London's walkabouts and museums

Yesterday was a day of preparation for the MuseumNext Conference and what better way to do it than a journey to some museums.  I had on my agenda a visit (a quick one this time) to the V&A to check on the new exhibit about Grace Kelly; a visit to, the reopened last year, Whitechapel Art Gallery and two more.  But the streets of London in a warm but grey day, kept me busy with taking photos capturing the life of the city.
And I could not make it to the Whitechapel (what happens there? This is the second time I try and cannot visit it!) it was closed for a private event all day long.

Here is an image from the V&A's Reception desk with lanes organizing queues for buying tickets for temporary exhibits, such as the Grace Kelly: Style icon.

But now I need to get ready for the event, it is promising interesting.

MuseumNext Conference 30th April, 2010 - London

I will be attending the MuseumNext Conference in London next Friday April, 30th.

It's about:  where museums, technology and audiences meet. How are they using technology to keep up with audience expectations? How are they using the web to build deeper relationships? How are they using technology to meet their wider objectives?

It sounds very interesting and appropriate, since we are all inmerse in the "web 2.0 revolution", and museums should not be an exception.  Comments will be  posted here after the event.

Opening of the Pompidou-Metz

More information information about the next opening of the new Centre Pompidou-Metz in the New York Times and the museum's website information on the festivities for the week of the opening with th motto of

Five days of discovery.

This new center could be considered another example of the use of the formula "build a huge or famous - well known museum" to attract economic development for a region. In few days the new institution will be unveiled. But the success in the endevour for the  Metz Metropolitan are and the Grande Région will need more time to prove it right.

Another subject for discussion will be the calendar of the permanent exhibition the center has designed: Not own collection on permanent show and every two years a complete different display of / and objects chosen, therefore, we assume, content; but it is confirmed there will be a calendar of temporary exhibits. Let's just waint until the curtain raises, in the meantime let's enjoy the architecture of a fascinating Shigeru Ban.

Technologies - Variations of a theme

Socializing without techonologies,

Learning and socializing

Ancient social networking

Centre Pompidou -Metz next opening

The Centre Pompidou is opening a new museum in the city of Metz, France, in the month of May 2010.  Architect for the building is Shigeru Ban from Japan with associate Jean de Gastines.Website is offering most recent information and news about the celebration of the opening in the "Actualites" section:

Pour celebrer son ouverture, Le Centre Pompidou-Metz invite le public a participer aux "Journées inaugurale" due mercredi 12 au dimanche 16 mai 2010. pendant cinq jours de portes ouvertes, les visiteurs peuvent ainsi découvrir gratuitement l'architecture spectaculaire du bâtiment et son invités à visiter l'exposition inaugurale, Chfs-d'oevre?

Link for more information on the opening and events for celebration of  “Chefs-d’œuvre ?”, the inaugural exhibition of the Centre Pompidou-Metz will embrace every part of the new Centre.
Centre Pompidou Metz, France

Cherry Blossoms in archival Japanese images

SIRIS: A Vision of Cherry Blossoms

A beautiful and nostalgic image of a yearly tradition when the spring brings all the colors to end the cold, cold winter. Enjoy it with SIRIS archives!

The Fall of Content: producing blog's content

The Fall of Content, by Drew Hawkings via Social Media Today

.......

"When creating content, whether it's your blog or Twitter or some other platform, you should ask yourself: are you posting something that you are genuinely passionate about? Or are you just trying to drive traffic at the expense of your reader?"

What would be your answer?

Curiosities: shows under construction

I always like to have a chance to sneak around the museum's rooms and try to check on how each one deals with mounting the exhibits are created in every museum.  Sometimes there is luck and I can take some photos with permission, of course, that helps me have a better idea of how "that" museum is coping with working on the process of exhibition development while the rest of the space is still on show.  Here are a couple of recent examples, 

Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren (Belgium)

SMAK Center, Gent (Belgium)

Coincidences?

Museum cabinets or window-displays?

A Second Example

New museum in Qatar presented in NY by French architect Jean Nouvel

National Museum of Qatar via  The Attic: Desert rose to bloom in Qatar

from: www.worldarchitecturenews.com  

Jean Nouvel presents designs for new museum - With a design inspired by the form of the desert rose, Jean Nouvel presented his plans Wednesday at MoMA in New York City for the new National Museum in Qatar. .... The museum is a modern-day caravanserai, which is the traditional enclosed resting place that supported the flow of commerce, information and people across desert trade route, Nouvel said in a statement.  ..... “From here you leave the desert behind, returning with treasured images that remain engraved on your memory,” he said.  “The National Museum of Qatar will become the voice of a culture, delivering a message of modernity, metamorphosis and the beauty that happens when the desert meets the sea.”

workshops in a museum to learn and increase participation

Fashion and Textile Museum, London  has an interesting program of activities to visitors and making an effort to engage the audience and the community in recurrent visits to the institution.

