Unfortunately, as my memory often fails me in my life, I don’t have much recollection of even the most memorable exhibition spaces I’ve been to, so it’s hard for me to say that these examples below really are the pinnacle of my exhibition visiting experiences. But I will list a few that I do remember and specifically point out what I like about them.
- The Anderson Collection at Stanford University
I still remember being here, well, because I was here a week ago — and while this space is truly wonderful overall, none of its features particularly stood out to me against all the art museums I’ve visited except the main staircase. This staircase is a prominent and space consuming feature of this small exhibit, and I think it’s absolutely perfect. You can tell by proceeding up the stairs that these steps were designed and dare I say engineered with careful consideration of the user and their art-viewing experience. Walking up the stairs was a pleasurable experience, if not only because the rise and run of the steps perfectly matched my body’s organic pace length and ability to handle a graded ascent without tiring myself out. The stairs complement the surrounding exhibition areas: they extend our time of ascent and point directly at a massive work of fine art, thereby piquing our interest in it and the surrounding works and our desire to examine them in detail by the time we finally arrive on the second floor.
- American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY)
- teamLab Planets (Tokyo)
Now this museum I luckily remember because I have had the rare fortune of visiting it several time over the course of my life. My favorite aspect of this museum is (while cliche), naturally, the blue whale atrium. The design of a room this large is, of course, always an architectural and structural feat, and the life-sized blue whale is the perfect magnificent centerpiece to the space. In my later visits to the museum with friends, we would always rush through the side exhibits just to hurry to this space and lie underneath the whale, just to chat and simultaneously to marvel at the grandness of nature (this reflecting what the museum designers likely set out to achieve in the user’s experience). The lighting design of the space is impeccable; the gentle-blue panels set in the room’s 19th (?) century ceiling create an environment that is not only reminiscent of the ocean, but also ushers forth feelings of tranquility and pensiveness. It’s a great space.
This last exhibit I’d like to talk about as a proxy for discussing interactive exhibits as a whole, as it is the most prominent interactive exhibit I’ve personally visited. Interactive spaces, while designed as not only a vessel for works of art but as the works of art themselves, are not beyond the realm of engineering design. The design of an interactive space needs to consider everything — from texture of a space, to temperature, to lighting, to even the movement and shifting of the space itself in response to the presence of the user. It is the combination of all these factors that defines the user’s shifting experience as they meander from room to room. Planets in particular must have posed further significant engineering challenges as it features a massive room filled with ankle-deep water!
