildings and their
facilities are intimately linked to information and the intelligent museum is in
essence one that highlights information,
and therefore makes structural provision
for information circulation and management.
.

The background

What is the background to the concept of

an intelligent museum?
Technological innovation is progress-

E@ Miaushima

242

ing at P startling pace in modern Japan. In

particular, advances in infomation processing and communication technologies, and networking as a form of
integration of these technologies, are
steadily escalating. This process has
already touched all areas of society and
penetrated even the ordinary home. It is
predicted that the movement will proceed further, particularly as society
makes the transition from hardware to
software, from products to howledge.
Architecture has evolved apace: cables
and optical fibres criss-cross building
interiors, and structural provision is
made for exchanges of infomation
SQnVentiQndJWritten to become dectronic. The intelligent building was thus
born, erected by office-leasing corporations in the United States in the
early 1980s to attract tenant-clients. $he
concept was transplanted to Japan and
began to take on new meanings to reflect
conditions here. n o u g h definitions are
still far from final-or even clear-the
intelligent building promotes efficiency
in office and building management, being
equipped from the start with sophisticated infomation and comunication
facilities characterized by flexibility and
epandability.
Museum arclecture is following suit,
and our research team considers that the
era of the intelligent museum is not far
off. We have experimented with
computers md sophisticated indomation
ytem for mueUm construction and
exhibit displays attempting to introduce
intelligent luractic~nsinto the museum.
But a museum is not an office b u i l h g
and, wMe sharing certain functions and
characteristics, it has other distinctive
- e v e n uniqu+roles and features.
What, then, is an intelligent museum?
My idea of an intesgent museum is one
that: (a) can control automatically
museum operation and management and
errhibit management; (b) can control the
museum environment (exhibit environment and conservation environment); (c)
is structurally equipped, both w i t h and
without, with informatiodcommunication capabilities; and (d) can control
with computers and new media equipment a visitor information service.
~~~~~~~~~~~

for mxsexm

wTchite&xTe
The b e d r ~ ~ofkmuseum architecture is
p d y the same as that for living space
and shelter designed for human beings:
to protect and preserve artefacts, paint-

ings, sculpture, historical documents,

specimens, scientificheritage, and SO on.
On the other hand, museums have in
addition an errhibitionfunction, which of
course also plays a vital role in determining museum architecture. 1: have,
moreover, consistently proposed to
expand the efibition functions definition even to the extent of describing it
as information. If collecting and SQ~SCYvation are an information-receiving function, presentation can be thought of, and
designed, as an orm mat ion-transmission
function. Tn speaking of modern museum architecture, H believe that the
museum should no longer be seen passively as a receptacle for ~~llectiions
and
visitors but, actively, as a device that
receives and transmits infomation and
supports various museum activities
dynamically.
In operational terms, h e installation
and functioning of information hardware
and QfmWe h an &telligent mUeulaa
have special vital requirements to which
architects and programmers must pay
particularly careful attention. Uppermost XIlOng these are the f O l l O W h g four
dement.
The jrst dement is a stable supply of
electrical power of appropriate quality.
Demand for electrical power varies
markedly in function of e~ppmentinstallation density, equipment energy
consumption and operation rate. h addition, future consumption needs are
hard to forecast since, for example, energy conservation at video terminals can
offset increase in consumption by expanding and diversifying recourse to the
computer. At any rate, potential increases over time of electricity requirements must be taken into consideration.
The second element is selection of an
electrical wiring method. A main key to
the intelligent museum is oma at iontransmission capability. Here, h e signal
circuit that serves as transmission
medium has utmost importance. To
assure quality signal transmission, noise
must be prevented. Optical fibre is being
widely used of late for computer circuitry together with power lines. This
can be a headache for architicts since
adequate distance bemeen power and
tranIIliion h e must be secured Or
shields must be installed. Other points to
note when installing signal-transmission
lines are flexible transmission capacity,
and thus sensitively diversified location
of connections with terminal equipment
(for instance, in floors, walls or ceilings).
Obviously, the selection of wiring

routes, material and methods (free-access

method, floor-duct method, piping
method, to name but a few) is of crucial
importance. Moreover, c a e must be
taken to ensure the aesthetic quality of
the environment, particularly in e&bition spaces, where careless wiring can
be offensive to the public. When utilizing, 01re-converting, old buildings as
museunas, instablation of wiring is likely
to become a most serious problem

indeed.
The third element is the airconditioning system inside the museum.
Maintenance of an air-conditioned environment is intricately linked to qualitative and quantitative fluctuations and
the needs of visitors, museum staff, and
artefacts and specimens easily affected by
humidity and temperature, not to forget
generally sensitive computer equipment
itself, For this reason, architects must
gay special attention to the themal
quality of the structure, heat emission
from equipment, change hl the number
of visitors, exhibition enviroments and
conservation environments, and perceive
them in a comprehensive general framework SO as to design in detail airSQrl$i~bIl.bg and other Shate-SQntrol
systems.
The fou& element is, of CQU~SS&,the
security system. Here, information is &e
vergr Lle of an intelligent museum. n e
weakness of information and coanmunication systems designed to ensure security is discussed frequently. To overcome
it, basic solutions can be built into &e
system itself, and many-sometimes
conflicting-architectural measures must
be considered as well. For example,
installation of sprinklers (claimed to be
the most effective protection against fire)
has been known to cause deterioration of
electrical insulation in communication
systems, and even serious secondany
damage. Needless to say, measures
es must also be taken in
vulnerable regions to protect the stmcture and exhibits against such dangers as
disruption of wiring, destruction of
fhX.9, Wall and c!2hg, and r Q S h g
and falling of electronic equipment.
