An architectural alliance

The role of the museum between culture and the city

Abstract

This article explores the relevance of museum architecture as a scenario for the encounter between culture and the city. Since the museum institution is the main institution in charge of acquiring, preserving, studying and exhibiting objects of cultural value and, understanding the city as an urban ensemble comprising several buildings, complex road systems and a relevant group of individuals, the museum is conceived as an essential space and a transcendent link in the meeting of both concepts. As an essential and articulating piece between the museum and the urban fabric, the vestibule conditions the relationship of the museum with both the city and society. From its form, implantation, scale and incubation of spaces of transit or permanence, architecture stipulates, conditions, improves or rejects certain exchanges. While these are morphological, spatial, volumetric and temporal decisions, they are also urban, political and social. In this context, it is interesting to emphasize that, in the end, architecture is the means through which the architect gives his opinion and decides, for better or worse, how this relationship will be.