Treehouse Museum Presentation Slides.

During Cabinets of Wonder, a course on design for museums, we were asked us to present a pitch for our “dream museum.” We were to assume we had a massive budget, and that any barriers could be overcome; if it was physically possible, we could propose it. I chose to focus on treehouses in part because I’ve always been fascinated by them, but also because of their ability to appeal to so many human desires and interests.

Before I started my slides or told anyone what I would be proposing, I asked everyone in the room to close their eyes, and then I asked them to use their imaginations:

Take a deep breath. Now take another deep breath, but this time imagine the smell of the woods when you inhale. Whatever kind of woods you like– oak forest, redwood, pines– imagine somewhere you are surrounded by trees, and try to get that smell into your memory and hold it. You’re walking through the woods. You might feel a faint breeze or hear some birds, you feel the ground under your feet. You come to a particularly large tree, and you reach out to touch its bark. Consider how it feels under your fingertips, whether parts are rough or smooth, if it’s sticky from sap.  Walk around to the other side of the tree and see that there’s a rope ladder hanging there. As you begin to climb the ladder, feel the texture of the rope under your hands, notice the creaking of the branches around you. You can smell the scent of the tree change as you move away from the floor of the forest. The ladder sways just the slightest bit; you can look down if you want, or just look ahead and notice the patterns of the tree’s bark and any little insects you pass as you climb. Soon you see a structure above you, several smooth planks laying across the branches. Your ladder ends at a trap door. You reach up and stretch to push it open. You feel your arms tense as you hoist yourself inside. You’re in a magnificent treehouse, looking out on the forest canopy around you. Take a second to look around…

My classmates agreed that their imagined treehouses, although radically different (some were sprawling, deluxe tree mansions and some were ramshackle lookouts), shared a few traits that make them so appealing.

Part of what makes treehouses so appealing to so many people is that they incorporate opportunities for all sorts of interests and talents. They allow interests in design and engineering to flourish, they provide opportunities for observation of the natural world, they offer secret hideaways, and they offer us an opportunity to exercise our capabilities for climbing and movement. In some instances, they even serve practical purposes such as hunting lookouts or escape from predators.

The idea behind the treehouse museum is that it would use these strengths to engage visitors of all types, interests, and abilities. You’ll see a slide in the middle of the presentation that says, “I can create a life in which I am more cognizant of the natural world around me.” This is a “takeaway statement,” what I would hope visitors would say upon leaving the museum. Of course, a variant of that might just be, “Can we build one?”

A few favorite museum experiences

Week 8: time to distill what we’ve loved and hated about all of our museum visits over the past few weeks into our own experience design manifestos. Here’s mine…

Transport and/or transform the audience, if only for a moment.

Inspire wonder, curiosity, and delight, even in the face of difficult subjects.

Expect the best from visitors; don’t limit engagement with the public to the level of the lowest common denominator. Provide for multiple points of entry to material.

Exclude gratuitously interactive exhibits. Any interaction should support a clear purpose.

Have a sense of humor– about the materials, about the museum itself.

User test at least at the prototype stage, preferably more.

Invite people who genuinely care about the materials to share their passion for those materials with others.

Be flexible and self-aware, adjusting and reframing museum contents appropriately, and addressing mistakes.

Offer an opportunity to read, but don’t require it or rely on it as the only method of explanation.

Compel a sense of “flow” in visitors (i.e. help them feel engaged and challenged, but not overwhelmed).

Convey a mood relevant to presented materials and inspire appropriate behavior in visitors.

Avoid using signage as a crutch.

Provide surprises and mental treats.

Stick to the main idea for any given exhibit.

Furnish adequate space for reflection.

Use people’s emotions to help them identify with stories and engage with materials, but don’t abuse this power.

Be a gracious host.

Do not employ security methods that intimidate visitors.

Provide opportunities for visitors to pursue further learning about the material presented.

Food, if offered, should be delicious and reasonably healthy. Otherwise, provide recommendations for dining nearby.