There is, in adslieion, the installation of
security cmeras for detection of fire,
unauthorized entry and burglary. Palong
the same lines, devices to gauge automatically the environment are used.
The devices can inspect eight items, such
as temperature, humidity, carbonmonoxide and CdXXI-dioide density,
dust quantity, wind speed, luminescence
and noise. A museum that can literally

ul.lLaLLlrLl.

I L JllUUlU L c I I U L L A I

L I l L

U1d.L

L L U L l l U rl.

L.-,_.

r-

uur1.l

LUIb

L l l b

enhancement of such interactivetelecom- three-day period was I, 199.The time of

munication
functions requires structural use was concentrated between 10.30and
Internul networking-two
accommodation,
making it all the more 11.30a.m. and again between 1.00 and
exumples
important for architects to take full 2.00 p.m. (The museums opening hours
Here, I should like to offer two actual account of the criteria described earlier. are from 9.30a.m. to 4.50 p.m.). Fore examples of computer networking inside
In the example just given, LAN has most among users were primary-school
a museum. The first is the local area been used as a means to present exhibit pu@ls, junior-high-school , and highnetwork (LAN) system at Yokohama information inside a science museum. school students, and adults in their
Science Centre which opened in 1985. Our research group has conducted twenties, thirties and forties. The maThe second is a more recent experiment another interesting experiment with jority of users were male.
in exhibition evaluation by the LAN sys- LAN. We acquired monitoring data with
Facts on visitor demographics, earlier
tem, which our project group conducted. computers about how visitors interacted known vaguely by impressions, were
With progress in new media, the with computers, to find out, inter dia, thus clarified simply and with no extra
nature and means of interaction between how many visitors actually used the fuss by actual use of the computer, and
information and the visitor have computer, and how much they learned. we acquired reliable information on how
changed. In the past, the computer itself
Briefly, the objective of the exper- best to improve information equipment
. was an object of study and exhibition iment was to measure effects on visitors and program efficiency, as well as how to
at science museums. Today, however, it of exhibition-related computer-aided in- pay due attention to different types of
is no longer a rare machine, and to use struction (CAI) software such as The visitors and times when they are most
computers for communication with Cell, The Volcano, Earthquakes, likely to seek information and knowlvisitors is a challenge for museum pro- Computers, and Outer Space. At the edge from the computer. We conclude
fessionals, as well as architects. One role same time, an image survey was conduc- that an intelligent museum can also
of computers at the Yokohama Science ted employing the semantic differential become a more user-friendly museum.
Centre is to link human beings with dif- method. Also gathered and analysed
ferent sources of information available to were data on how visitors used the In conclusion, I wish to stress that
them in our institution. Children are, computer to seek, acquire and refine bringing an intelligent museum into
for example, to gain free access to the information and knowledge (what could existence, either by top-to-bottom renoexhibits graphic data base, and also to be called the computers study func- vation of an existing institution or by
record information they wish to share tion). How long do visitors use this building anew, is fraught with problems
with others. Also, information conven- function? Who uses it? When? How for architects and museum professionals
tionally presented on labels is now dis- often? What paths of inquiry do they alike. Some are questions of detail; others
played on the computer screen.
follow? When tested, how accurate are are major issues often requiring costly
Inside the centre, several dozen their responses? These were some of the solutions. ALI in all, creating intelligent
computer terminals are distributed questions on which we wanted en- museums is a real challenge, which-if
throughout the building and intercon- lightenment. After a visitor touched the faced squarely-may well lead us to a
nected by LAN to offer various services, computer keyboard and answered the museum revolution.
such as guidance to the centre, special first few factual questions (sex, age,
visual exhibits and simulation games. software chosen), the entries were
Thanks to this sort of interfacing, we are registered automatically in the study
now becoming a much more accessible implementation programme, facilitating
museum. Even at the Ontario Science aggregation and analysis.
Centre and the San Francisco ExploraThe experiment was a preliminary test
torium, known for their daring science for introducing the LAN system in
I. See also, in this regard, the article on
displays, computer use is limited to museums, and was conducted for three page 235.-Ed.
a

Mojz Habovgtiak

Since 1969,Bratislava (earlier known. as

Pressburg) has been the capital of the
Born in 1932, specialist in medieval archaeology.
Slovak Socialist Republic, which is an
Directed the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak
National Museum from 1969 to 1977;has been integral part of the Czechoslovak Socialdirector of that museum since 1977.Member of the ist Republic. Its history is ancient,
Czechoslovak National Committee of ICOM and hQWever9since Ulkltermpted Settknallellt
of the International Committee for Museums of of &e site goes back to the Stone Age.
Archaeology and History. Author of a monograph
and numerous essays on medieval archaeology and %3.k is largely due to the site it&. %e
city occupies both b d s of the Danube,
museology.
at a place where the river could be
forded, and boasts a strategically .bportant hiU ideally situated for fortificationall this at a kind of natural geographical
gate and crossroads of Eur~peancommunication.
