Museum of London: entrance

The series of entrances allows to analyse the concept of welcoming in a museum.  The architecture should alays offer a reception area where visitors can find their way to the museum, the start of the visit, but also the area should offer a concentration of all the information about the museum, and the meeting point for public.

The Museum of London reception area is clear right from the entrance and display signals to locate the information, also serves as the meeting point for groups to gather before the start of group visits, opens to a small shop and cafeteria, and has a seating area where you can re-organize yourself before or after the visit!

What is singular to many museums in tee later decades is their impulse in decorate the entrances with contemporary design furniture or even create bespoke pieces for these areas with different functions.  All in all the reception area should always be a representation of the mission statement of the museum.

MET's McQueen exhibit by Bill Cunningham

Since it is the talk of the weeks in NY, I would like to recommend the weekly slideshow by Bill Cunningham in The New York Times.  It is not only interesting for the comments on the show and the work of McQeen, but also for some insights of mediatic exhibitions attracting visitors beyond the average museum public.  I believe that would be a good topic for consideration and reflection.

The excitement of the exhibition “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” has spilled out onto the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with visitors dressing to the nines to view it.

"from the steps of MET ..... to be seeing from steps f the MET .... it's not the usual crowd of museumgoers .... is terrific the show itself and the show on the steps .... a magnet for visitors ..... 

And that is my point: Are these exhibits helping to open museums to new audiences, publics that that being "hooked" by the call of well known and trendy names, in the end become recurrent visitors that discover of a whole new world of "entertainment"?  There is always a first step to be taken!

still image from video by B.Cunningham, NYtimes website

(p.s.: the video cannot be embedded)

The personal touch in information

The post should read: Engaging your audience before twitter.

As you can see by the sign/painted label in the wall this an image from some time ago.  But it illustrates very well my reflection for the weekend: there are many ways to spread the word, engage and have the audience participating with/in your museum than using technologies.  Sure, it is true that to read the sign here, the public must already be there walking the museum.  But if museums show their "backstage" while they are re-organising and explain their work, surely audiences would feel more connected to the mission of the museum and the visits can turn into a recurrent ones, which in the end should be one of most important goals of any museum. 

It is not agains technologies, it is working in cooperation with, not forgetting the personal touch!

Some reports on "Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty" exhibit at MET, NYC

It might be a very obvious post, but the display seems to be the "word" these days, with a lot of contribution from Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute MET and factotum of this show.  Here is a good article on the exhibt by a great publication Fashion Projects.

image via www.alexandermcqueen.com

Images from the MET web are here and a good amount of videos from same museum and here from Mcqueen's web.  Lots of materials to watch and conclusions to come up with.