Be an integral member of the neighborhood (whether virtual or physical). Be ready to provide directions, suggest itineraries, and pass the time of day, like any good neighbor.

Ignore any of the above tenets, but only with well-considered intention and purpose.

Images:
Jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Tell the Bees at the Museum of Jurassic Technology
Joseph Beuys: Multiples at San Jose Museum of Art
Miss Rockaway Armada at Mass MoCA
The old Getty (now the Getty Villa)

Stentor (a microbe I saw under a microscope at NYHS)

My first thought upon walking into the New York Hall of Science was, “Yay! We get to play!” My second thought was, “And I won’t have to feel like I am hogging the exhibits since there are hardly any kids here.” (Third thought? “Please don’t let me get pink eye or swine flu or whatever else is likely to be hanging out on all this stuff– I can tell by the fingerprints that none of it has been cleaned too recently. Just don’t touch your face, ok? Do. Not. Scratch. Your. Nose.”) Despite the fact that the Hall of Science bills itself as a museum for all ages, kids are definitely the focus here, and the children I did encounter a little later in the day were very aware of that fact. They were clearly perplexed to see adults interacting with the exhibits without another kid nearby, and they grew frustrated quickly if we were taking to long reading instructions or, in the words of one little boy in the Mathematica exhibit, “making it go.” Unlike other museums, where I’ve seen adults interpreting exhibits for their children, most parents at the Hall of Science were hanging back, letting their children interact with exhibits on their own. I think this is in part due to the fact that the exhibits actually look like they’re meant for kids, and it’s usually possible to operate them and get something fun to happen without actually understanding what is happening (e.g. kids can press a button over and over to drop a ball into a vortex, finding it fascinating to see how many they can get going at once, without ever finding out a bit about what is happening, scientifically). I also noticed that the visitors at this museum seemed more ethnically and economically diverse than at several of the other museums I’ve visited recently. Many of them seemed to be from the city, rather than visiting from out of town, and I overheard lots of bilingual kids. The majority of adults were there with children, but I did notice two groups of people in their early twenties who were visiting with friends and playing every bit as much as the kids were.

Although I was immediately engaged by the exhibits, just like the children around me, I realized after about 15 minutes that I was not actually retaining much information. I wonder if the benefit of a visit to a museum like the Hall of Science isn’t just an improved view of science overall and an increased curiosity, rather than the takeaway of any particular bits of knowledge. To me, the most successful exhibits were where something was actually happening right then (e.g. the microbes moving under a microscope or the sound or light exhibits). In the face of so many things to manipulate, I found myself completely avoiding any exhibit that only contained video. While plain video might be seen as the most easily accessible exhibit in some museums, in this context it felt boring. That said, the dial interface used in several exhibits, allowing users to navigate through video forwards and backwards at varying speeds, was completely addictive.

Photo via PROYECTO AGUA

Dodo Skeleton from AMNH

The American Museum of Natural History has always been one of my favorite places in the city, but for some reason I was really grouchy when I visited this time, and my notes reflect that. So, sorry AMNH, but this will not be the love song I might have written to you had I visited a different day.

My visit started off well; I felt the usual excitement that’s inspired by walking up the steps of the Met or the AMNH. I felt like part of a Tradition of The City, I was excited to see my old friends (the big horn diorama! the whale!), I was curious if I would see something new, and I was looking forward to the pleasure of being fascinated. The staff at the entrance was extraordinarily friendly. They even reminded me that I didn’t actually have to pay the full suggested donation for admission. They gave me a map. They told me to enjoy myself and smiled at me.  I could hardly wait to get into the Hall of Biodiversity. I turned to my left, and headed toward the darkened room…

And then what happened? Suddenly my mood turned from excitement and anticipation to gloominess and frustration. I still can’t quite figure out why. Where the taxidermy had just seemed bittersweet and charmingly anachronistic before, it felt oppressive and sad. Where the darkened exhibition rooms had felt like a kind of special sanctuary on previous visits, they just felt cold and forgotten this time. I tried moving on to the Hall of Ocean Life– who doesn’t love the giant whale?– but it felt disappointing to me, too. It just left me wishing I could magically transport myself to the Monterey Bay Aquarium instead. I halfheartedly pressed a few buttons on an exhibit to learn a little bit about water bears, but I immediately forgot what I had read. I tried sitting on a bench and people watching for a while, but even the visitors today seemed a little lifeless.