High points in the citys history have
included the b u i l h g of the first c a d e
during the Moravian Empire (ninthcenmly A.D.), the granting of municipal
privileges in 1291and the creation there
of the first university in the territory of
Slovakia (Academia Hstropoldtana) in
1467. During the Turkish occupation of
southern Hungary, Bratislava was &e
venue for coronations (1536to 1784)
wMe, beginning in the eighteenth century, it became the focal point of what
could be called the national and cdtural
enthusiasm of the Slovaks. The second
haIf of the nineteenth century saw &e
city play a key role in the revolutionary
workers movement, and it becme the
capital of Slovakia after the proclamation
of the C~echoslovakRepublic in 1918,
later to be liberated by Soviet forces at the
end of the Second World
1945).

Today, Bratislava has nearly 450,ooo

inhabitants and is the centre of lovak
culmal Me. Its museums and galleries
are too n ~ e r o u to
s describe each one in
r t designed to
detail in this ~ h ~feame
introduce Mgseum readers to our citys
museum life. Those that c m o t be included for lack of space include: &e V.I.
Lenin Museum with inter alia, its
special child-oriented exhibit that places
this laistoricd figure in his family setting,
the Museum of Education and Pedagogy, the youngest of our museums
but perhaps not the
(created in 1970)~
least ambitious; and the Slovak Naticmal
Art Gallery, located in the mid-eighteenth-century Water Barracks by the
Danube, and presenting Slovak art from
the thirteenth to tyentieth centuries and
European art from &e fifteenth to eighteenth centuries (its collection has grown.
h m 5 5 5 works in 1950to p,ooo today),
and overseeing several smaller museums.
Now, We s h d look hl fXrn at &Xe
museums-museum
clusters, really,
since each is an umbrella structur+that
ratislavas double cdtural role as
Slovak capital and thiving ciqy in itsell.
%e SRoudk ~

at we c d familiarly the NMwas

founded in 1961though the merger of
two much older institutions. These were
the original S W , opened in h e town of
Mar& in 1893,and the Slovak Museum,
which s t e m e d in turn from h e Home-

Bratiskzva:from the Stone Age to computerization

245

Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Socialist

Republic, with its strategically sited castle
that houses historical and archaeological
exhibitions of the Slovak National
Museum.
1

Ancient jewels exhibit at Bratislava Castle

land Museum created in 1923 and the

Agricultural Museum set up in Bratislava
in 1924.With such a manifold parentage,
the Slovak National Museum could not
but have extremely varied activities,
rooted in no less than ten organizational
units, of which five are now briefly
presented.
The Archaeological Museum holds its
exhibitions in Bratislava Castle, and collections of 113,350 objects ranging from
primeval ages to the Moravian Empire
(ninth century A.D.). Of special interest is
the exhibit of jewels from old Slovakia,
covering more than 1,300 pieces
fashioned from gold and silver, but also
other scarce materials such as mammoth
tusks, ivory, crystal and amber.
The Historical Museum of the SNM
also exhibits at the castle (as well as at the
SNMs main building by the Danube)
and shows the development of material
and intellectual culture from the eleventh
century up to today, drawing on a collection of 200,861items. Close attention is
given to folk art, musical instruments and
the numismatic collection. This museum
was the first in Slovakia to use audiovisual and multimedia presentations.
With a collection 2 million strong, the
Museum of Natural History shows to
the public specimens in mineralogy, geology, palaeontology, botany, zoology
and anthropology from Czechoslovakia
and around the world.
The Museum of Development of
Social Consciousness, set up in 1978,is a

non-traditional museum unique in

Czechoslovakia. It strives to popularize
a scientific and materialist worldview,
and concentrates on educating from the
atheistic point of view by means both of
its artefacts and its visitor-tailored audiovisual technology.
Finally, the Museological Institute is a
scientific and research institution of the
Slovak National Museum that specializes
in the theoretical issues of museology,
trains museum staff and issues a number
of occasional and periodical publications,
not least among which is the quarterly
homonym (differently spelt) of the
magazine you are reading right now,
Mzeum.
In addition to the above-mentioned
specialized units, the SNM encourages a
number of different educational activities
including lectures, courses, excursions,
concerts and-not least important in an
area where potentially dangerous mushrooms are very popular-a Mushroom
Advice Bureau. The S N M itself also
issues numerous publications and maintains a library (of 67,I 56 volumes) that
carries out international exchanges
with more than 850 museums and allied
institutions in foreign countries. The
SNM is also developing multipurpose
co-operation with related institutions
in Czechoslovakia, other socialist
countries, and-thanks to ICOM, its
international technical committees and
Unesco-elsewhere.

The Slovak National Art Gallery located

in the eighteenth-centuryWater Barracks,
with an extension (foreground)from
the 1970s.

Alojz Habovjtiak

246

n e ~~~~~~~~~~5~~~

&Plleof th62 Very first mUSeumS hl ShVaha, the Municipal Museum of Bratislava
was created in 1868.Its first sokctiions
were housed in the Old Town Hall (built
bemeen 1326 and 1373and,though subsequently remodelled, is the oldest secular building in the city) and the Apponyi
Palace (a ~ Q C Q C Q building erected
in 1761/62). This, too, is a decentrabized
institution since most of its 85,000
objects are located in twelve speciabized
exhibitions throughdut the entire city,
m a d y in kstoricd buildings. %us, the
history of Bratislava until the eighteenth
century is covered in the Town H
a
l
l
(now being restored) as are records of
feudal justice, while &e story of wine and
wine merchants in Bratislava is told in the
nearby Apponyi Palace. A bit farther
afield is the exhibition on Bratislavas
applied arts at a rebuilt citizens house
near the castle, and the clock museum hl
mother old building At the ign of the
Good Shepherd, not to forget At the
Sign of the Red Crayfish, which has the
furniture and equipment of an early nineteenth-century apothecarys .hop.
