Spatial concepts in museum theory and practice

Since the beginning of space syntax, the field of museums has been a recurrent focus of inquiry in the syntactic literature. Over the years a body of studies of museums has been accumulated which use space syntax and its concepts to bring consistency and rigour to the analysis of spatial layout, and through this to relate museum space to different aspects of how they work. Amongst other themes, the studies have explored the relation between the layout of space and the communication of knowledge, museum space as a symbolic system, and the link between spatial layout and movement. Over the same period, there has been an increasing awareness of the spatial dimension in the museum studies literature, so much so that the problem of space is now one of its key themes. This literature addresses such problems as how we can conceptualize museum space through the idea of exhibitions as ‘texts’ and as ‘maps’, or the role of space in the ‘interactive experience model’ and in the learning experience of the visitor, as well as in the capability of the museum to embody theories, construct knowledge and produce meaning. By relating and comparing it with the space syntax literature, the paper brings to the surface common preoccupations and identifies many parallels between the space syntax concepts applied in the studies of museums and museological ideas of space, including the role of space in the collective nature of museum experience, the problem of intelligibility, and the part space can play in different modes of acquiring information. But beyond these two areas of rich spatial ideas about museums, it will be argued that there is a third: current museum practice. With the freeing of museum architecture from stereotypes, and the greater emphasis on ‘the visitor’s encounter with the museum and its collections’, the later part of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century has seen radical experimentation and innovation in the design of museum space. A number of recent museum projects are analyzed and discussed in the paper, selected to illuminate different ways in which spatial design becomes part of the individuality of each museum and the distinctive experience it offers the visitor. It shows, for example, how some cases lead visitors to see intricate linkages between times, places and objects, reflecting the curatorial idea that cultures interact with and influence one another, while in others, it gives them an embodied experience of places and monuments by adding the sense of topography to that of chronology. This examination suggests that these real museum projects embody concepts of space which are in some senses more advanced and complex than found in either of the literatures, and so might be said to be pointing in new directions theoretically. Finding a way to bring together the spatial concepts in all these three areas will be, it is argued, an important next step in the field of museum research.