Will US museums succeed in reinventing themselves? (From "The Art Newspaper" article)

Will US museums succeed in reinventing themselves? | The Art Newspaper:

“Caught up in historical change, dependent on new sources of support, and torn by conflicting pressures from both within and without the profession—toward what shapes are museums being pulled and pushed?” Museum analyst Stephen E. Weil posed that question in a seminal essay titled “The Multiple Crises of Museums”. That was in 1971. Today’s museums confront much the same question. The circumstances of the moment may prompt surprisingly reassuring responses."

An excerpt from the article in The Art Newspaper about North American museums dealing with economy and budgets, after almost two years of recession and finding a better way to shape their mission as cultural (and research) institutions.

Continuing with previous post

I revised the video once more to check on what I had transcribed and I found one more interesting sentence that I like to inlcude here:

..."if there is a good existing collection it gives you a lot of confidence to build the museum around...."  D. Chipperfield

 I find this idea inspiring to debate the notion of collections and mission statements, for museums in the 21st century.

The Folkwang Museum in Essen, (Germany) reopens with new architecture

A partial transcript of an interview to the architect David Chipperfield on the occasion of the opening of the new Folkwand Museum in Essen in Germany is giving me the opportunity to reflect on some concepts regarding experiencing the museum's visit.  When an architecture is airy, has open floorplans and invites to enter it, then the building is a succes, expecially when the construction houses an institution, which its mission statement presumably reads something like .... "art for the community"...

but also the design of the new building, clearly is modernising the institution but not forgetting its roots and the connections to the city.

The one-floor-courtyard-plan and the huge scale glass windows of the façade, are opening the museum to the city in an inviting way: you walking down the street and looking directly to the works of art inside.

Perhaps, this new building could do more (or maybe faster) for engaging an audience than a calendar full of public programs.

Folkwang Museum Essen, interwiew with architect David Chipperfield
From DW-World TV

"Light, airy, transparent", some concepts defining the new building of the Folkwang Museum in Essen, with a collection in contemporary art, mainly paintings. 

we had a double desire in designing it: easy to find your way in, and at the same time to loose yourself.

.... unestructured ways to view the works inside. The circulation is around these courtyards and this give you the oportunity to see really into the collections, so from the front door you can actually begin to see art.  Everything is visible like a little village.

... (there was) another part of the museum from 1960s, we really wanted to embrace it and we borrowed the spirit...

.... everyne can enjoy uninterrupted views, the glass façade has open the Museum to the city, making it a part of every day life.

... and I think we have to counterbalance all of the superficial tendencies, as the world get faster, also the need to slow down is more important and I think that the museum is one of the only places left, apart from reading a novel, where you occupied yourself not with something external, but with something internal. 

Musée Hergé

A visit to the new Musée Hergé (or should we say Tin Tin Musée?) in Louvain- la-Neuve, opened last June 2009. Still wondering for an opinion ....

An always new discussion

We are already entering the second decade of the 21st century and discussions in the museum world seem to be more centered in whether museums should extend their facilities (meaning exhibit space) commissioning new architectural "jewels", and thus embarking themselves on millionaire projects sometimes impossible to maintain in the current economic situation; or put all the efforts in working in enhancing the experience of visitors by means of fascinating media and a, sometimes overwhelming, extensive calendar of full education programs and social activities.

I am a very interested in architecture, media and exhibition planning, but my question here is, if it should not be consider more important a discussion about:

• what should be the content of museums?
• what should museums have to offer to visitors beyond their, many times, too popular temporary exhibitions, but less impressive experience?
• what should be the new definition for museums as research-education centers, especially if they are only to display temporary shows?
• What is left of function of museums as repository of collections based on an intellectual statement?

Many are the questions to revise in the next years, if museums are here to stay for long time as centers of intellectual content.   Or is that museums will inevitable fall in the stream of not evolving but changing their own essence, to become what?  Are new current museums, "the next museum" to imitate?

At the entrance

An organized reception entrance area preludes a warm welcome, and a positive experience after the visit, is almost granted.

Entrance of the SMAK Museum, Gent (Belgium)