Since some of my favorite exhibits were feeling a little tired, I decided to visit some of the exhibits I knew hadn’t been updated for a really long time (or ever?). I wanted to see if the museum made more sense as a relic than as something that was trying to stay current. I wandered into a few halls that repelled me with an oddly chemical smell (hello, Hall of Planet Earth!) but eventually found my way into the Hall of New York State Environment. This exhibit seems hopelessly quaint, with its coverage of Dutchess County apple farming and its amazing use of typography. I felt like I’d walked into a time capsule.

It’s this time capsule side of the AMNH that I think a lot of New Yorkers love it for– it’s soothing to know that there are parts of the city that never change. On the other hand, it’s sad that this amazing treasure trove of scientific research resides in the heart of the city but doesn’t manage to convey the excitement of contemporary science very well.

My visit to the AMNH on my own was deeply contrasted by my visit with our class the next day. We went behind the scenes to see the ichthyology department and hear about how the museum’s researchers gather and study samples all over the world. Listening to this scientist talk about her work was infinitely more exciting than my visit to the Hall of Ocean Life had been the day before, despite the fact that she was showing us fish that I never would have thought I’d be excited about. Her enthusiasm for the subject was completely contagious, and I walked away from the experience wanting to go home and read as much about coelacanths as I could. From ichthyology, we continued on behind the scenes to the exhibits department, where we saw plans and models for various stages of exhibits, and we met people who were building camels and ship interiors for the upcoming Traveling the Silk Road. This was easily one of the very best museum experiences I’ve ever had. Listening to the process by which they are researching, developing, and building exhibits made the material of the exhibits come alive in a way that seeing a finished project doesn’t always do.

My two very different days at the AMNH provided me with so much food for thought, and so many questions that it’s been difficult to organize and reflect on all of it. I still have some miscellaneous notes that don’t seem to belong anywhere specific…

Being able to walk all the way around a tiger and see the details of its enormous paws is amazing. This is one of the things museums are best at– providing up close three dimensional experiences.

Feeling like you’re being let in on a secret or seeing something that not everyone gets to see is very powerful. It can make an audience really sit up and pay attention.

The AMNH’s interactive floor map is pretty cool. I wouldn’t mind having access to that while I was actually in the museum.

Meeting a real person who is absolutely passionate about their work is far more powerful and effective in conveying information than almost any sort of exhibit, no matter how interactive it is.

Nez Perce dress, ca. 1920, on exhibit at the NMAI

For our third week of visits, Nancy asked us to explore three museums focused on the history or art of specific communities. I chose to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the National Museum of the American Indian. I had visited the Museum at Eldridge Street a few weeks ago, and my time there is still fresh in my mind, so I’m including that as my third.

These three museums are geared toward fairly different audiences. The Museum of Jewish Heritage, I think, is geared toward a general adult audience, but assumes that the majority of its visitors may have some knowledge of Jewish culture. The National Museum of the American Indian is geared toward a broader audience of casual visitors, including children, and it assumes no prior knowledge of Native American culture. Eldridge St. is a very small, very specialized museum that assumes a specific interest in local Jewish history or in the history of the Lower East Side; docents accompany visitors, so there’s an opportunity for the material presented to be geared toward different knowledge levels (e.g. tourists, school groups, genealogists).

