Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

ARCHITECTURE
n.–Equivalent in French: architecture; Spanish:
arquitectura; German: Architektur; Italian:
architettura; Portuguese: arquitectura
(Brazil: arquitetura).
(Museum) architecture is defi ned as
the art of designing and installing
or building a space that will be used
to house specifi c museum functions,
more particularly the functions of
exhibition and display, preventive
and remedial active conservation,
study, management, and receiving
visitors.
Since the invention of the modern
museum, from the end of the 18 th century
and the beginning of the 19 th ,
while old heritage buildings were
also being reconverted for museum
use, a specifi c architecture evolved
that was linked to the requirements of
preserving, researching and communicating
collections through permanent
or temporary exhibitions. This
architecture is evident in the earliest
museum buildings as much as in the
most contemporary ones. The architectural
vocabulary has itself infl uenced
the development of the idea of the
museum. Thus the form of the temple
with a cupola and columned portico
became established along with the
gallery, conceived as one of the main
A
models for fi ne arts museums, and
by extension gave rise to the names
gallery, galerie, galleria, and Galerie
in France, Italy and Germany and in
Anglo-American countries.
Although the form of museum
buildings was often focused on safeguarding
collections, it evolved as
new functions in museum work were
developed. So it was that after seeking
solutions for better lighting of
the exhibits (Souffl ot, Brébion, 1778;
J.-B. Le Brun, 1787), for distributing
the collections better throughout the
museum building (Mechel, 1778-
1784), and for structuring the exhibition
space better (Leo von Klenze,
1816-1830), at the beginning of the
20 th century museum people realised
that the permanent exhibitions must
be reduced. To this end they created
storage areas, either by sacrifi cing
exhibition rooms or by creating space
in the basement, or by building new
structures. In addition, every effort
was made to make the setting for
the exhibits as neutral as possible –
even if this meant sacrifi cing all or
part of the existing historical décor.
The invention of electricity greatly
facilitated these improvements and
allowed the lighting systems to be
completely revised.
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