Adaptive reuse and the museum : installing a museum in a preexisting shell

Abstract

The thesis deals with the complexities involved within the conversion of an old building to an art museum. The restoration of a building is by itself a complicated problem, conjuring up questions about the relationship between the old and new parts of the structure. The reuse of the old building as a museum of art adds a new set of relationships, multiplying the interactions and enhancing the complexity. The analysis of the problems is st:rUctured in two parts: The first is a theoretical discussion of generic questions and issues linked with the museum as an institution on the one hand, and with the preservation of the built environment on the other. The second joins the two fields of the above discussion together, by referring to the particular kind of building: the museum within an old structure. This is done by means of analysis of selected examples. An artificial separation of the two fields is again used as a tool for the analysis. The discussion focuses on the concrete expression of specific choices in both of the fields, from which, in conclusion, general deductions are drawn.