V&A by MUMA. London. Dec. 09.Walking through MUMA's first gallery at the V&A I was struck with a sense of jamais vu. For whilst the concept is one of the street of an Italian city, this interior streetscape lacks anything like the reality of a street, and is more of a gated cul-de-sac than public piazza. However, as far as I am concerned this is relatively forward thinking curation on the part of the V&A: the idea that you might begin to contextualise museum objects does make their display profoundly experiential. Doors become something you walk through, balconies are experienced as such. There is one room in particular where the subtle atmospheres of the architecture create a very tangible sense of firstly a domestic, and subsequently a more public, context for the displays. In one room we can see a harpsichord by a window, surrounded by crockery and with a hearth embedded in one wall (the physical integration of the exhibits - whilst not always detailed so successfully, is very key to the methodology of MUMA here); we can walk from here back out to the first gallery which we may now view from the vantage of a balcony, and instantly the change in scale gives the effect of a transfer from inside to outside.
V&A by MUMA. Medieval space. London. Dec. 09.The other exciting piece of architectural potential that MUMA have managed to reveal is the interstitial spaces between the glazed brick main galleries, and the rest of the building. These patchwork spaces are much tighter than the first few galleries and yet have high walls and a glass roof, in one of the best recreations of 'real' street that I think I have seen.
MUMA first came to my attention with their extension to Newlyn Art Gallery, near Penzance, and the material and curatorial sensitivities that they showed in that highly expectant environment have continued to come across in their latest venture.
Newlyn Art Gallery extension by MUMA. via here
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