MEMORY AND INNOVATION IN THE ART MUSEUM
The origin of this work comes from the consecutive, and sometimes simultaneous, designs related to arts exhibition and preservation buildings. Five museums among them, from 1978 and during the following 20 years, constituted the scene of my professional activity as an architect and as a teacher.
The designs for all those five museums which are the origin of this work start from prior constructions. There we can notice the capability to come up to the new requirements in former museum types and the ability to become compatible with the art museum demands in other previous typologies. These questions concerned to the intervention (which was an extension in some cases) criteria for every one of them, taking into account their own singularity.
Their common destination, that is to become places for exhibition, study and preservation for art works, lead into the knowledge of the art museum issue: its origin and raison d'être, their purpose, the how and why of the exhibition spaces which, since 16th century, is providing us the history of architectural configurations until nowadays, meeting with the current demands of the new art museum program which was stated in the past 70’s.
In addition to this there’s another element of unquestionable importance: the specific role that is played by the museum as a building in the city definition.
From the study of some of the many museums built in the latest 35 years we can conclude that although the 18th century museum idea has been exceeded in the cultural view, on the planning matter new museums bring up the needing for articulated typologies, clearly recognized, obtained from changing the traditional museum plans in order to respond to the new demands requested.
With this work is to prove the validity of the historic exhibition places (memory) together with the approval of the new planning strategies (innovation), which is the main work hypothesis.
For its development it works on the principle that a critical judgment is needed for approaching the raised questions, also history is needed as a support for our experience and the sharing of what’s understood as architectural planning, which is the subject of the first section of the research.
Manuel Portaceli Roig
Doctorate in Architecture