Grading the Level of Inclusiveness in Museum Buildings: İstanbul Modern Museum

Abstract

Contemporary museums serve for education, research, and enjoyment, and their primary objectives are collection, documentation, and exhibition of cultural heritage. Thus, museum buildings have become common spaces of urban life through these new functions and activities rather than isolated exhibition spaces. They define inclusive complexes with educational research and social and public areas, establishing more effective interaction with society. These activities can be performed competently and appropriately depending on the multi-functional spatial configuration to provide urban experiences with participation and inclusiveness. In this context, this paper aims to study the level of inclusiveness of the first contemporary art museum of Ístanbul—Ístanbul Modern Museum—through detailed examinations of the architectural configuration with grading criteria based on spatial relations in terms of various facilities of the museum. The story of Ístanbul Modern started by re-functioning the old Bosphorus dock’s warehouses in 2004. The museum temporarily moved to another historic building in 2018, where it has also experienced new COVID-19 pandemic conditions. Ístanbul Modern is still in a process of moving back to its former location into a new building designed as a museum by Renzo Piano Building Workshop Architects. Through three phases, inclusivity and participation of buildings will be cross-examined on a developed rating-scale technique based on included sociocultural activities by their spatial sizes and relations through quantitative analysis. This methodology will provide preliminary knowledge for future research on museum architectonics.