The embodiment of the social roles of modern museums - A ...intercom.museum/documents/1-5Huang.pdf · terms to all others. When using the method of space syntax, space can be realised

The embodiment of the social roles of modern museums

- A study on the space and body in the modern museums

HUANG Hsu

AbstractAccording to several architectural studies, modern museums are not merely places where

knowledge is transmitted but also places where social relationships are shaped and take place.

This is especially true in the views of scholars such as Bill Hillier, Thomas Markus, J. Peponis,

and J. Hedin. Through spatial layout, the movements of museum visitors are structured and

social relationships are constructed. It is from this perspective that this paper sets out to explore

the different roles that modern museums play in society.

To investigate how spatial design is involved in changes in museums' roles, this paper begins

with the proposition of spatial themes. This paper proposes two themes, strength of sequence

and depth of core, both of which affects the movements of museum visitors and their

encounters. While the sequence is the spatial function to control the movement of visitors,

the core is to congregate visitors. The author then proceeds to discuss how these spatial

themes are incorporated with the two types of bodies that are the embodiment of the social

relationships between museum visitors. The study suggests that a change has occurred in the

roles of museums in terms of the types of body and space. The mission of modern museums

has shifted away from the shaping of the meticulous body, which originated in the Victorian

period, toward that of loose body, which is concerned with the emerging subject positions.

This paper uses space syntax to analyse spatial layouts of the selected examples.

Several historical and theoretical works on body and space are drawn for discussion.

Keywords: Modern museum, embodiment, spatial type, random encounter, movement, space

syntax

1 INTERCOM 2006 Conference Paper

Introduction: The two spatial themes ofthe modern museums

According to the paper The Spatialisation

of Knowledge and Social Relationships by

the author in 2001, literature review on the

social implications of the public space of the

modern museum suggests the presence of

two spatial themes. The paper investigated

the spatial ideas developed in the

museological and architectural literatures. In

the literatures, several scholars have

considered the spatial layouts of modern

museums to perform their social functions in

two aspects: the first is to organise visitors'

walking ; the second is to physically or

virtually congregate visitors. The author

argued that these two functions are related to

the integration core 1 and the spatial

sequence of the spatial layouts,

respectively. Based on this idea, the author's

2001 study seeks to construct a two-

dimensional perspective of the question of

spatial types.

The spatial types of modern museums are

therefore recognised as the coordinates

consisting of the two dimensions with

different measures. The author argued that

the measure of the first dimension is the

depth of integration core. 2 The depth of

the integration core is the relative length

between the centre of gravity of the

integration core and the entrance. It marks

the different degree and characteristics of co-

presence. While the shallow core provides

the maximum opportunities for body

encounter through movement, the deep core

provides the maximum opportunities for

virtual encounter through visibility. They are

the different encounter patterns regulated by

the spatial configuration.

The second dimension of the spatial types

of the modern museum relates to organised

walking - the strength of the single sequence.

The basic spatial logic of the single

sequence, for the convex space unit, 3 is

that of one way in, one way out. Visitor

movement is constrained in the convex

spaces of single sequence without any

alternatives. The strength of the single

sequence could be calculated thus

constructing the measure for the second

The embodiment of the social roles of modern museums - A study on the space and body in the modern museums

1 Integration core is a technical term in space syntax,meaning the space or group of spaces closest in spatialterms to all others. When using the method of spacesyntax, space can be realised through a systemconstituted by two kinds of elements. The first of theseis termed the axial line. The axial line is drawn toindicate the relationship between all spatial units in aspatial complex in terms of their visibi l i ty andaccessibility. The spatial system could therefore berepresented as an axial map where the longest andfewest lines of sight and access are drawn through allthe spatial units. The second element used toconstitute the spatial system is that of the convexspace. The convex is the spatial unit within which a

diamond-shape space is encapsulated. Thediamond-shape space refers to the physical

environment that allows the people in it to see and toencounter each other simultaneously. The spatialsystem could therefore be represented as the convexbreak-up where the largest and fewest convex spacesand the linkages between them are drawn to cover allthe space. Moreover, each axis and convex arerecognized gaining its different properties through theorganization of the whole spatial system. Among thedifferent properties, as far as this paper is concerned,the degree of the integration is the most importantproperty that is related to the movement of body. Thedegree of integration, put simply, theoretically indicatesthe relative intensity of usage in terms of movement.The high integrated spatial units and axes thusconstitute the integration core in the spatial system.

2 Huang argues that the integration core theoretically isthe convex spaces where the congregationhappens. However, according to Hillier's argumentsand Choi's empirical studies on the core, the function ofmaximising random encounter could be virtualisedand visualised through the increasing depth of thecore . Choi pointed out in his work that thepresence of people in the different museum spaces isnot consistently related to the configurational propertiesof layouts. The number of people visible from a space,however, is very strongly and consistently correlatedwith the degree of integration of the space. (Choi,1991, p.245) In other words, Choi found that theintegration core is not the space where the maximumnumber of people are present, but rather the spacewhere the maximum number of people could be seen.However Hillier has suggested that this phenomena isdue to the movement of the integration core. Theintegration core has became deeper and thus

defunctionalised . Hillier's inference about therelation between the depth of integration core and thephenomena of virtualisation could be supported by areview on Choi s empirical study. (For detailsplease see Huang, 2001, p.43.6-7).