Very popular among visitors is the
exhibition on weapons and t o m fooptifdcations at the Michael Tower. Then, too,
the classical composerJohann Nepomuk
H u m e l has a museum devoted to him
in his Old d b ~ h ga, does the hj?3r&ant
Slovak writer J d o Jesenskf (18741945). Fhe Ml-UliSipd Eddblebmaa also
manages, m o n g other activities, a Room
of Revolutionary Traditions, and, rec&g
resistance activity in the years
1941and 1942 when Bratislava was QCCUpied by the Nazis, the Iflegal House of
the S l ~ ~ a h Communist
an
Party. Complementing these Sontemporary concerns-and. yet one of &e Municipal
Museums newest exhibitions-is
the
antiquities exlibition at the
where are ~ h o ~remains
n
of Roman
buil&g from the first to fQUITh Sellmuries A. D.
Hn addition to other sites it oversees,
&e Municipal Museum manages Bevin
Castle, where archaeological research
continues, and puns a diversi&d educational programme that features attractive &bits and other topica events. Its
library holds 20,000 volmes, it issues a
yearbook, and has mounted exRibitions
in Finland, the German Democratic
Republic, atdy, POland and the Uh&im SSR.
v

Atthe Sigan of &e Good Shephed (anote

lamb), home of the Municipan Museums
clock exlhibiuiona.

The Bratisha City Art Galley Sports, etc. As far as the arts are conDrawing on earlier efforts, the BCAG
was formally created in 1968, when
Bratislava became capital of the Slovak
Socialist Republic. Its home, the mideighteenth-century Mirbach Palace, is
remarkably well suited for an art gallery.
Its collections cover European art (including seventeenth-century English
tapestries) and feature Gothic paintings
and sculpture, as well as Dutch, Flemish
and Italian masters. As part of its out,;reach efforts, the BCAG set in motion,
-in 1975,the Small Art Gallery at Slovnaft, Bratislavas largest industrial works.
There, permanent exhibitions are designed for the firms workers, including
discussions with artists and visits to their
studios. What distinguishes the BCAG is
its extraordinary activity in the field of
exhibitions, accompanied by a multicoloured palette of educational, cultural
and public-relations action. In addition,
this was the first museum in Czechoslovakia to computerize its collections, now
comprising some 30,000 works of art.
Since 1945,Bratislavas museum life has
surged forward remarkably from a quantitative; but more especially a qualitative,
point of view, with no precedent in the
history of Slovak museology. Naturally,
this development will continue. For the
years to come, we have on the drawing
board, in addition*to improving the
museums that already exist, a Museum of
the Revolutionary Workers Movement,
a Theatre Museum, a Business Museum,
a Museum of Physical Education and

cerned, there will be a Gallery of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design, and
a permanent collection of plaques and
medals at the Slovak National Art
Gallery.
For Bratislava, and for all of Slovakia,
a priority common task is now to work
out a central system of information on
the holdings of all museums, and to
introduce all staff concerned to a
computerized system of processing
museum holdings.
This being said, Bratislavas museums
are now receiving something like
900,000 visitors a year, which-by
the
law of averages-means the equivalent of
about two museum visits per year by
resident of the city. Compared with the
Louvre in Paris, where the figure is about
one resident-entry per year, we are not
dissatisfied. But we also know that much
remains to be done, so that Bratislava
may grow as a museum city.

Virgin and Child, in the permanent

exhibition of Gothic art at the Slovak
National Art Gallery (anonymousSlovak,
c. 1500).

Unesco Office of Public hfomation

'The theft of culeblral property has secret 'digs', a network has sprung up of Federation of Associations of h t i q u e
become a kind of epidemic and there are specialized'middle-men' highly skiued in Dealers), Unidroit (the International
few measures avdable to codront it. &sit art traffic and in crossing borders kwxiation for undying Standards in
The work of this Committee is leading with artefacts stolen from museums, C i d Law)? as well as the Council of
toward the beginnings sf a solution.' places of worship, libraries and xchae- Europe. The latter is presently studying
ways md means of preventing a new
%-mesewere the t e m s used by Professor ological sites.
H e n i Lopes, Unesco's Assistant flare-up of illegal art trafficking with the
Suat Sinagolu, President of the Turkish
National CQSTUIIission for Unesco, to DireStQr-Generd for CUhre and creation of a unified European market
sum up the present situation and perspec- 6 h " k a t i o n , stated in his opening begiI3l-ling in 1993.
+-five
states have ratified 01 adtives for action to bring culturd property remarks: 'Last October, the Thai police
back to its countries of origin or t~ pro- ended the activities of a gang which had h e r d to the Convention Concerning
vide recourse for restinaeion in the case of invested $~00,000 in an effort to c q Measures to Forbid or Prevent the
out the systematic pillage of L s t ~ ~ i c a lImport, EXPOIT O r TEUlfZOf Cdeblrd
illegal acquisition.