Visiting the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I was first struck by how big it is and by how amazing its setting is, looking out over Battery Park and beyond to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The building feels monumental, keeping in line with the museum’s mission as a living memorial to the Holocaust. Entering the museum is a little intimidating– the foyer is large and echoing, and there were no other visible visitors when I arrived. The staff at the admissions desk inspected my student ID far more closely than any museum I’ve ever been to, which made me laugh, which in turn somehow broke the ice a little, and suddenly the staff were much friendlier than they had appeared at first. MJH is a very linear museum; there is essentially one way through the core exhibit, which is arranged chronologically. The entrance to the exhibit is very impressive and overwhelming. It gave me a sense of history and culture flooding the space, which, I think is a good way to prepare people for the exhibits ahead. This entrance piece does a great job of framing the exhibit, and its use of technology definitely helped to make me feel immersed in the content. The use of multimedia in the following rooms, however, felt confusing, as sound bled from different exhibits into each other. The first two floors felt packed and crowded with too much information for me to take in, although it helped to have it all framed in a linear way. An interesting choice was made to break up the floors into three sections: the first floor covers history and culture before the Holocaust, the second covers the Holocaust, and the third covers more recent history. In a way, I loved that it was broken up this way, as riding the escalator between floors gave me a very specifically allotted time to contemplate what I had been viewing or would be viewing, and it gave a great weight to the second floor. However, after reading Frisch’s The Memory of History, I can’t help but wonder if this way of organizing the exhibits doesn’t place the Holocaust outside of the continuum of history, isolating it as something so different from ourselves that we can’t apply our learning from the exhibit to our own present. The thing that most impressed me about the MJH is how well the people there have considered the need for contemplation after taking in so much information, much of which is very difficult to process. The inclusion of meditative spaces like Andy Goldsworthy’s Garden of Stones seems absolutely necessary in this context.

In contrast to the MJH, where everything seemed so thoughtfully laid out and so well-planned, the National Museum of the American Indian felt a little like someone’s afterthought. The museum  is housed in an incredibly stately old place, but I felt like I’d wandered in to the wrong building when I first entered. The layout made no sense to me, down to the orientation of the security tables. I also found that I couldn’t tell what much of the signage in the exhibits was actually referring to (e.g. a pillar with information on the Ghost Dance dresses was standing on the other side of the room from where the dressed were being shown). I also found some of the children’s exhibits to be annoying busywork where the activities were not actually associated with the content they seemed to be presenting. For example, at one table the text asked, “Can beads be used to tell a story?” but the interaction was simply a jigsaw puzzle with an image taken from a beaded dress. A number of the interactive pieces provided very little user feedback, which was also frustrating. I was frustrated by some of the museum’s lack of organization, and I was disappointed that there wasn’t more general historical context given to the exhibits. However, I did really appreciate some of the content, particularly the use of oral history and video interviews.

I visited the Museum at Eldridge St. for a project at work, so I got a more specialized experience than I would have as a more casual visitor, but the tour was fascinating. I am often reluctant to sign up for tours at museums and historical sites, but whenever I do actually participate in them, I’m often surprisingly engaged by the docents’ enthusiasm. Eldridge St. was no exception to this. Although I could tell that the staff had told some of these stories many times, they still had a contagious spark and excitement about the material, and they provided a level of detail that made the history of the place palpable. There is something very special about being able to talk about the history of a place when you are actually in that space, and the docents here took very good advantage of that by doing things like having us reach down and feel the grooves in the wooden floor made by so many years of men praying. The use of technology at Eldridge St. is very specialized in that it is meant to assist the docents as a storytelling tool, as well as an interactive piece for visitors to explore. Interactive tables of the sort here are often used to simply provide an option of more information than can fit on a print sign or to provide a thin layer of participation; I really appreciated that one of the tables here was used to provide views of the space that would be impossible to achieve in person.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