3 Please see note 1 for the meaning of this term.


dimension of the spatial types. 4

The depth of the integration core and the

strength of sequence thus constitute the two

dimensional grid of the spatial types of

modern museums. In the previous study, the

author selected 14 museums for the analysis

of the distribution of the spatial types, as

shown in Figure 1. According to the figure,

integration cores of the nine museums in the

U.K. and the United States generally became

deeper as time went on. For the selected

cases, there was a trend of outside-in

movement of the core. The integration cores

were more and more enclosed by the other

exhibition space in museums. The intention of

the previous study however was not to claim

a universal rule of the transformation of the

spatial types of modern museums. The two

dimensional grid is a methodologically

temporary construct to give way to further

study on the social roles of museum space.

For this paper, the question then turns to

the social implications of the encounter

patterns brought about by the two spatial

themes. In other words, this study seeks to

explain how the museum public spaces relate

to their social roles in terms of the encounter

patterns in different time and space. This

study will explore this question mainly in the

context of the U.K. society from the Victorian

period to the contemporary.

The meticulous body in the integrationcore

One of the characters of modern museums

that have been recognized by scholars as the

main one is their public use. It has been

claimed by many scholars that the museums

and galleries in the 19th century had replaced

the private cabinets and became the sites for

public access (Pickstone, 1994; Duncan,

1995; Bennett, 1995). The modern museums

are from this period the non-discriminated

sites in terms of the restrictions on visitors'

social status and opening hours. Visiting

museums became one of the important social

occasions that the museum visitors are driven

by the museum collections to move within

different display areas, and therefore to

encounter each other in different places. The

experience of this social occasion, therefore,

could be regarded as being constituted by a

numerous encounter experience which was

embodied by the movement and the

appearance of visitors' bodies.

Erving Goffman in his book The

Presentation of Self in Everyday Life has

specifically studied how people communicate

with their bodies in public space. It is on the

occasions of encounter, that people use their

bodies to identify their social roles and their

relationships to each other. In other words,

encounter of body occupies the central

position in social interaction, which becomes

very reliant on the skills of body performance.

4 Huang measures the strength of the single sequenceby calculating the proportion of the two-entryconvex spaces in the spatial system. Due to the factthat the one-entry convex normally functions as anattachment of the convex space which is connected

to it, when calculating the proportion of the two-entryconvex the one-entry convex could be ignored.The proportion of the two-entry convex, whichindicates the strength of the organised walking, thusconstitutes the second dimension of the spatial types ofmodern museums (see Huang, 2001, p.43.7).

Figure 1: The selected sample on a two-dimensional grid

of museum spatial types (Huang, H. 2001).


Goffman's ideas about body performance,

however, do not liken it to a kind of body

language or body idiom which put

emphasis on the decoding of the social

meaning of body. Most interesting in

Goffman's study of body performance, in this

study's view, is that Goffman used drama

to explain how people interact with each other

during encounters. The encounter is not

merely an occasion where the body is

constrained by social codes. Rather, the

encounter is also an occasion that allows

self - as an active agent - to express self-

identity through control over body. In

Goffman's analysis, body is like a strategy or

resource employed by individuals in their

daily lives to identify who they are. When

stating how individuals show themselves to

be situationally present in a public place,

Goffman said that it is through the

disciplined management of personal

appearance or personal front, that is, the

complex of clothing, make-up, hairdo, and

other surface decorations he carries about on

his person (Goffman, 2005, p.84). Clothing

and fashion, as the extension of the body, in

this regard play a very important role for the

self - project .

According to Richard Sennett's study, after

the middle of the nineteenth century, the

appearance of the body was made relatively

homogeneous by the development of the

sewing machine, the mass production of

clothes, shoes, watches and other

accessories. This relative homogeneity of

body, however, did not hinder the distinction

between people. On the contrary, it provided

the opportunity for the body to enter into the

field of minute details that became the

main signals of what a man or woman's

personality is. Instead of social status, this

personality became the main characteristic

that people are dressing to signify, and by

doing so to identify with.

Sennett further argued how this personality

was related to the sexual attitudes in the

Victorian period. Sennett suggested that sex

became something that people, seeking the

status of gentlemen or lady, attempted to

mask by obscuring its reflections in their

personal objects - including the appearance

of the body. Sennett proposed an example to

explain this phenomenon. He noted that in

the middle of the nineteenth century, all

appearances have personal meaning, it

became equally rational to feel that the

exposed legs of a piano are provocative

(Sennett, 1977, p.167, see also Hobsbawn,

1975, p.275 ). A good gentleman therefore

will in his home, cover the legs of a piano,

and even those of a dining table. This

example suggests that for the Victorian age,

sex was referred to as personality, and a

good person should repress it.

