Museum architecture
Encyclopedia
A challenge for museum architecture is the differing purposes of the building. The museum collection must be preserved, but it also needs to be made accessible to the public. Climate control may be very important for the objects in the collection.
History
An early example of architecture for a purpose-built museum is the Museum of the History of Science building in OxfordOxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, originally built to house the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
in New York City, USA (opened in 1959), by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
is an important architectural landmark and icon of the 20th century. Another classic 20th century example of iconic museum architecture is the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, built by Ferrovial, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast. The...
in Spain by Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
(opened in 1997). Gehry has undertaken many major museum architecture projects, including the Experience Music Project
Experience Music Project
The EMP Museum is a museum dedicated to the history and exploration of both popular music and science fiction located in Seattle, Washington...
in Seattle, USA, the Weisman Art Museum
Weisman Art Museum
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum located on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. A teaching museum for the university since 1934, the museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, and was designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry...
in Minneapolis, USA, the Vitra Design Museum
Vitra Design Museum
The Vitra Design Museum is an internationally renowned, privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany.Vitra CEO Rolf Fehlbaum founded the museum in 1989 as an independent private foundation...
and MARTa Museum in Germany, and the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
in Toronto, Canada.
Successful examples of modern architecture being married with existing museum buildings include the Louvre Pyramid
Louvre Pyramid
The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum...
by I. M. Pei
I. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei , commonly known as I. M. Pei, is a Chinese American architect, often called a master of modern architecture. Born in Canton, China and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the gardens at Suzhou...
in Paris, France (1989), and more recently the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court
Queen Elizabeth II Great Court
The central quadrangle of the British Museum in London was redeveloped to a design by Foster and Partners, from a 1970s design by Colin St John Wilson, to become the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, commonly referred to simply as the Great Court, during the late 1990s...
by Norman Foster
Norman Foster
Norman Foster or Norm Foster may refer to:* Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank , English architect and designer* Norman Foster * Norman Foster , U.S...
at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, London, England (2000).
David Chipperfield
David Chipperfield
Sir David Alan Chipperfield CBE, RA, RDI, RIBA is a British architect, born in London. He has offices in London, Berlin and Milan, and a representative office in Shanghai...
designed many notable museums, including the award-winning River and Rowing Museum
River and Rowing Museum
The River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, is located on a site at Mill Meadows by the River Thames. It has three main themes represented by major permanent galleries, the non-tidal River Thames, the international sport of rowing and the local town of...
in Henley-on-Thames, England, in 1997. This won in 1999 the RIBA
Riba
Riba means one of the senses of "usury" . Riba is forbidden in Islamic economic jurisprudence fiqh and considered as a major sin...
Architecture in Arts and Leisure Award and the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust/British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
Best Building Award (England). Further museum architecture projects by Chipperfield include the Figge Art Museum
Figge Art Museum
The Figge Art Museum is an art museum in Davenport, Iowa. The Figge, as it is commonly known, has an encyclopedic collection and serves as the major art museum for the eastern Iowa and western Illinois region...
in Davenport, Iowa, USA (2005), the Museum of Modern Literature
Museum of Modern Literature
The Museum of Modern Literature or LiMo is part of the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar, Germany...
in Marbach, Germany (2006), and the reconstructed Neues Museum
Neues Museum
The ' is a museum in Berlin, Germany, located to the north of the Altes Museum on Museum Island.It was built between 1843 and 1855 according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The museum was closed at the beginning of World War II in 1939, and was heavily...
in Berlin, Germany (2009).
Museum architecture sometimes involves the conversion
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
of old buildings that have outlived their usefulness but that are still of historic interest. A notable example is the conversion of the Bankside Power Station
Bankside Power Station
Bankside Power Station is a former oil-fired power station, located on the south bank of the River Thames, in the Bankside district of London. It generated electricity from 1952 to 1981. Since 2000 the station's building has been used to house the Tate Modern art museum.-History:The station was...
designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Giles Gilbert Scott
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, OM, FRIBA was an English architect known for his work on such buildings as Liverpool Cathedral and Battersea Power Station and designing the iconic red telephone box....
into the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
in 2000, based on design by Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, BSA/SIA/ETH is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog , and Pierre de Meuron , closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of...
. Information about the conversion was the basis for a 2008 documentary Architects Herzog and de Meuron: Alchemy of Building & Tate Modern.