I’ve been to Brooklyn Botanic several times, and I’m always a little surprised at how casual the entrance is. The guards are chatty, and people are sitting or standing in a relaxed way that is very different from other types of museums. I’ve noticed this at New York Botanical, too. This time I visited Brooklyn Botanic on a Tuesday, when admission is free, and I noticed what I’ve noticed on other free admission days– there are a lot of regulars, and the guards are really friendly, as if they are just greeters, rather than guards. Near the entrance, several women with babies in strollers clearly had a weekly date to meet at the garden and walk the paths. I know several people who have regular free admission to the garden for one reason or another, and they usually visit at least once a month, if not once a week. Many of the people I observed on Tuesday seemed to visit often, too; they knew where they were going and had an idea of what they would see. This stood in contrast to last week’s visit to the Met, where there was a general air of confusion around the entrance. I wonder how many visitors the Met has who just stop in casually, the way people seem to do with the garden. During this visit, I was reminded of the Grover reading we did for class. As soon as I walked through the gates, even though similar plantings were outside, I immediately started to look at everything I saw as part of the exhibits. I noticed some of the other visitors were doing this, too. It was as if by building a wall around a certain space we had been given permission to look very, very closely, in a way that is usually seen as strange when done outside that wall. This was my fifth visit to the Brooklyn Botanic, but I still got lost. I don’t mind getting lost here, though, because of that permission to look at everything as an exhibit.

Although the definition of the space creates this possibility for close examination, I also noticed a few things that contribute to the casual atmosphere at Brooklyn Botanic. Firstly, its location makes it feel like an extension of Prospect Park, rather than a stand alone destination. Secondly, the relatively minimal amount of signage and interpretation in the outdoor areas (vs. the conservatory) allows vhttp://carolineabrown.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=894&message=1isitors to forget that they are in a sort of museum if they want to. In the past, I’ve found this gray area frustrating– when visiting alone I’ve wanted either more information (Why do these roses have such crazy names? Who gets to decide? How do these plants relate to their surroundings? Why are these leaves shaped like this?) or, when visiting with friends, I’ve wanted more of a park experience (Yes, we know there’s no picnicking, we’re just drinking water. Sorry, no, we didn’t realize we weren’t allowed to sit on the grass…)

From a 14-year-old who wants to be a biologist: I love the desert exhibit and the tropical section. It’s so cool to see stuff growing that doesn’t grow here, even though the air is kind of gross in there. I know you’re not really supposed to touch stuff, but sometimes I can’t help tapping my finger on the end of a cactus spine. I wish there was more stuff about how plants are on the inside, though. Also, it would be cool to meet the people who take care of all this stuff.

From a pair of elderly tourists: We were a little sorry that the website said that some of the roses were blooming again; they looked pretty droopy to us. Still, we would love to come back in the spring. Some of the paths around the Japanese garden were a little rough; maybe they could mark more clearly which paths are recommended for whom? The walk down from the entrance is a little steep, but it’s worth it to look out over the cherry trees and the rose garden. We would have liked to sit down to look at things more often.

From a group of neighborhood moms: We’ve been coming to the garden every Tuesday for a few months; it’s a great spot to walk and talk and get a little change of scene from the neighborhood. We generally stay on the main paths, so we don’t really read too much about the plants. We’d probably explore more if some of the paths were wider. For a while we were trying to learn more about the plants, but now we just relax and take it all in. One thing that’s kind of frustrating, though, is that it’s hard for a group of us to sit down anywhere other than the lawn under the cherry trees– sometimes we wind up splitting up onto benches when it’s time to take a break, but then we can’t all face each other or talk together.

The Milkmaid

Last Saturday afternoon I visited The Frick Collection and The Metropolitan Museum of Art for Cabinets of Wonder. For each visit, Nancy has asked us to gather our first impressions of the place, observe others in the space, and write a collection of short reviews, adopting a variety of viewpoints.

The Frick always seems to me like a building that exists in a New York City outside of time, staying the same no matter what changes around it. The light rain that was falling as I walked up to the door heightened this effect. The romance that surrounds the Frick inspires a sort of daydream of what it might have been like to live in the era of Henry Clay Frick and his peers, but as a visitor I was quickly brought back to earth by the crowd squeezing past three security guards to exit as I entered the building. The entrance to the museum is confusing, despite the fact that there’s only one path to follow– multiple people seemed to be giving visitors instructions, but none of them loudly enough so that people could understand. The attempt at business-like moving along of visitors and stern protection of the collection felt distinctly at odds with an attempt to maintain an aura of hushed awe. The staff almost seemed like they were deliberately acting out the often contradictory missions of museums to protect their collections while sharing them with the public.