He was speaking to the sixth session sites difficult to safeguxd because of h e f a c t s adopted by Unesco in I
of the Intergovemmental Committee for their distance from major urban centres.' The United &gdom is not a party to
~ P Q S n O t k gthe Remm Of Cbnltburd PropHe noted that these practices '=e berter this Convention. However, one sf the
e r t y to its Countries of Origin or its and better organized, and take the f o m qUeS"iOll being aCtiQdyfobwed by the
Restitution Case of Ifisit- Appropri- of real profit-mahg enterprises. Indeed Corrunittee involves Greece's claim for
ation, which was held at Unesco Head- certain Q ~ S ~ I - We~sSt h a t e their profits as the return of the Papthenon Marbles prequarters from 24 to 29 April 1989.
comparable to those resulting from drug served in &e British Museum. The 1982
One of the cases studied by the traffichg'.
~ o d e r e n c eon ~ u l t u r d~ciliciesorganC o m i ~ e concerns
e
a clairn by Turkey
These remarks show the extent of the ized by Unesco, ITXQKImended she reconcerning the Geman Democratic problem that the Committee is dealing turn to Greece of these marble
Republic on the subject of more &an With. me reSQlTUllendatiQnfQlTllUhted artefacts. To this end, the Greek author7,000 cuneiform tablets recording the by it c ~ n c e mboth international co- ities are proposing to build a museum
accounts md corresp~ndenceof Hittite operation and the promotion of bilateral in Athens that meets the highest promerchants, as well as a sphinx from negotiations. The C o m ~ r t e egives im- fW&XXd lX?~UbXmentsto house these
the s m e civiliza~on.The tablets have portance to encouraging sound museum- relics, should h e y be returned. n e
already been remrned to Turkey and the conservation practices, to inyentories, to design for this %nueUmW d be studied by
German Democratic Republic has ~ Q Wrequiring certificates of provenance and the C Q K U T ~and
X by neutral experts
accepted the idea of sending a anission to exportation of d purchases involving who, having made a comparative study
h k a r a in order to examine the remain- artefacts of unclear origin as well as to of the ~ W Omuseums' consewation caing problem of the sphinx.
the sharing of a professional code estab- pacities, will be able to give rigorously
T h i s case is one example of she ways in lished by the hternationd CQUnd of researched advice.
which this C~mmitteehas explored lines Museums and informing she public at
of action since it was created by Unesco. large-all fastors which can at least slow
The Committee taabes steps to promote down the &sit traffis in artnegotiations between counties that representatives of countries that are not
tee,
hprt and those that export works of members of the C ~ ~ ~ ~ - d tseveral
art. This is no easy task. Between private inter-governmental md non-governor public ~ ~ l l e ~ t ooften
r s , very rich, and mental organizations participated in this
goor communities who sell the f i t s of work: ICOM, Interpol, CINOA (&e

Spam and presided over by His

Excellency the Duke of Soria and will
open in Crdoba, Spain, on
2 April 1990 under the general theme:
The Museum as a Focus for the
Community. The Role of the Friends of
Museums.
I. Upduting the museums imuge in
the 1980s
The reasons for its phenomenal growth?
Twilight or rebirth?
Its roles in the city and in contemporary
culture.

The museum: focus for the

community through its urchitecture
A fleeting phenomenon?
Relations between the museum and the
city.
Autonomy over space and exhibition
contraints: how to reconcile them?
Analysis of recent experiences.
2.

3. The museum: focus for the

community through its uctivities
What will museums future functions
be?

--

How to reconcile conservation and

cultural exhibits? How flexible is the
museums control?
Which criteria for museum activities:
the transitory or eternal?

4. New chullengesfor the Friends of

Museums
Which challenges for the future?
The Museum Friends Associations
were created through the efforts
undertaken by social groups within a
structured context. What future targets
must they now set themselves?
Initiatives corresponding to these
targets? Which ones?
Friends of Museums autonomy or
complementary participation towards
public institutions?
Which direction should be given to their
relationship?
The World Federation of Friends of
Museums will be happy to welcome to
its Seventh Congress all those museum
professionals who are interested in the
museums role in the society and the
active part that the Friends of Museums
can take with a view to benefiting from
their active participation during this
meeting.

Architecture und exhibitions:

new settings for new urt
(Extractsfrom an interview)

In what follows Harald Szeemann gives

the World Federation of Friends of
Museums the benefit of his thoughts as
an organizer of contemporary art exhibitions. Harald Szeemann could almost
be called a veteran among organizers of
exhibitions; his first dates back to 1957.
Director of the Berne Kunsthalle
from 1961 to 1969, he organized Dommenta 5 (1972) and such thematic shows
as Les muchines clibutuires and La qute

de luvre totule. Since 198I he has been

an independent consultant with the
Zurich Kunsthaus and an organizer of
contemporary art exhibitions in various
European cities. In 1969 he organized
Quund les uttitudes deviennent forme,
which marked the beginning of a new
aesthetics of display and presentation
holding a special interest for museum
architecture.

galleries were built-new

art always
needs new settings. The Kmsthalle in
Baden-Baden or in Berne, for instance,
are galleries on a very human scale where
still today the latest works can be given
the necessary breathing space. Up to
now, I have considered them to be ideal
galleries.
