Our Building is Our Biggest Artifact

Our visitors don’t perceive architecture and exhibitions as separate.

They’re part of one experience. We develop and fund them separately, but that’s just us. Architecture can be awesome, in the real sense of the word: “causing awe.”

Vast sums are raised to create new ones for this reason. Those sums are often greater than the value of any object in that institution’s collection.

(Sometimes, greater than the value of the entire collection.)

Fabulous exceptions are easy to list — as are many examples that comply.

Yet, once inside, we often ask our designers to create black-box galleries and make the architecture vanish. To keep out daylight, to keep artifacts safe, to (sigh) make media look better.

But there are ways around all those concerns that don’t require the architecture to vanish.

Here’s the thing:
Our building isn’t a structure to hold our artifacts for visitors.

Our building is our biggest artifact.

Warmly,
Jonathan