Being in the Exhibition: The Narrative Dynamics of Space and its Role in the Museum Visitors’ Experience

This thesis is concerned with the space of the museum exhibition, the teams that create it and the visitors that move through it. My research enquiry was provoked by my experience of working within and across museum and design teams for two decades, primarily with the Science Museum, London. From this position, I observed the disconnect between the museum and its visitors which is the challenge of communication within the dynamics of the visitors’ experience. I argue that the potential of space as a narrative medium is under explored, overlooked in favour of the familiar discourses of content and audience, of knowledge and learning, and the well-rehearsed process of architectural projects.

Four spatial theorists underpin this thesis. Merleau-Ponty and Lefebvre centre our attention on the lived experience of space. de Certeau’s essay Walking in the City illustrates the disconnect between the museum and its visitors with his reflection on the different perspectives of planner and pedestrian. Massey opens up alternative ways to think about space. Challenging the privileging of the temporal over the spatial and how often we confuse a map for a space, she celebrates the chance of space and champions its dynamic, interrelational nature. I draw on urban planning (Cullen, Benedikt and Lynch) to develop a method which I have called ‘reading for space’. This is applied to two case studies from the Science Museum, Information Age and Robots.

I have proposed the concept of ‘the narrative dynamics of space’ to foreground the role of space in the visitors’ experience. Through the language of contrasts and views, the combined forces of space and time can support or undermine the visitors’ engagement with the museum’s intended experience and messages. Drawing on narrative theorists including Genette and especially Barthes, I then shift my perspective. In ‘reading for narrative space’ I conceptualise the exhibition as the product of a dynamic authorial exchange between the museum project and the visitors’ embodied experience of narrative space.