What a good person should do,

nevertheless, could differ from what

happened in reality. According to recent

studies, Victorian sexual life could be far from

the contemporary standard of asceticism. 5

What is important, however, is the gesture of

this repression. This study refers to the

gesture of repression as the sexual

morality of physical appearances that is

the social and moral policing for the subject.

Such repression however dwells only at the

surface-depth of objects. In the covering

up and management of objects, such as the

hiding of the bedroom, sex was,


5 For example, Wilson and Taylor have addressed thispoint from a perspective of Feminism. They said: Yeteven in the sexual realm there was more diversity thanis usually acknowledged. Although the fallen womanwas a central figure of Victorian moral mythology, inreal life a lapse from virtue and even adultery anddivorce did not always mean absolute social extinctionfor the middle-class woman. There is also evidencethat Victorian middle-class women were by no meansall the sexless sepulchres of virtue that the stereotypehas led us to assume (Wilson & Taylor, 1989, p.25).Among the historian, Eric Hobsbawn has the sameobservation on the sexual life of the Victorians. He said:By modern standards those lay monasteries, the

Oxford and Cambridge colleges, look like case booksof sexual pathology (Hobsbawn, 1975, p.275). Forreviewing the diverse sexual practice in Victorian periodsee also Hall, L. A. 2000, Sex, Gender and SocialChange in Britain Since 1880, pp.10-29.


nevertheless, being emphasised. But it was

being emphasised as something needed to

be taken care. It is over there,

disseminated to everywhere in daily life. It

could be recognised and it is at the same

time something needed to be hidden. This

complicated and contradictory sexual morality

had to be devised in order to define what

personality is.

This paper argues that the body of the

Victorian was the site for this contradictory

sexual morality. In order to allow repression

to take place, the appearances of the body -

especially for the women - have to be

signified as the site of sexual activity. To

signify as a sexual site, the shape of the body

was emphasised by the clothes of Victorian

women - for example by using the corset and

crinoline. After sex was made recognisable

on the body, the requirement was made for

ladies and gentlemen to repress it. To signify

this repression, the clothes at the same time

had to hermetically seal the body. A

respectable person therefore had to show

sex, and at the same time reject it. Resisting

temptation is a condition of being regarded as

a good person in society. It is this sexuality,

the combination of temptation and prohibition,

which was called upon to discipline the body

and to produce subjectivity in nineteenth

century Victorian life.

In contrast to the ideas of workers and

the bourgeois, the ideas about what

characterises a good person, i.e., a lady or

gentlemen, constituted a new realm that

people identified with. Sennett suggests that:

Through reading details of appearance,

strangers tried to determine whether

someone had metamorphosed an economic

position into the more personal one of being a

gentleman (Sennett, 1977, p.164).

According to Wilson and Taylor, middle-class

Victorians frequently expressed an anxiety

that the distinctions between classes were

becoming obscure (Wilson & Taylor, 1989,

p.17). Forty has also shown how costume

expressed the conflicting desires to obscure

social distinctions and to make them apparent

(Forty, 1986, pp.72-6). To elaborate the

details helped the distinction. The advantage

of this type of body for the middle class is that

it did not employ an exaggerated style, which

would be regarded as vanity. But

nevertheless this detailed body could provide

essential information. This information could

be detected only through close inspection.

There was thus a new need for opportunities

of close encounter to read the character of

strangers from the elaborate details of their

clothes. 6 To fail this examination would be

regarded a moral failure.

Under these circumstances, to occupy a

subject position in society now means to act

according to the physical appearances of this

type of body - the meticulous body.

There were certain minute details of the body

being objectified to the norms that provided

judgments on the decency of individuals. The

social order, therefore, could be understood

as being established on the consensus of this

type of body during this period. To maintain

surveillance on the body is the same thing as

securing the social order thus continuously

examining the body became necessary.

Bennett has noted in his study how the

discourse of natural history in the middle of

the nineteenth century turned physical virtue

into the main principle of the subject for

maintaining the existing social order. 7

Nevertheless, this might not be achieved by

the discourse of nature alone. This study

6 Sennett and Wilson both have argued that the details ofclothes were in the nineteenth century the veryessential clues for people to read the characters andpersonality of strangers. See Sennett, R. 1977, TheFall of Public Man, pp. 165-6; Wilson, E. 2003, Adornedin Dreams, p.137.

