Day at the museum

This past week my class was fortunate enough to have a private tour of Denver’s Natural History museum. We were able to tour the museum and see the new exhibits the museum’s design team had been working on. From my perspective it seemed that they had started to take a more interactive approach to their designs. It was interesting to see how the museum had changed over the past years. Even in the architecture you could tell how the old had been modernized to fit it’s new needs. Depending on what side you come in, the museum would look old new or somewhere in between. In the main pavilion the convergence of these three becomes very apparent. It is most notable in the connections of the old and new. The east side of the original building has now become part of the inside, acknowledging the history of the space.

When you look at the exhibits you being to notice the mix of the new and the old. I think functionally the goal was to try to salvage as much as possible, but this has almost created a vernacular that is specific to it’s place. In many ways this has become it’s identity. After meeting the design team, I have deduced that they all believe in maintaining the ethos of the museum. They may have not have vocalized this idea, but they definitely have maintained the idea of maintaining the old and the new. This has created a stylistic identity of the team.

After sitting down with the team we learned how the team functions. They showed us how they put together information and collectively design. It was interesting to see how design teams operate and evolve over time.