In most galleries and museums that we go to there are maps and arrows to point our way. This makes it easy to predict a person’s path through a gallery space, and indeed when monitored (as seen in the image below of the Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery) the pathways are pretty much as expected, and on the most part are similar. What happens if such directional devices are removed? Rooms are no-longer numbered; there are no arrows and no maps. Would people’s pathways through the gallery change? And what effect would this have on the experience of the visitor to the gallery.
The space of the gallery itself would become more obviously directing. Newer galleries, such as the Tate Modern were designed with visitor numbers in mind. The layout of the rooms at the Tate mean that visitors are more likely to move about them in a particular way, and are also less likely to miss a room than in other galleries. Those involved in the designing of the Sainsbury Wing said, “We want to avoid the danger of visitors by-passing rooms because they are out of the way or appear to be in a cul-de-sac”. The removal of directional devices, therefore, may not initiate so much of a change in the movements of the visitor.
As you can probably tell, I am still thinking about different features that make galleries the way they are, and influence our movements within them. Though I am no longer concerned just with the differences in movements between galleries but also between experiences; if you’ve been to an interesting gallery, exhibition or museum space I’d love to know about it.