In witzerland, after the First UVorld
War, artists rebelled because they felt
neglected by museums. They wanted
their own exhibition space, their Kmsthalle, and in this they were harking back
to an old tradition consisting in the formation of associations of artists. In
Zurich this tradition is more than
200 years old, though the museum in that
city dates back to only 1906.
It was artists who proposed new
~ d ~of display.
d s If you b o k at photos
of exhibitions of the Sezession movement
inVienna around 1900,you see that most
of the time they were group shows in
which particular attention was paid to the
hdividud. They were SO designed as to
place the work of artists like H ~ d e or
r
Munsh in the limelight. But as for the
others, the conditions were &ose described by Baudelaire in the Salons where,
in order to discover %9dacro$, the genius
of Romanticism, which he did with
great dficulty, he had to be guided by
the intensity of his paintings, jumbled
together with thousands of other works.
Let us consider over a period of
IOO years the changes ushered in by the
mOUnting Of ~&bitionS, the budding of
galleries, the b u i l h g of museums. n e s e
changes went hand, in hand with the
emergence of a nev society. Much of the
energy that had previously gone into the
building of castles and churches was now
directed towards the construction of
t o m hds, the laying out of landscape
gardens, the organizing of intemational
exhibitions (seven in the nineteenth century) calling for c~nstl-blctbnwork on.a
large scale, and SO on.
confimation of what Sedmayr always
claimed, namely, &at when the centre of

One

LIUlinS

ui

i r l i r l ~ ~b l C
~ X~nil D~ l U O n KI

Warsaw (we h o w how he hung his icons

and his etchings because there are photos), it becomes clear that it was the
artists who broke away from the traditional method of displaying works.
They were no longer interested in placing
t h e k works along the same old horizontal line. In insisting on how their art was
to be presented they sought to make it
carry the greatest possible message. The
most advanced organizers of exhibitions
have learnt from them.
After the Second World War, a new
figure appeared on h e scene whose role,
which had pre~i~usly
been performed by
museum curators, was to display works
of art. The mounting of exhibitions has
become a full-time occupation. It is no
longer possible both to collect works and
to put them on show. There are
museums today where this formula still
applies, such as the Pompidou Centre,
opened in 1977 but aestheticably still a
pI?X&Kt of the 1960s. Fhe POmpidOU
Centre most closely resembles a somprehensive cultural c e n t r e t h e idea
long cherished by Malraux, of culmal
centres, maisons de la culture, accommodating a library and serving as a
showcase for architecture, design, music
as well as art and exhibitions.
WFFM: Does a factory-like appearance draw people to a museum?
M.S.:I would certainly say SO, for the
Pompidou Centre. The view over Paris
and the escalators make it look like a
p~-oductionplant. It has become a landmark. Its a bit like the Eiffel Tower,
with different things inside it. The Eifel
Tower is a builders blueprint and a
stmcture offering a panoramic view over
the city; the Pompidou Centre is a factory and as such it contrasts sharply with
the rest, and particularly with the Marais
district where it is located. If you dont
want to look at a picture YOU can go up to
the top and a h i r e the acre-Coeur
church atop distant Monmartre. All
French s ~ h ~ o l ~ l d dvisit
r e nit, just as they

Ditions. Durmg the 1950s~ when an

attempt was made to exhibit contemporary art, only a very limited number of
people showed any interest. The refrain
then was : How nice it would be to have
at least as many visitors to museums as
to f Q O t b d g~ounds.well, hl the 1970s
this objective was largely surpassed. Previously, part of the public was frightened
to go to museums or only went out of
duty or obligation. This f e e h g had to be
overcome. But there are also the statistics: 94 per cent of pe~plestill go to see
a particular exhibition because they have
heard about it, leaving ~ d 6yper cent-a
small rninority-with a genuine response
to art.

During &e 1960s many factors

came into play that help to explain this
~henQITEnQn.
For instance, f i h s s t ~ e d
being made of the lives of artists. Kirk
Douglas played the part of Van Gogh
and hehony Q u h was cast in the role
of Gauguin, just as Girard .Nilippe had
played Modigliani in Les Montparnos.
Though seeing actors painting, the
public became acquainted with certain
pictures. This acsounts for the increase
in the number of visitors. It was only
logical.
H also t h k theres another explanation. h increasing number of people
Want to eXperience a d f0lTl.l their CUblltlXe
for themselves, to take in at their own
pace what is offered to them, and spend
their own time as they like, loolsing at
something. Even t h ~ ~ gmuseums
h
are
Clitist in themselves, the form of presentation may be very free. YQUdont have
EO remain seated for three hours as in a
theatre, or watch for twice forty-five
minutes two teams trying to score a goal.
Ehbitions have also become for a brief
moment a h d of heaven on earth where
people can follow their fancy, stroll
around and talk. I[ remember &at in &e
1960s people used to Whisper h
museums; now they actually dare to talk.
There was a great breakthrough
in 1968, in the f ~ m
of what was known

Architecture ar
-1
as le muse

museum, w h
departure frorr
museum, and which came about because
a growing number of young curators
began working directly with artists.
Dont forget that in the nineteenth century there were six art movements and
that now there are more than forty. We
should also bear in mind the rapid pace of
change, the example being set for us here
by the United States where each autumn
there had to be something new. As a
result, curators were led to see huge
numbers of artists, discuss exhibitions
with them and visit their studios.
