At 02:07 PM 10/17/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Currently, we do not have
>an Exhibit Director or Coordinator on our staff, so I am working on the
>exhibits from an education perspective.
>
>The museum, Pretend City, will be about 40,000 square feet and will also
>have an interconnected city theme with a bank, post office, supermarket,
>city hall, etc. We have an architect who has designed most of the exhibit
>content but we need to supplement her work with our own educational goals
>and objectives for each exhibit. If all goes well, we hope to start building
>the museum at this time next year and to open in winter 2002. I am
>considering recommending that we hire a full-time Exhibit Director or
>Coordinator in the new year to handle all of the exhibit development and
>planning. What do you see as the role of an Exhibit Director? Exhibit
>Coordinator? What might such a person do for us at this stage in our
>development process?
>
>Thank you,
>Jessica Ruskin
>Education Coordinator
>Pretend City
>The Children's Museum of Orange County, Inc.

Jessica,
You have just set the stage for a major discussion of the process of
developing a museum.  But we will leave that for later.

Having an architect design exhibit content without the guidance of, and
interaction with, a museum exhibit design director or equivalent, is about
as appropriate as having you, the education coordinator, design the
building without the participation of an architect.  While this is not a
rant against architects, it is often the case that architects claim for
themselves the role of exhibit designer by virtue of the unarticulated
supposition that museum exhibits are a subset of architectural design.

Museum Trustees and overseers fall prey to this line of reasoning partly
because the architecture is such a large and visible portion of most new
museums and consumes the preponderance of the budget, and partly because
they are not aware of the potential for integrated Museum Planning or
Exhibition Design to contribute to the overall success of the project.  The
earlier a Museum Planner can advise on the design and construction of a
building or museum facility, the less money, effort and grief will be
expended later to make the place work as a museum.

It happens all the time, even with distinguished architects.  The latest
example is the Jewish Museum in Berlin, a spectacularly dramatic building
that remains empty while the HVAC system is being rebuilt and the staff
figures out how to put anything into the space.  Most museums cannot aford
to make major changes after the building campaign is over.  Unless you
catch them early, the staff and the public will have to put up with errors
and omissions of the architectural plan.

The simple answer to your question is yes, but few situations are simple.
You might engage the services of a Museum Planner on a short term
consulting basis to determine the most cost effective means of achiving a
successful museum.  Far be it for me to recommend myuself, but if you call
or send me an e-mail I can offer some advice.

David Hupert
[log in to unmask]
(212) 964-4068

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