Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The museum’s threshold can be identified as the first and last step of the museum’s experience. From the sacral and intimate value introduced in the museum of the nineteenth century, nowadays this public realm is turning into a space addicted to tourism massification, focusing the attention on the “instagrammability” of the museum’s space and commercial activities such as bookshops, restaurants, cafè, with even façade serving as a digital billboard spreading museum’s information. In this framework, the museum’s architecture can play a relevant role in affecting the visitor’s experience and creating a language that can face isolation by promoting social places for the community. The paper proposes an investigation of the liminal spaces of the museum as the place of encounter between multiple agents, human and non-human included, where a contemplative meeting with the self, as well as conversation and socialisation, can still happen. In this hectic ensemble, the research intends to tackle the potential of the museum’s threshold taking into account the concept of the in-between introduced by Aldo Van Eyck in educational architecture and developed by Herman Hertzberger and Giancarlo De Carlo, to build a map of uses and layouts of the halls of inspiring schools, libraries and cultural centres proved to be successful meeting places. The aim is to highlight the underestimated social impact of the threshold in architecture to develop a discourse about inclusion and accessibility in museum studies.

Presenters

Fabiana Dicuonzo
Student, PhD student, CITCEM - Transdisciplinary Research Center "Culture, Space and Memory", Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

Alice Semedo
Faculty of Letters, University of Porto