7 In his writing, Bennett quoted from Desmond's studyHuxley: The Devil's Disciple to say that Huxley, in 1855,aimed to show the working classes that physicalvirtue is the base of all other, and that they are to beclean & temperate & all the rest, not because fellows inblack with white ties tell them so, but because theseare plain and patent laws of nature (Bennett, T. 1998,p.31; Desmond, A. 1994, p.210).


suggests that the spatial layouts of modern

museums play a role to support the social

order. The modern museum, with its

increased public access, can be regarded as

one of the sites providing a kind of training

course. The shallow integration cores which

appear in the museums, for example in the

Oxford University Museum, the NHM, and the

Edinburgh Museum of Science, characterise

the modern museums of science that were

built in the U.K. in the second half of the

nineteenth century. In the integration core,

through maximising random encounter the

visitors were able to closely examine each

other for body details that would be revealed.

The moving crowd in the core therefore is not

just a spectacle, but training sessions

generated by the space machine to maintain

social order. The use of this spatial

arrangement in museums, in the social

context, is a way established by the changing

society to reproduce the meticulous body.

The loose body of consumerVictorian sexuality, as this study has

suggested, was a gesture of repression

concerned with the physical appearances of

the body. After the early twentieth century,

scholars argued that there emerged another

type of body that could be could be

recognised the rise of consumer culture.

Featherstone has pointed out in his study that

in the 1920s, that a new relationship between

the body and self emerged.

Within consumer culture the body is

proclaimed as a vehicle of pleasure: it is

desirable and desiring and the closer the

actual body approximates to the idealised

images of youth, health, fitness and beauty

the higher its exchange-value. Consumer

culture permits the unashamed display of the

human body. Clothing is designed to

celebrate the natural human form, a

marked contrast to the nineteenth century in

which clothes were designed to conceal the

body. (Featherstone, 1991, p.177)

Featherstone's notion on the concealment

of the Victorian body generally corresponds

to Kern's analysis of Victorian sexual morality

and clothes (Kern, 1975, p.1-3). However

Featherstone did not follow Kern's analysis of

progressivism in relation to the body. 8

Featherstone's description of consumer

culture and the body is interesting, in that it

shows the change of body forms as being

one from concealment to the natural under

the influence of the consumer culture. The

body became a site where pleasure is

celebrated. To celebrate pleasure is to display

the natural form of the body. Within

consumer culture the body ceases to be a

vessel of sin and the secularised body is

found more and more contexts for display

both inside and outside the bedroom

(Featherstone, 1991, p.177).

The new form of body is, according to

Featherstone, actually not truly natural.

Youth, fitness, and beauty are definitions of

the natural . They coincide with the

requirement of being a desirable object of

sex, which the beauty industry can promote.

Colmer's study on the history of body

packaging also provides us with other

evidence that emphasis on the natural

body has increased since the early twentieth

century. According to data on shapes of

women whom he analysed, Colmer noted

that having suffered centuries of rigid figure

torture, women have finally abandoned

whalebone and wadding in favour of muscle

control and see-through fabrics (Colmer,

1979). Colmer's study and illustrations show

the process that women have gradually

undergone in which they had been

dissected over the ages. The concealed,


8 According to his book Anatomy and Destiny, Kernconsiders that since the heyday of Victorianismprogress has been made toward better understandingof the body and a freer indulgence in bodily pleasure(Kern, 1975, p.xii). His ideas echo the opinion that themovement away from the artificial body to the morenatural body is a sign of progress (see Kern, 1975,

p.19-20).


meticulous body, gradually is ripped open to

reveal the surface of the skin. To reveal the

natural form of body, it means that one

must control the shape of one's body in order

to improve one's personal magnetism.

The norms of the natural body are connected

with the charm of sensuality and, at the same

time the confidence of self.

According to Shilling's argument, the

relationship between self-identity and the

body has been so radicalised since the 1960s

that sociologist Gidden termed this period as

high modernity . 9 Self-identity and the

body became reflectively organised projects

which had to be sculpted from the complex

plurality of choices offered by high modernity

without moral guidance as to which should be

selected (Shilling, 1993, p.181). In high

modernity, the complex plurality of choices

becomes essential for self-identity. The

clothes, the food, the housing, the

entertainment, and many others present

themselves as options waiting to be chosen.

The body becomes the project for self-identity

not only by making itself the result of choices,

but also by involving itself in the process of

choice. To answer the question of who you

are, is to express yourself not only by

physical appearance as the result of the

above choice, but also by the act of choice

itself.

Compared with the meticulous body, the

body in high modernity is freer from the

control of sexuality. Sex is not something that

needs to be hidden away; instead, sex is the

personal charm that should be displayed and

celebrated. In the context of the above study,

this body could be regarded as having a

loose form, since it implies the freedom of

choice and the celebration of sensuality

through the display of self. This study will in

the following suggest that these two

characteristics could be incorporated into and

embodied by the spatial layouts of modern

museums.

In the following sections, this study will

examine the spatial layouts of the

contemporary Natural History Museum

(NHM) and the Millennium Dome in London.

The case analysis is intended to explain how

spatial layouts relate to the loose body. The

spatial analyses suggest two spatial

regularities: (1) discontinuity of the external

relationships, and (2) strong sequence of the

internal relationships.