At the end of the 1960s~you might say
after kinetic art and abstract expressionism, a revolutionary new form of art
made its appearance which consisted of
gestures that could be confused with the
gestures of everyday life. The museum
then became a place that served to justify
the gesture of the artist as a work of art,
whereas outside in the street it ceased to
be art. That was perhaps the crowning
moment in the life of the museum as an
institution. Sanctified by the institution,
gestures became artistic. It was also the
most dramatic moment for us, the organizers. We were criticized, for instance,
for letting Beuys bring grease into the
exhibition rooms; it wasnt Beuys who
was criticized-he was the artist-but we
who allowed him to do it. But at the same
time we had the most amazing experiences. I have always said that in the final
analysis art, the Utopia of art, consists in
changing the sense of property, in introducing into materialism a Utopian side
which very gradually alters thinking.
That which is useless then becomes extremely useful in arousing the imagination. And in my case, as the director of
a Kunsthalle, with a public monument
at my disposal, I felt that it was my educational task to use a public facility to
arouse the individual imagination. Such
was the anarchistic idea to which one
subscribed at the time.
Its a wonderful fact that art dos not
relate to an immediate goal. It is there,
perhaps, that its basic political value lies,
but also its fragility in a consumer society
where, side by side with mass-produced
articles and mechanized forms of work,
there exist lone individuals who are bent
on engaging in fragile pursuits. And for
that there is a place, the museum, the
Kunsthalle. This aspect of art-apolitical
where the immediate future is concerned,
but highly political in the long runcreated a kind of tacit agreement, and I
-

Walk that are walk and

spacious spuces: the museum as
a neutral setting
WFFM: Are architects unmindful of the
things that go into their buildings?
H.S.: When the public authorities
handed out money for the building of all
these museums they were guided more
by general cultural considerations than
by artistic ones. They were prompted by
a desire to establish a kind of starstudded opera, the stars being the architects. Those architects never gave any
thought to art, only to what they were
building and how it was to be built. Thus
the Pompidou Centre designed by
Rogers and Piano, Gae Aulentis Muse
dOrsay, Stirlings work on the Stuttgart
Museum and Holleins in Mnchengladbach, and somewhat more modestly the
Ludwig Museum in Cologne and Louis
Kahns work in Fort Worth, all reveal a
style of architecture that does not draw
inspiration from history in an effort to
serve the works on display, but imposes
its own style on that fragile thing we call
art. It all began with Frank Lloyd Wright
(though Frank Lloyd Wright is wonderful for Calder). As a building, I find his
Guggenheim Museum extraordinary,
but for showing other forms of art, its
awful. In the hands of these architects,
museums ceased to provide what might
be called a neutral setting.
In my view, the ideal museum always
means very high walls, toplighting and
neutral flooring-in such a context you
can do anything! Its also less expensive
because you dont need an architect. I am
basically opposed to all these star architects in the world of museums.
Compare the old Jeu de Paume in
Paris, the way the paintings were hung
and presented (even if it wasnt ideal, it
was a place that had rooms, which had
walls), with the Muse dOrsay and its
grand-opera-style entrance. For instance, Rousseaus War is completely lost
in these surroundings; Rouen Cathedral,
abandoned on a wall in the middle
of a room, has taken on a completely
different meaning; masterpieces are hung
up just anywhere, because what is important is the work of the architect. I
think its a pity.
When I go into a museum, I like to see
how the exhibits are arranged. The major
requirement is that they should be able to

ment that are the expression of one

unique individual, the artist. For my part,
I am increasingly in favour of freedom
of space inside the museum, of walls that
are really walls and spaces that are really
spacious. A museum should be a container for the works, not the works illustrations of an architectural idea.
At the end of the 1970s another revolution occurred in which far greater
sensitivity started being shown towards
materials. The major sculptors of the
present, Carl Andr and Serra, have done
away with the plinth, breaking with the
ideology of the monument, which has
nothing to do with sculpture but is just a
convention; hence the demand for neutral flooring.
It seems to me that the time has come
to display a work of art in such a way that
it appears to its best advantage, to give it
again an aura, a radiance, which would
be different from that which it had when
shown simply as part of a collection. One
of the ideals that gets overlooked with the
fantastic rise in prices is that a work of art
is not to be measured in cash terms; there
is something in it to which no commercial value can be assigned.
WFFM: What do you think about the
staging of exhibitions outside the
museum context?
H.S.: Artists today are very keen on
retrospectives, and so a large number of
them are held. But it sometimes happens
that they are staged in vast spaces never
used before for exhibiting works of art.
This was the case with the exhibition held
in Venice in the old Zattere salt warehouses, in 1975,for Les machines clibataires. Recently, in Vienna, in the stables
of the Empress Maria Theresa, a sculpture
exhibition was held in a huge undivided
area. I myself am currently organizing an
event in the old Hamburg flower market
and, for the third time, an exhibition in
the chapel of the Salptrire in Paris. All
these new situations offer artists an
opportunity to exhibit their works in
spatial configurations differing from
those represented by museums, which
always remain the same. I also feel an
increasing desire for my exhibitions to be
experienced as absolutely unique events,
with their own poetry, so that the visitor
will no longer feel like asking, for
example, how much it costs. I called the
last exhibition I staged (in a Berlin railway station), Outside time.
