The embodiment of the social roles of modern museums - A study on the space and body in the modern museums

According to several architectural studies, modern museums are not merely places where knowledge is transmitted but also places where social relationships are shaped and take place. This is especially true in the views of scholars such as Bill Hillier, Thomas Markus, J. Peponis, and J. Hedin. Through spatial layout, the movements of museum visitors are structured and social relationships are constructed. It is from this perspective that this paper sets out to explore the different roles that modern museums play in society. To investigate how spatial design is involved in changes in museums' roles, this paper begins with the proposition of spatial themes. This paper proposes two themes, strength of sequence and depth of core, both of which affects the movements of museum visitors and their encounters. While the sequence is the spatial function to control the movement of visitors, the core is to congregate visitors. The author then proceeds to discuss how these spatial themes are incorporated with the two types of bodies that are the embodiment of the social relationships between museum visitors. The study suggests that a change has occurred in the roles of museums in terms of the types of body and space. The mission of modern museums has shifted away from the shaping of the meticulous body, which originated in the Victorian period, toward that of loose body, which is concerned with the emerging subject positions. This paper uses space syntax to analyse spatial layouts of the selected examples. Several historical and theoretical works on body and space are drawn for discussion.