(1) The discontinuity between the thematic

exhibitions:

In this study, thematic exhibitions refer to

exhibition zones that can be identified as

complete spatial units. It is a spatial

classification based on the principle of

exhibition zoning rather than knowledge itself.

For instance, Figure 2 shows the spatial

diagram of the thematic exhibitions of the

NHM. Taken together with the other spaces

such as passages, restaurants, shops, and

others, this spatial diagram can be

considered as a basic map showing the

relationship between the different exhibition

areas.

Figure 3 shows the j-graph 10 of this

diagram. This j-graph is a simplification of the

full j-graph, since it does not show all the

convexes of the spatial layout. However, it is

sufficient for the purpose of examining the

external relationships between each of the

exhibition areas. In the Figure 3, the thematic

exhibition areas are marked by black dots.

The relationships between these units, as the

j-graph shows, are mostly discontinuous.

Except for unit 7 and unit 22 which are

directly connected, all the other units are

9 Gidden uses this term to indicate the radicalisation ofmodern trends in the late twentieth century. In thisperiod, the main characteristics of modernity such asthe control on the bodies are considered as beingintensified.

10 According to Hillier and Hanson, j-graph is ajustified spatial map in which spaces are representedby circles and permeabilities by lines, and all spaces ofthe same depth value are lined up horizontally with thelines representing direct permeabilities betweenspaces drawn in. For detailed explanation of this termplease refer to Hillier and Hanson, 1984, p.147-9, andalso Markus, 1993, p.13-8.


separated. They are separated mostly by

passages, for example units 5, 6, 32, and 36.

The Millennium Dome, which was opened

to the public in January 2000, offers an

extreme case of the discontinuity between

exhibition areas. Looking at its plan (Figure

4), it can be found that all the exhibitions

areas are discontinuous. All the 14 exhibition

zones in the Dome are connected with each

other through the middle ringed road -

the ringed road between the outer ringed

road and the central round plaza. They are

mediated by the other spaces to keep them

separated and discontinuous from each

others. This building therefore, is a typical

case of a discontinuous external relationship

between thematic exhibitions.

(2) The strong sequence of the thematic

exhibitions:

This study selected several exhibitions in

the NHM and the Dome to describe the

phenomena of the increasing strength of the

single sequence. Figure 5 and 6 show the

convex break-up and the j-graph of the

exhibitions in the NHM - respectively the

Ecology Gallery and the Dinosaurs Gallery.

These figures suggest that the strength of the

single sequence is obviously very strong for

both exhibitions. The value of the single

sequence for the Ecology Gallery is 1.00

(100%), the Dinosaurs Gallery is 0.93

(93%).11 They are both very strong in their

strength of sequence.

Look into the other exhibitions areas in the

NHM, it can be found that not all the

exhibitions reveal such a strong sequence.

For example, unit 7, Human Biology, which

was opened during the end of the 1970s, is

quite different (Figure 7). It is a ringed, non-

distributed, spatial system. There are 10 rings

shared by 47 convexes in the system. The

value of the sequence is 0.67(67%), which is

a moderate strength of sequence.


11 Please see note 1 and note 4 for calculation of thevalue of the single sequence.

Figure 2: The diagram of the thematic exhibitions of the

NHM.

1.39.40. Entrance; 2. Central Hall; 3.4.5.8.9.10.13.14.25.26.27.28.32. 36.38.41.42. Passage; 6.Waterhouse Way (Paleontology); 7. Human Biology; 11. Dinosaurs; 12. Ecology; 15. Cafe; 16.20.23.24. Temporary Exhibitions; 17.19.37. Shops; 18.34. Restaurants; 21. Bird Gallery; 22.30. Mammals; 29. Marine Invertebrates; 31. Lasting Impressions; 33. Earth Today and Tomorrow; 35. Visions of Earth.

Figure 3: The j-graph of the thematic exhibition diagram

of NHM.

Figure 4: The plan of the Millennium Dome.


However, most of the other exhibition

areas in the museum do offer a strong

sequence. In addition to the Ecology and

Dinosaur exhibitions mentioned above, unit

30, Mammals, and unit 35, Visions of Earth,

also reveal a strong sequence. The spatial

arrangement of unit 30 conforms mainly to

the principle of the single ring in the

same way as the Ecology and Dinosaur

exhibition areas. The routes for visitors are

organised around the central exhibits, among

which is the famous Whale exhibit. The

Visions of Earth is in fact mainly an escalator.

It is an un-reversed space. Not just because

of its characteristic strong sequence, but also

because of the one way movement of its

spatial layout. Compare with the Human

Biology Hall built during the 1970s, the

control of movement is increasingly

intensified in these new exhibition projects.

If the Visions of Earth is an early and

experimental example of one way logic,

the Dome can be regarded as having

advanced the perfect form of this movement

control. Based on the field survey on the

Dome conducted for this study, most of the

exhibition zones are highly sequential. More

precisely, they are one way oriented.

