Display Case: The Elephant in the Room

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I’ve always loved museums. Even as a child, I would spend hours exploring my local museum. As an architect, I now find myself blessed with the opportunity to design them. But I must admit that I’m starting to feel a bit frustrated. Due to the current economic squeeze, more and more exciting museum projects are being put on hold—and, in my opinion, needlessly so.

In those heady days before the economy cooled, museums were being designed as if money were no object. Instead of adapting designs to fit these more stringent economic conditions, a number of museum development projects have either been put on hold or abandoned altogether. I refuse to accept the idea that these are the only two available options. There is another, and it seems both simple and obvious—adaptation! It worked for Darwin, and it can work for museums. It goes like this: If you can’t afford to buy something because you don’t have enough money, buy the best you can given the money you have rather than quitting or complaining.

In my own practice, we’ve been trying to talk some of these museums off the ledge with a very logical argument. By redesigning a project to include fewer ostentatious “lost leaders” (as opposed to the more desirable “cost leaders”) and more money generators, they can build a sustainable museum. Granted, it’s not the Bugatti they may have lusted after, but it’s still a Porsche—and that’s not exactly chopped liver.

The sad reality is that in today’s world, museums are not considered essential. They’re seen as a luxury. Yet some architects continue to push clients toward the most expensive end of the building spectrum. These grand edifices can cost more to build per square foot than a major hospital or an exclusive high-rise office building—sometimes by a factor of 10. Worst of all, most museums don’t make a single penny after they pay for all the operating costs.

It’s like that old adage: If you ran your business like museums do, you’d be out of business in a week. The problem is that even after all the government subsidies and personal grants, they can still be out of business in a week. I’ve seen museums designed by world-famous architects and requiring a decade to build that were forced to close their doors within a year or two of the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

So, how does one adapt a design to work with, rather than against, the tide of tougher times? First, ask your architect to take a hard look at the operating efficiency of the building. More often than not, museums aren’t designed to be efficient. For example, consider those large spaces that are of little or no use. If a space isn’t performing a defined function, what is it doing other than costing money to build and money to heat?

Next, architects need to look at the efficiency of materials. Unfortunately, some museum designers consider it essential to design only hand-crafted buildings. An example of this would be an eccentric shape that, no matter how visually striking, would require each of its component panels to be individually hand-formed on site—in many cases, thousands of them. If the design were adjusted even slightly and standard overlapping forms used, similar to how a shingle works, the savings could amount to millions of dollars.

Additionally, architects need to take a closer look at internal operating costs. Every day, the lights need to be turned on and the air conditioning or heat started up. For a typical museum, it’s not uncommon for the annual power bill to reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It makes far more sense to go off-grid with currently available green technology. By the end of the year, there could conceivably be no power bill. By employing passive energy for heating and cooling, and photovoltaics for illumination, a power bill of zero is an achievable dream. Our firm recently completed the design of a 200,000-square-foot, 100 percent passive-energy museum in the Seattle area. The design was complex and required engineers from as far away as Australia to help with the energy analysis. The effort resulted not only in a cost reduction over conventional mechanical systems but a substantial savings in operating costs, as well.

Lastly, it’s vital that we create museums with more built-in money generators. As harsh as it may sound, a museum that pays for itself is a museum that will still be welcoming visitors 10 years down the road. An obvious example of this is the museum gift store. If designed right, the gift shop can, just like popcorn at the movie-plex, generate more revenue than admission tickets. Other examples of money generators include the hosting of banquets, conventions, business and club meetings, and private and corporate parties.

In one particularly memorable case, a museum opened directly across from a convention center. On opening day, thousands of people streamed through the turnstiles. By day three, 20 people came. Eventually, the museum was lucky to see 20 visitors a week. One day, a person walked in and happened to mention that he wasn’t able to reserve a space in the convention center because it was completely booked. On a whim, he asked the museum operator if he could book a room there for the following Saturday night. It was a marriage made in heaven. The guests were amazed, and the museum started making money hand over fist. The end result? To this day, the museum’s facilities are enjoying a higher rate of bookings than the convention center.

The bottom line is this: Architects need to stop viewing museums as quaint, non-essential white elephants and see them for what they really are—vital components of a civilized society. We should not dare take these important protectors of culture for granted. Eventually, people are going to stop throwing money at them just to keep them alive. Museums should hold architects to a higher standard, insisting that they become actively engaged in redesigning museums that have fallen prey to the money crunch. At the same time, architects need to realize that it is neither ethical nor practical to design cost-ineffective museums.

I love museums. I want to see more of them, not more expensive white elephants.