Museums have always been more than simply places of careful preservation and interpretation. They are also places where the encounter of visitors and objects, and stories, are staged visually and spatially.
For the issue 'OASE #111 Staging the Museum' OASE is seeking contributions that examine aspects of the architectural staging of museum visits and museum activity. In this way, the issue aims to break away from the recent critical discussion on museum architecture, which has focused mainly on the architecture of exhibition spaces, or on the urban role of iconic museum buildings. They are interested in focused discussions of relevant contemporary or historical museum buildings, renovations and furnishings, as well as discussions of ideas, general developments and exceptions.
They develop questions such as:
- How exactly does architecture stage visits to museums?
Is it a matter of architectural motifs and symbolic thresholds, of routing and sequence, of distributions of functions, of furnishing and refurbishment, of character and atmosphere?
- How does the ‘museum décor’ outside the galleries interact with the changing curatorial and scenographic displays inside the galleries?
Does the acceleration of alternating presentations just make the design of fixed stairs, lobbies, corridors, bars and belvederes outdated, or all the more important?
- Can the museum also be cleared of staging?
Do visible depots and other examples of ‘exposure’ of backstage activities disrupt the staged museum, or are they just an extension of it? And what is the importance of the aesthetics and rhetoric of gutted, ‘stripped down’ museum buildings in this regard?
10.01.2021