Contemporary Museums

The volume analyzes some ninety projects from the past decade, most of them built, through the critical lens of seven categories: Essential (the museum as a reduction of complexity), Monolith (material symbol), Archaeological (critical memory of an identity), Implant (new functions in a historical structure), Interweave (dialectical relations and contrasts between different spaces), Theatre (scenic machine), Context (the museum modulated along the lines of the landscape). It represents an exploration of contemporary museums, which now create a relation between the spaces of art, culture and society. The experiments of a generation of masters are juxtaposed with the increasingly interesting work of emerging architects who have demonstrated a noteworthy maturity and command of their art despite their relative youth. Four critical essays lay out the groundwork for the analyses and clarify the choices of the works, highlighting the degree to which the museum has changed over the years into a space that is increasingly complex and varied, one that now incorporates a variety of landscapes, both natural and existential.