Several examples will explain this point of

view.

Figures 8 and 9 show the convex break-up

and the j-graph of the two exhibition zones

Body and Play. Figure 8a is the

convex break-up of Body zone, and Figure 8b

shows the j-graph for the natural movement.

The Body zone, as can be seen from Figure

8a and 8b, has a very strong sequential plan.

The value of the sequence is 1.00 (100%).

Examining this plan in more detail, there are

two barriers to prevent reverse movement.

The first barrier are the escalators, they are at

convex 10 and convex 22. The second is the

Figure 5: Convex break-up and j-graph of the Ecology

Gallery in the NHM.

Figure 6: Convex break-up and j-graph of the Dinosaurs

Gallery in the NHM.

Figure 7: Convex break-up and j-graph of the Human

Biology exhibition in the NHM.


design of some of the passages 12 , their

width is designed to fit the one way

movement of the individual.13 In order to

more precisely describe the spatial

relationships of this exhibition, Figure 8c

shows the revised j-graph of this plan. The j-

graph is revised due to the impact of these

two barriers to movement. It thus more

accurately reflects the movement of visitors in

the exhibition zones.

The other exhibition zones in the Dome are

mostly similar to the Body zone - with a

strong sequential plan and the constraint of

one-way movement. Figure 9 is another

example. Its revised j-graphs (Figure 9c) is

just like that of the Body zone. Twelve out of

14 exhibition zones are alike in terms of

movement control. Compared with the NHM,

the Dome approaches closer to a strong

sequence through its spatial organisation that

promotes one-way movement.

This paper suggests that the discontinuity

between the thematic areas and the strong

sequence within the thematic areas are the

two principles that make the layouts appear

as available for choice-making. To the

consumer, making a choice is related to the

discontinuity between each choice. Each

product, as a result of each choice, has to be

in a certain degree distinguishable from the

others in order to mark itself as evidence of

choice and individuality. The main point here

is the difference the product must make in

order to offer itself as a choice. In order to

make the different thematic areas appear as

providing multiple choices, the discontinuity

between them thus needs to be

synchronised. The central halls or the main

axes in the museums or theme park normally

play this role. Their mission is to make visible

as much as possible the different products in

the museums. A deep core surrounded by

different galleries in this regard satisfies this

need.


12 The passages here are in fact also parts of theexhibition. Along the sides of the passages therenormally are exhibits on the walls. This kind of designis particularly emphasised in the zones of Journeyand Talk.

13 The width of the passages is, technically, just bigenough for the counter movement of two individuals.However since the sides of the passages normallydisplay some exhibits, most of the visitors in factindividually occupy the section of the passages. It istherefore very difficult to have a reverse movement inthe flow of the visitors.

Figure 8: Convex break-up and j-graph of the Body zone

in the Dome.

Figure 9: Convex break-up and j-graph of the Play zone

in the Dome.


For visitors to possess the products, a

guarantee that visitors may own the

product must be given at the same time. To

ensure that visitors can wholly possess these

products, a strong sequence is thus needed.

The strong sequence guarantees that all

objects and displays in the thematic areas

can be seen in a single tour. The deep core

and the strong sequence thus could be

understood as meeting the choice-making

needs of museum visitors.

It can be seen that the advantage of this

spatial type is the provision of very flexible

choices to visitors. Visitors can plan how to

take the museum tour based on the length of

their stay and the subjects they are interested

in. The spatial arrangements can work like

different packages within the tours. It is

flexible, particularly useful for those tourists

who have to schedule their time within busy

tours.

The deep core and strong sequence type

of space can also be seen as having an effect

on the social encounters that constitute the

co-presence in museums. As discussed

previously, the deep core defunctionalises the

integration core. This means that the number

of visitors visible from the core are

maximised by the spatial arrangements. The

core in this sense provides as many possible

opportunities that a spatial layout can make

for the museum visitors to display

themselves. The other effect of the deep core

is that it minimises random encounters as

compared with the shallow core. With the

strong sequence the social encounter is also

minimised; the deep core constitutes a

museum spatial type that provides visitors

with the minimum chance to encounter each

other. In some cases, strong sequence

visitors can only see the back of other visitors

in the one-way movement. Among all the

possible types of spatial organisation, this

spatial type can be recognised as providing

minimum chance for random encounter and

maximum chance for seeing each other. To

display the self but to avoid encounters as

best as the space allows, this could be seen

as the way to embody the social relationships

between the loose body of contemporary

museum visitors.

The spatial organization therefore not only

fits the need of the consumer - museum visit

as an activity of choice-making, but also

provides the limited encounter experience

that the spatial arrangements can make

within the movement of the crowd. The

choice-making of routes therefore should not

be confused with the numerous possibilities

of alternative routes provided by the museum

space. In the context of consumerism, this

paper suggests that the choice-making is in

fact a limited choice. It is concerned with the

space as a whole, and its interest is in how to

limit the numerous possibilities into several

choices rather than to create different

possibilities by spatial arrangements.

