Museums and Design for Creative Lives questions whatwe sacrifice when we allow economic imperatives to shape public museums, whilst also considering the implications of these new museum realities. It also asks: how might we instead design for creative lives?Drawing together 28 case studies of museum design spanning 70 years, the book explores the spatial and social forms that comprise these successful examples, as well as the design methodologies through which they were pr...

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of museum building around the world and the subsequent publication of multiple texts dedicated to the subject. Museum Architecture: A new biography focuses on the stories we tell of museum buildings in order to explore the nature of museum architecture and the problems of architectural history when applied to the museum and gallery. Starting from a discussion of the key issues in contemporary museum design, the book explores the role of a...

Museums and biographies both tell the stories of lives. This innovative collection examines for the first time biography - of individuals, objects and institutions - in relationship to the museum, casting new light on the many facets of museum history and theory, from the lives of prominent curators, to the context of museums of biography and autobiography. Separate sections cover individual biography and museum history, problematising individual biographies, institutional biographies, obj...

The Future of Museum and Gallery Design explores new research and practice in museum design. Placing a specific emphasis on social responsibility, in its broadest sense, the book emphasises the need for a greater understanding of the impact of museum design in the experiences of visitors, in the manifestation of the vision and values of museums and galleries, and in the shaping of civic spaces for culture in our shared social world.The chapters included in the book propose a number...

Reshaping Museum Space pulls together the views of an international group of museum professionals, architects, designers and academics highlights the complexity, significance and malleability of museum space, and provides reflections upon recent developments in museum architecture and exhibition design.Various chapters concentrate on the process of architectural and spatial reshaping, and the problems of navigating the often contradictory agendas and aspirations of the bro...

This single-volume museum studies reference title explores the ways in which museums are shaped and configured and how they themselves attempt to shape and change the world around them.Written by a leading group of museum professionals and academics from around the world and including new research, the chapters reveal the diverse and subtle means by which museums engage and in so doing change and are changed. The authors span over 200 years discussing national museums, ecomuseums, ...

Over recent decades, many museums, galleries and historic sites around the world have enjoyed an unprecedented level of large-scale investment in their capital infrastructure, in building refurbishments and new gallery displays. This period has also seen the creation of countless new purpose-built museums and galleries, suggesting a fundamental re-evaluation of the processes of designing and shaping of museums.Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions examines ...

Towards the Museum of the Future explores, through a series of authoritative essays, some of the major developments in European museums as they struggle to adapt in a rapidly changing world. It embraces a wide range of European countries, all types of museums and exhibitions and the needs of different museum audiences, and discusses the museum as communicator and educator in the context of current cultural concerns.

The influence of digital media on the cultural heritage sector has been pervasive and profound. Today museums are reliant on new technology to manage their collections. They collect digital as well as material things. New media is embedded within their exhibition spaces. And their activity online is as important as their physical presence on site.However, ‘digital heritage’ (as an area of practice and as a subject of study) does not exist in one single place. Its evidence base is c...

At the beginning of the 21st century museums are challenged on a number of fronts. The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational purposes, redesign their pedagogies and account for their performance.The need to theorise learning and culture for a cultural theory of learning is very pressing. If culture acts as a proce...

Exhibition environments are enticingly complex spaces: as facilitators of experience; as free-choice learning contexts; as theaters of drama; as encyclopedic warehouses of cultural and natural heritage; as two-, three- and four-dimensional storytellers; as sites for self-actualizing leisure activity. But how much do we really know about the moment-by-moment transactions that comprise the intricate experiences of visitors? To strengthen the disciplinary knowledge base supporting exhibition ...

Visitor engagement and learning, outreach, and inclusion are concepts that have long dominated professional museum discourses. The recent rapid uptake of various forms of social media in many parts of the world, however, calls for a reformulation of familiar opportunities and obstacles in museum debates and practices. Young people, as both early adopters of digital forms of communication and latecomers to museums, increasingly figure as a key target group for many museums. This volume pres...