What Does the Museum Look Like? (Barcelona)

3 units

The Museum, as an architectural typology and emblematic cultural device, is undergoing an intense transformation. This seminar aims to shed light on this typology and the role that museum architecture has as a mechanism to activate present-day communities. Students will conduct research through this type of contemporary culture condenser, which keeps digitalization and globalization. It will also consider the idea that a museum is not only a display or receptacle dedicated to established areas or disciplines such as the arts, science, sports, and industry, among others. The research methodology will analyze and deploy seminal case studies to revisit and propose alternatives for the Museum's evolution as an architectural device for contemporary culture. The course will address and discuss different topics such as the idea of destabilizing the Museum as an institution, dealing with conflict as a positive, alternative way to generate content, and thinking about this typology as a place mainly dedicated to positive interaction, discussion, service and exchange within the community. To compare and acquire a global perception of a constellation of museum types, specific graphic standards will be used to represent the analysis and deployment of case studies. These analyses, as well as the results of the discussions and pieces of work produced during the seminar, could result in a small publication.