| |
In the debate that developed during that same symposium of the Architectural League, Philip Johnson began by more or less supporting the view that designing the interior of a museum is easier than is commonly felt, and basically involves in the first intance the organization of rooms
in which works of art can be displayed to their best advantage and appreciated by those who come to view them, and secondly the identification of appropriate sequences set out clearly and logically. What makes the design difficult is, if anything, the fact that museums are also
public monuments, having taken over this role from churches and palaces, and as such are better suited to what used to be called monumentality--a term no longer in favour.
As well as Searing and Johnson, the critics Colin Amery and Robert Hughes also took part in the debate, which was chaired by Suzanne
Stephens. It went on to unanimously acknowledge the museums of Schinkel and Louis Kahn, with words of praise--words shared by all--for the museums built in recent years, and comments on the mistakes made by planners and architects, for example when they fail to distinguish between
different periods of art, or when certain works require particular displays; when work are overwhelmed with arbitrary display interpretations; or when the delicate combination of natural and artificial light is underestimated. Finally the tendency to expand central museums was condemned and hope expressed that small museums will become more widespread.
I think, though, that the most important point of the debate--and it was no coincidence that this point was raised by the great patriarch of modern architecture--remains the monumental aspect of museums. I would define this concept as that particular differential quality which is capable of addressing the surroundings not only figuratively but in an authentic and strong manner, but above all capable of confronting the cultural context. Because of today's means of reproduction and communication, visual arts or representational culture, (which could formerly only be shown within the confines of church and museum architecture), can now be spread to the masses. There is no doubt that the central, traditional museum, like other institutional places, no longer has to serve all the purposes it served in late eighteenth--and early nineteenth--century society, nor indeed those it served a century later before the advent of what Walter Benjamin described in 1936 as the era of technical reproducibility.
| |
Does this mean then that we are faced with the death or the mummification of the traditional museum and that other more up-to-date methods and
functional approaches have now inexorably superseded it?
Indeed not, because the museum-institution will continue to carry out an irreplaceable function over and above the traditional one: supplementing the centrai museums with collections displayed in historical buildings, revitalized ancient palaces and convents. The need for an institutional museum to establish itself in the cities which have grown will stili be felt and similarly, in the developing regions, people will expect that their local culture be valued and preserved.
|