Most visitors at the Frick had their audio guides glued to their ears. They rarely spoke to each other, and it was often difficult to tell who was visiting together. Most of the visitors were older adults, many of whom were speaking French or German. I wonder if maybe the formality of the museum causes people to rely even more heavily on their guides than elsewhere; visitors here seemed to closely measure their time in  front of each work according to the guide. The heavy reliance on guides makes possible very minimal signage, which suits the environment of this museum very well, but I found the audio guide jarring, and much preferred walking around quietly on my own. I was sorry they didn’t offer printed guides to borrow. One side effect of the heavy reliance on audio guides is that visiting the Frick becomes a very solitary experience for people.

At the Met, on the other hand, there was a lot of discussion going on. Pairs of people, families, and groups of friends were milling around in the lobby, loudly discussing where to go and what they wanted to see. Even on the steps outside of the Met there is a kind of anticipatory cheerfulness in the air. I love climbing those steps. I don’t even mind the small crash I feel as I encounter grouchy staff, confusing maps, and the overwhelming crowd streaming in and out; being overwhelmed and frustrated is just part of the experience of going to the Met. It usually feels like I have to earn the right to see whatever it is I want to see. Once past the lobby, though, I almost had the place to myself this time. I was able to walk right up to Vermeer’s Milkmaid, and it actually felt like I was sharing something special with the tiny group of people who happened to also be there, instead of feeling like I was battling for a tiny, unsatisfying glimpse. I wandered over to the American Wing and sat still for a while, watching people admire the sculptures as they passed through. Several families with small children passed by, and several of them were led by young children who were excitedly talking about what they were seeing, where they had been, and what they wanted to see. In fact, some of the kids were just about dragging their guardians from exhibit to exhibit. Despite the overwhelming “bigness” of the Met, these kids all seemed to see it as a place to explore– they didn’t seem intimidated by it at all, which is probably a good thing for me to remember the next time I am looking at that huge list of exhibits.

The Met– from a “Cheap Dates in New York City” guide: “The Met is open until 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and the place is practically empty. The entrance fee is a ‘suggested donation’ so donate what you wish and save your money for drinks on the roof. Then head for the Egyptian Art gallery where the glimmering light reflected off the pool surrounding the Temple of Dendur will flatter even the ugliest among us. From there you can easily wander over to smooch in a hidden nook in Medieval Art or in an abandoned aisle of  the American Wing’s Visible Storage (it sounds totally unromantic, but trust us, there is something weirdly alluring about being alone in that maze of cases).”

The Frick– from a group of 16-year-old girls: “It was fun at first– everything is so fancy– but then it got boring. All the paintings kind of look the same after a while. There were a couple we liked, but those ear things are annoying, and the guy just talks and talks. One of the security guys was humming, which was kind of funny, but other than that we sort of felt like we were about to get kicked out the whole time we were there. It’s weird that the only place you can really sit down for long is by the fountain in the middle– we’re supposed to pick a painting and write about it for school, but there’s nowhere to actually do that, so we had to keep walking back and forth between the paintings and the fountain. Also, are you not supposed to use the bathroom in between the galleries? Because there’s this sign in there that says people with disabilities have priority, but it doesn’t say that on the outside, so what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to leave and go to the other bathroom, or is it rude to stay there, or what?”

The Met– from an 11-year-old boy: “I thought I wasn’t going to like the Met very much, because my parents really like to go to museums. A lot. And we usually go see paintings that are kind of boring– like of flowers or something, but this time I got to see armor, which was so cool! They had all the helmets and spears, and tournament armor, and swords and spurs and they even had some armor from Japan. I really liked seeing all that stuff up close. My dad says maybe we’ll come back and I can draw some of it, because I normally just copy out of books or from the internet. Oh, and then we got to see some stuff from Egypt, which was pretty cool, too. I saw a wall painting from Egypt that was from around 2010 b.c., which is basically like the same amount of time from us in the opposite direction from b.c. So long ago!”