SYNOPSIS:

MUSEUM
ARCHITECTURE

BY GOPIKA THAPLYAL
4TH YEAR B.ARCH
INTRODUCTION:
A museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and
other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes
them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or
temporary .Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and
specialists to serving the general public. Museum architecture has been of
increasing importance over the centuries, especially more recently. The continuing
acceleration in the digitization of information, combined with the increasing
capacity of digital information storage, is causing the traditional model of
museums (i.e. as static “collections of collections” of three-dimensional
specimens and artifacts) to expand to include virtual exhibits and high-resolution
images of their collections for perusal, study, and exploration from any place with
Internet. The purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and
display items of cultural, artistic, or scientific significance for the education of the
public.

AIM:
To establish emerging design concepts in planning, design, exhibition, technology
and form in museum architecture.

OBJECTIVE:
 To trace the history of the museums in the world and establishment of
museums in India.

 To define various types of museums in the light of the role they play and
study their organization and infrastructure.

 To list the factors which govern effective museum design keeping in mind
the nature of the museum.

 To study architectural expression of the museum

NEED OF THE STUDY:
The museums are very important institution of the society and have come along a
long way from time when they were merely private collections of the elite or
treasure houses for the preservation of art and culture heritage of mankind.
Today in addition to preservation museums have many more responsibilities
especially in spheres of culture and education. Present modern museums basically
depends on multiplicity of function, expansion and diversification of exhibited
material, conservation, flexibility, expressive form and multimedia.as museums
have evolved amazingly all over the world there is a need of evolution and design
of museums in Indian context.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION:

There are various types of museums. I will cater to museum architecture in general,
aspects like transitional spaces, lighting, circulation and exhibition will be
discussed.

However this dissertation will not be specific on any typology of museum but in
terms of what makes a museum work efficiently.

METHODOLOGY:
1. The study will be based on literature available on the subject in books, journals,
research documents and the internet.
2. The reports of periodic seminars held on the subject will also be studied from
the institutional libraries.
3. Museum designs will be studied all over the world.
4. Case studies will be done of practical examples of landscapes already
implemented within and outside the country. These will be -
i. National museum, New delhi
 ii. Virasat – e-khalsa , Anandpur
iii. National gallery of modern art , New delhi
iv. National science centre,New Delhi

BROAD CHAPTERIZATION PLAN

> Acknowledgement

> List of Contents

1. Introduction
2. History of museums
 Early museums
 Museum in India
 Significance of Museum

3. Various types of museum

4. Space planning of museum

 Entrance approach
 Various system of arrangements

5 Circulation and its effect on user experience in a museum

 Circulation
 Interaction between spatial design and display layout
 transitional spaces

6 Importance of light in a museum

 Parameters of architectural illumination

 Various light sources used in exhibition spaces
7 Primary Case study

8 Conclusion