Reflect and Renew
Museum Architecture and Community Engagement: Redesigning Place in Post-Industrial US Cities
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Miriam Paeslack
This paper analyzes and compares recent renovations and expansions of two US art museum architectures in terms of their impact on institutional community engagement. One is the Albright Knox Gundlach Art Museum, one of the oldest Art Museums in the US, located in the Rust Belt city of Buffalo, NY; the other one The Oakland Museum of California, a museum of the civil rights era, in the former shipping powerhouse on the San Francisco Bay. The study demonstrates the central role of recent architectural planning for accomplishing museum goals of deeper, more meaningful interactions with established and new audiences. As museums and entire urban cultural economies are re-emerging from the paralysis of the pandemic, museums reconsider their capacities to address social inequalities through participatory measures. However, critical museum theory meets such hope with skepticism by asking to what extent participatory strategies are suited for this task, particularly in a neoliberal setting. This is where museum architecture assumes a new relevance beyond its post-Bilbao appeal and disproven claim for almost automatic positive effects on urban communities. This project is formed at the intersection architectural history, critical museum research, and urban justice scholarship. It is based on in-depth interviews with museum staff and a literature review. We conclude that community engagement cannot be an afterthought to construction. Efforts to connect through architecture need to be coordinated with a museum’s engagement strategies from the earliest planning stages onward and lead to a sustained feedback loop after building completion.
Communities in Flow : The Eco Showboat Project at the Intersection of Nature, Technology, and Art
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Luiza De Castro, Rosa De Marco
The Shannon Scheme complex in Ireland, encompassing a dam (Ardnacrusha), canals, lakes, and bridges, is a significant infrastructure that extends beyond its physical impact to include historical and cultural dimensions. Built in the 1920s, it played a crucial role in the construction of the concept of nation in the newly independent Irish state, deeply shaping the landscape, local communities, and their dynamics, while inspiring cultural expressions. This paper presents the Eco Showboat project, which combined art and science, explored the interaction between natural and human flows and built infrastructure along the waterways of Ireland. It highlights the transposition of the Ardnacrusha locks, revealing the dam's role in shaping the local landscape and the relationships communities have with this historical structure. Activities in the nearby communities of Limerick and Killaloe focused on raising awareness of environmental issues and promoting tangible actions for local and global sustainability. The project fostered dialogue with local communities, valuing their knowledge of river dynamics and showcasing how infrastructure can bridge past, present, and future. Despite physical barriers created by these technological monuments, the interactions underscored their potential to support reflections on environmental sustainability. This research emphasizes how built environments, despite their potential negative impacts, can address diverse human needs — both material and creative. They can become powerful catalysts for positive transformation, fostering connections within communities and their surroundings while inspiring action toward a more sustainable future.
Featured Reexamining Public Urban Green Space Design: Learning from Past Greening Initiatives to Plan for an Equitable Future
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eliane Schmid
In 2004, Cranz and Boland announced the “Sustainable Park” era (102), marking a convergence of social and ecological concerns in public park development. Precursors of this concept can be found in 1970s Marseille and Hamburg reacting to climate protection demands via greening initiatives. The campaign “Milles Points Verts” [1000 green points] for Marseille aimed to green the city and raise environmental consciousness. Hamburg, the twin-city of Marseille, was inspired by this program and launched “Aktion Grünes Hamburg” [campaign for a green Hamburg]. Citizens in both cities were educated on green space importance and “proper” usage, as well as encouraged to participate in tree planting events. Yet, studying these programs reveals how they reinforced socio-spatial inequalities through planning and public education and we can thus recognize the potential and pitfalls of (sustainable) park development. Both initiatives demonstrate increased environmental awareness and citizen engagement attempts, while exposing how urban green space planning reflects and fosters social norms through e.g. limited accessibility and design strategies. By examining past initiatives, we can acquire valuable knowledge for future park planning that aligns with the call of this year’s TCE to think about “sharing practices and built structures within the city”. Creating more inclusive, ecologically sound, and socially equitable public urban green spaces requires active listening to and inclusion of communicated needs of actual users. This approach supports sustainable park construction both for the (resilient) community and the environment, thereby promoting ways of creating truly publicly accessible and shareable spaces within the city.