The choice-making and the avoidance of

encounter, it could be argued, are related to

the social relationships between strangers in

the public space. From the perspective of

sexuality to look into the contemporary social

relationship, Foucault provides an example in

Space, Knowledge, Power. He said that:

What is interesting about male

homosexuality today is that their sexual

relations are immediately translated into

social relations and the social relations are

understood as sexual relations (Foucault

82c: 376). The dominance of sexuality in

social relationships, nevertheless, occurs not

just among homosexuals. Imagine the

possible interactions between visitors in

museums. Imagine if you eagerly try to

discuss your views about an exhibit with male

strangers in museums. If you are male, you

can arouse the suspicion of homosexuality. If

you are female, perhaps people will perceive

you as trying to look for a more intimate

relationship. The point here is that sexuality

has formed a very strong surveillance on the

kinds of encounters that produce social


relations among visitors in contemporary

society. More precisely, such relations are

caught up, monopolised by, a sexuality that

regards sex as the truth about self. The

prohibition of sex is still there, the gesture of

liberation has nothing to do with abolishing

this prohibition as long as sex is required to

tell us the truth about ourselves, and that it is

banished into the private realm. The effect

among crowds is to keep individuals

separated. The loose body, in this sense, is

an individualised body that now seeks to

avoid social encounters in the public realm.

As a result of the dominance of sexuality in

social relations, the loose body in the public

space is therefore able only to consume. To

be a consumer is widely recognised by the

public as the right track for behaviour

characteristic of the loose body. To choose, to

buy, to experience like an individual

consumer, is the standard conduct for most of

the public, especially for the tourists. This

track provides a safe place where the public

has the sense of security necessary for

encounters with others. The loose body in the

public space is frequently monitored,

controlled by the dissemination of sexuality,

and thus consummates the mission: to form

the collection of individualities in

contemporary society.

Put another way, the loose body as a type

of body has a characteristic very different

than that of the meticulous body. While the

meticulous body emphasises examination by

encounter, the loose body avoids encounter

or, more precisely, encounter as individual

consumers. Space can support the activities

of individual consumers by providing choice-

making and helping the avoidance of

encounter. From this perspective, the deep

core and the strong sequence provide the

needs for, and embody, the social

relationships of the loose body.

For museums in contemporary society, the

strong sequence can be seen as a very

prevalent form of spatial organisation. The

contemporary NHM, the Dome and the

Museum of London are typical examples of

this kind of organisation. It would be valuable

to observe whether the museums that claim

to be international and intend to attract

visitors worldwide would be more inclined to

deploy this type of museum in the future.

However, the most successful institutions in

applying this strong sequence probably are

not museums in the strict sense. Theme

parks such as Disneyland that arrange space

in a thematic area through a very sequential

control of visitors' movement might be the

inspiration for the design of new museums. In

this sense, the tourist industry is indeed

making the distinction between the museum

and theme park more ambiguous, especially,

in terms of the spatial arrangement.

According to Robert Hewison's study, the

heritage industry has become a vital part of

the economic underpinning of the U.K. since

the 1980s (Hewison, 1987, p.102). A fact

sheet issued by the New Millennium

Experience recognised that tourism is one of

the five largest industries in the U.K. - worth

40 billion pounds a year. In New Visions for

Museums in the 21st Century Middleton

predicted that by 2001, some 5 billion pounds

of lottery money will be generated for a

combination of millennium, arts and heritage

purposes (Middleton, 1998, p.55). The

museums and galleries, as important parts of

the tourist industry, 14 have clearly seen

increasing investments over the last two

decades.

The development of tourism in the U.K.

could pave the way for the emergence of new

subject positions in the museums. Hooper-

Greenhill has shown in her study Museums

and the Shaping of Knowledge how the

position of the curator is undermined by

his/her lack of knowledge about visitors. In


14 According to Middleton, tourist visits to museums andgalleries in UK will increase to 98 million in 2002,which is about one fourth of visits for all attractions(Middleton, 1998, p.17).


the past, exhibitions were prepared by

curators and when they were finished, they

were opened to the public . ---- At the

present time, in many museums, the curator

has been decentred, and instead of one point

of view, many voices are encouraged to

speak (Hooper-Greenhill, 1992, p.210).

According to her study, new subject positions

such as marketing managers and project

managers have emerged with the knowledge

about visitors. These marketing managers

and project managers have mostly relocated

visitors as clients or consumers who demand

active rights and expects good service (ibid.,

p.211). Since the 1980s, for scholars such as

Fleming, the museum profession in the U.K.

is actually ongoing the process of

democratization. Museums have began

to show a great interest in, and respect for

audiences and their needs (Fleming, 2005,

p.1).

The new subject positions and the

development of tourism could dramatically

change the social situations in museums. The

role of customers and clients is obviously

different from those of past museum visitors.

