A Novel Museum

The objective of this studio is to advance design proposals for the museum of the 21st century. Taking into account the historical precursors and the contradictions and challenges inherited from them, the museum to be designed will find its starting point in a private art collection focused on time-based media. The brief calls for exhibition and archive spaces for the collection of German collector Julia Stoschek who 10 years ago began to exhibit in Dusseldorf inside an adopted landmark industrial building. The subject of this studio is the planned venue in Berlin, which will be located on a site next to the existing Museum of Contemporary Art Hamburger Bahnhof.

The brief for a museum of the 21st century is to be considered open and deliberately incomplete. Acknowledging the important shifts taking place in the realm of collecting and exhibiting with the advent of time-based and performative art, the student’s task is to rethink the structure of the contemporary museum. Julia Stoschek who has recently been nominated as a trustee of the MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, together with her curatorial team will take part in the project as interlocutors of the students at various stages, including a planned studio trip to Berlin, Germany. Additionally, there will be lectures and talks with artists and curators specializing in time-based art. Following a principled design approach, the studio will start with typological analyses and discussion of the historical and the modern museum as well as with reading of fundamental texts on conceptual art. 

The instructor(s) will be in residence on January 24 and 25, February 7, 8, 21, and 22, March 7, 8, 28, and 29, April 11, 12, 25, and 26, and May 3, 6, or 7 for Final Reviews. The instructor(s) will also be available via Skype to account for “off-week” missed time.