Museum staff have experience in working in museum spaces - the architect
does not.  Lack of consultation has resulted in museum staff working in
cupboards, collections crammed into poor storage with waste and water pipes
running overhead, nowhere for your visitors to hang their coat or store
your backpack, there are not enough washrooms (ask the visitor to the new
Getty), ....I could go on.   Any museum professional allowed to be involved
in the planning of new spaces would obviously do their research
first...that is why we are professionals.

Greetings



At 12:01 AM 4/7/98 +0200, you wrote:
>It is not enough to include the staff of the museum into museum planning;
>reason: the staff does not have any experience in creating a new museum.
>This is a once-in-a-lifetime-job for a museum employee. They will tell y lot
>of things to the architect, but not everything is true or sufficient. Only
>staff should be allowed to discuss in earnest, who has visited a lot of
>other - newly built - museums, discussed thoroughly with the people (staff
>and visitors there).
>Otherwise, only the windows for the staff will be fitted best.
>-I know that is (a little) provocative, but the unexperienced museum staff
>(unexperienced in creating new museums or advising architects on it) is the
>reason for so many museums which do not function properly ever after. Staff
>should be schooled intensively before being let into the architect's room.
>And vice versa: never trust the eloquent architect, before he hasn't
>designed a properly functioning entrance hall for a museum.
>
>Greetings,
>
>Peter, the Rebernik
>....
>
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Carol E Mayer
Curator

UBC Museum of Anthropology
6393 NW Marine Dr.
Vancouver, B.C. Canada
V6T 1Z2

Tel: (604) 822-8224
Fax: (604) 822-2974