In the past, museum visitors played the role

of students, which was being subjected to the

knowledge of curators. According to Hooper-

Greenhill, museum visitors are now in a

negotiated situation where they have equal

position of power. This power challenges the

elite culture of museum, which primarily is to

serve the interests of the educated minority

and often times neglected the needs of most

museum visitors. In this regard, emphasis on

the needs of museum visitors is a progress

that gives museum visitors new freedom of

choice; it is, indeed, the social responsibility

that the museums must bear. This paper

suggests that the visitors' needs are however

more diverse than some museums probably

have assumed. The new subject positions

and tourism have created a situation where

the needs of museum visitor/customer can be

investigated and imagined, these needs

should not be limited only to the consumerism

activities. 15 In term of spatial layouts, for

example, Markus has argued in his study that

Space can be so linked that communication

is free and frequent, making possible dense

encounters between classes, groups and

individuals. These are the basis for

community, friendship and solidarity

(Markus, 1993, p.21-5). Markus has proposed

the invention of different forms of relations

and attachments among individuals through

the spatial arrangements and encounters.

This point of view reveals that museum space

could be the platform of which the

opportunities for mixing with others and

developing local attachment are provided.

With the activities invented and organised by

the museum profession, which serves as the

catalysis for the interaction between visitors,

the museum space could be, therefore, the

cathedral of pleasures where the different

contemporary issues are discussed and the

various needs of body are taken care. This

role, the author believes, should not be

constrained to the sites of tourism but should

become a part of the public's daily life.

ConclusionThis paper argues that museum space can

be seen as performing social roles through

the different patterns of social encounter

brought about by spatial layouts that embody

social relationships between museum visitors.

The social roles of museums can be

construed as the process and result of the

interplay between body and space. This

15 Some scholars have noticed how museums respond tothe needs of consumer. For example SharonMacdonald has in her study Supermarket Sciencecriticised that the design of an exhibition was in factdriven by consumerism . According to her,consumption was assumed by the exhibition team asthe main need for the visitors. She argued that theteam's ideas were there already in assumptionsabout consumption as a key means of expressingindividuality, activity as choice, objects ascommodities, fun as democratising and museums aspart of the marketplace (Macdonald, 1998, p.136).


paper suggests two kinds of body, namely the

meticulous body and the loose body, as the

embodiment of social relationships during

different periods. Two kinds of encounter

patterns can also be related to the two types

of body. The first encounter pattern is the

maximising of encounter through co-presence

in the shallow core. The shallow core in this

regard is supporting the shaping of the

meticulous body where the minute details of

body need to be examined. The second

pattern is the minimising and virtualising of

encounter through the deep core and the

strong sequence. This paper argues that the

deep core and strong sequence support the

loose body where the body behaves as a

choice-making consumer.

The cases chosen for analysis in this

study, of course, are insufficient to enable this

study to claim that there is a general rule of

transformation for all kinds of museums. It is

not the author's intention to construct such

rules. This study, however, attempts to

describe the spatial types of modern

museums as playing specific social roles in

the context of different types of bodies. The

different spatial types of museums,

undoubtedly, continue to exist in

contemporary society. It would be interesting

to investigate how these spatial types are

disposed as the arrangements of the social

encounters in contemporary society. Can the

different kinds of museums, such as local

museums and the national museums, be

recognized as structuring the social

encounter according to the different visitor

groups that each individual museum targets?

It would be interesting to ask whether the

spatial layouts of national museums structure

the social encounter in a more conservative

way that reflects a lack of the need to create

new relationships in long distance spatial-

temporal events, or whether the spatial

layouts of local museums reflect the need to

create new relationships between visitors

through social encounters? These questions

can be the focus of further studies on

museums in contemporary society.

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About the authorHsu Huang 16 is an assistant curator at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan. He has been working in

the Department of Exhibition as a planner and researcher, and has designed and managed several exhibition projects

in the past 15 years. This practical experience with the actual production of museum exhibitions generated his current

interest in issues concerning, for example, relationships between knowledge and space, the social functions of

museums, and the politics of museum displays.

Apart from his present job at the museum, Hsu Huang had been the Director of the Lan-yang Museum of Ilan County,

Taiwan. He is also a PhD candidate at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College, London, where his

research focuses on the social functions of the spatial organization of museums. He obtained an MA in Architecture

from Tunghai University of Graduate Studies in Taiwan, and, since 1990, has published two books and several essays

in architectural and museological journals and newspapers.

The National Museum of Natural Science was the first science museum in Taiwan established and financed by the

government for the purpose of social education. The museum was constructed in four phases over a 12-year period,

and the exhibitions were opened to the public in 1993, including a Space Theater, Science Center, Life Science Hall,

and Chinese Science Hall. The museum attracts over 200 million visitors every year, making it the most popular

museum of its kind in Taiwan.

16


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The embodiment of the social roles of modern museums - A ...intercom.museum/documents/1-5Huang.pdf · terms to all others. When using the method of space syntax, space can be realised