Pranskzted from French]

TQChtenalXlIl

.,

Architect, graduated from the Faculor of Architecture at the University of Stuttgart; since 1969 has
worked with Unescos programme on human
settlements. Has published various articles on traditional dwellings and earth architecture.

Museums evolution around the world is

astonishing. One could hardy point to
an architectural subject that has inspired,
as much as museums have, the best
contemporary architects, not to forget
the builders since architecture of high
quality is unquestionably the result of a
happy marriage between a client who
h o w s what he wants and a talented desiper.
Competitions, finiShed projects and
publications f ~ l l o wone another at a
steady pace, and continually growing
collections require new spaces and new
insedations both to shelter them and to
present them to an audience increasingly
entballed by works of art, crafts?history
or technical objects.
The relevant invesments are also
rerriarkable: countries, p ~ ~ v i n c eand
s
municipalities spare no expense in endowing themselves with prestigious
monuments for prestigious collections.
The first phrases of James Stirlings
opening remarks on the occasion of the
inauguration of the Staatsgderie in Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Gemany, in
1983 may be read with interest in this
CQDteXt:

I wodd like to think that our work is not

simple and that, within the design of a building, for every act there is a counter-act. We
hope that the Staatsgalerie is monmental,
because that is a tradition for public buildings,
but we &CI hope that it is infomal and populist.. .

no longer the dusty temple of aa^t

frequented by a few foflo~erscome to
contemplate with religious fewour the
masterworks created by human genius.
Today, and we should be glad of the
change, museums have become open and
transparent spaces, meeting places which
are welcoming and equipped with all
means, including audio-visual means, of
putting visitors at ease and enabling them
to encounter known 01 anonyn~ouscreators and the products of their creation.
m
S is

h many cases, the museum itself has

become a work of art visited for its opm
mistic qualities and it is not surprising
thatJames Stirlingwanted his museum in
Stuttgart, at the beginning, to be open to
visitors for a few wicks before the works
of art were installed in it. It even happens
that a museum competes with the works
it houses: the contaiaaer dialogues with
the contents, and, to be frank, some
museums quality suTasses the interest
aroused by their collections.
It may, however, be asked whether
this extraordinary passion for C Q ~ S ~ I - V ing, preserving, d~cumentingand archiving the past down to its minutest details
does not also have a worrying side, does
not reflect a not entirely healthy concern
to lanow and analyse our past to the
detriment of the present and of contemporary creation. It is difficult to find even
a few exanaples of new S C ~ O O ~ofS art or
crafts CPTindustrial design. h a t have received attention from the relevant authorities on a par with that accorded to
museums.
Impressive investments for documenting and underscoring our cultural identity (and that of others), for preserving an
assured and reassuring heritage are made,
but only meagre funds are appropriated
for teasing the arts and allied disciplines.
This, undomnately, is the way things
stand in a large number of countries.
h d there is another aspect of the
question. When speaking of cdture, the
usual distinction bemeen industrialized
and developing countries must not be
t

made. Many countries that today face

ovemhehing eco~~omic
difficulties have
cmributed in a highly significant manner to the culture of the hulman race. Yet
vev few developing countraes bdeea
have been able to create the s t m c ~ r e s
arad museums required for the adequate
pITentatkU3 Of &e SWXle~branSeOf
their prestigious past. But do we really
always need highly soplmisticated ma- chinery, &ese temples of marble and
glass that museums have become, to
e n c o ~ ~ ~our
t e gpast? Could we not find ,
O & U me2ll, rooted hlocal hOW-hQW,
that ~ ~ ubel dsuggested for building museums in countries that c m o t or do not
wish to encumber themselves with
monuments? Do here not exist centuries-old architectural traditions using
local materials md ingenious techiques
for their expression?
To my howledge, only two museums
exist that were b d t with local materials
(raw earth, in the event): the National
Museum of Mali, at Bam&o, and the
Historical Libray of the Fine Arts
Museum at Santa Fe, New Me%lco,
United States.
I am not suggesting &at we go traditional for traditions sake alone, or
that we say to the kss-well-~ffcountries
that they should build out of e s t h 01
bamboo, while steel, glass and marble
would be the presewe of the wealthy.
What I do suggest is that every tradition
is part of cultural heritageand that
holds equably tme for the object exhibited and the structure in which it is
housed.

[aranshdted from French;

Coming up..

The next number of Museum ir an

invitation to explore two themes that are
not daily fare for most museum people
around the world: Museum Issues in the
South Pacific and Museums, Literacy
and Literacy Work.
1990 is International Literacy Year and
several reports show how museums have

been celebrating the origins,

development and uses of the written
word. Questions are also asked:
Can rock art be considered
?re-literate documentation'? If so,
should it continue to be classed as 'prehistoric'?
Where did movable t p e first appear?
H o w can museums best show and
explain such vast social movements as
mass adult literacy campaigns and the

universalization of primary education

for children? (Responses are offered fi
Cuba, France, Nicaragua and Kazak
stan.)
Happy reading!
P.S. Does your museum h a v e - o r do
you know a museum that has-a spo.
team?An article about it could help e
ven a number on 'Museums and Spor
that w e plan to publish on the occasio,
of the next Olympic Games.

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UNESCO BOOti COUPONS can bu used to purchase all b(
and pcriodids of an educational, scientific or culrural chmcter.
full informition plezse write to: Unesco Coupon Office, 7 pl3c
Fontenoy, 757w Pans (France).