Finegold Alexander + Associates Inc
Finegold Alexander + Associates Inc
Finegold Alexander + Associates Inc is an architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. It was established in 1962. Previous firm names include J. Timothy Anderson and Associates, Anderson Notter Associates, Anderson Notter Finegold, Inc., and Notter Finegold + Alexander Inc.The firm is...
, an architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, established in 1962, has undertaken museum architecture projects including Ellis Island National Monument and Museum
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
(Associated Architects with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
(Associated Architects with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners).
Architects
As well as the architects mentioned above, other architects notable for their contributions to museum architecture include:- Philip FreelonPhilip FreelonPhilip Freelon , a native of Philadelphia, USA is an African American architect. He is best known as the co-designer of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Some of his other projects include the Center for Civil & Human Rights, the Reginald F...
(Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and CultureNational Museum of African American History and CultureThe National Museum of African American History and Culture is a Smithsonian Institution museum established in 2003. It will be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. In 2006, the Smithsonian's Board of Regents selected a site near the grounds of the Washington Monument and the...
, 2003, USA; the Museum of the African DiasporaMuseum of the African DiasporaThe Museum of the African Diaspora is a new museum in San Francisco, California, USA, dedicated to the diasporan histories of people of African origin and their influence and adaptation throughout the world....
, 2005, USA) - Leonard JacobsonLeonard JacobsonLeonard Jacobson FAIA was an America museum architect. He worked with I. M. Pei on some of the major museum projects in the 20th century....
(East Building of the National Gallery of ArtNational Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, 1978, USA; West Wing of the Museum of Fine ArtsMuseum of Fine Arts, BostonThe Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
, Boston, Massachusetts, 1981, USA; Portland Museum of ArtPortland Museum of ArtThe Portland Museum of Art is an art museum in Portland, Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882, it is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District, and is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S...
, Portland, MainePortland, MainePortland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
, 1982, USA; the LouvreLouvreThe Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, 1980s/90s, Paris, France) - Kengo KumaKengo Kumais a Japanese architect.- Biography :Kuma was born in Kanagawa, Japan, and attended Eiko Gakuen junior and senior high schools. After completing a major in architecture at the University of Tokyo in 1979, he worked for a time at Nihon Sekkei and TODA Corporation. He then moved to New York for...
(Kitakami Canal Museum, TokyoTokyo, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, 1994, Japan; Suntory Museum of Art, 2007, Japan; V&A at Dundee, DundeeDundeeDundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
, 2010, ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
) - Akira KuryuAkira Kuryuis a Japanese architect known for designing many museums in Japan. Compared with his contemporaries, Kuryu started his career later than other famous Japanese architects....
(Uemura Naomi Memorial Museum, 1994, Japan; Okazaki Mindscape Museum, 1996, Japan) - Katayama TōkumaKatayama Tōkumawas a Japanese architect who designed the original buildings for the Imperial Nara Museum as well as the Kyoto Imperial Museum and was significant in introducing Western, particularly French architecture into Japan....
(Nara National MuseumNara National MuseumThe is one of the pre-eminent national art museums in Japan.-Introduction:The Nara National Museum is located in Nara, which was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784. Katayama Tōkuma designed the original building, which is a representative Western-style building of the Meiji period and has been...
, 1894, Japan; Kyoto Imperial Museum, 1895, now the Kyoto National MuseumKyoto National MuseumThe is one of the three formerly imperially-mandated art museums in Japan. The museum is located in Higashiyama Ward in Kyoto. The collections of the Kyoto National Museum focus on pre-modern Japanese and Asian art....
, Japan) - Stanton WilliamsStanton WilliamsStanton Williams is an English architectural and design practice based in Islington, London.Established in 1985 by Alan Stanton and Paul Williams, the studio now has a team of over 50 people with five directors and six associates. Paul Williams is the first design-trained architect to be registered...
(Grand Musée d'Art, 2011, NantesNantesNantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
, France) - Mei Ping WuMei Ping WuMei Ping Wu was chief architect, designer, and founder of the Silk Route Museum, a museum in China.Wu studied architecture at university in China and then worked in the architecture field on buildings in Northwestern China. She has also been President of the YaSheng Group, based in the Bay Area,...
(Silk Route MuseumSilk Route MuseumThe Silk Route Museum is located in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, China along the Silk Road, which connected Rome to China and was used by Marco Polo. It is built over the tomb of the Xiliang King in Gansu Province....
, 2009, ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
)