Architecture Commons^™

From Vault To Platform （Democratizing Museums Through The Lens Of The Metaverse））, Zhaoyang Cui

Masters Theses

The modern history of art viewing moves from private collections to public museums, and the modern museum arises with an intention to encourage a broad range of visitors. However, if we look at the reality of museum access, especially in the digital era, when the methods of attaining knowledge and information have grown ever stronger, it is easy to notice the single-direction circuit of information in the operation of museums from curators to the public, which seems outdated in the times of social media, AI and metaverse. Even if a broad range of visitors enter the museum, the information they …

Wal-Seum, Maya Chandler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Designed as a museum of contemporary American history, Wal-seum proposes a new prototype museum that re-presents the commodities of today’s America as historical and cultural artifacts of our time. The museum’s design also borrows from the spatial and organizational techniques of Wal-mart, a place that so many Americans visit time and time again, and which is truly American architecture.

In the final proposal, each department of Wal-mart becomes redesigned as an exhibit in the museum, showcasing ordinary objects, taking cues from the cultural agendas of those items, and calling into question the values therein (i.e. the endless cycle of comparison …