What is the role of the museum of tomorrow? How does it answer to the rapidly changing conditions of the digital age? In a world of mass connectivity and extreme growth we witness an online revolution which redefines our perception of reality. A period of globalization in which cultural institutions tend to lose their position within our present and not to mention our future society.

First Award |  RTFA 2014 Awards
Category: Public Building Concept

The museum is a central figure within the urban hierarchy and it manages to preserve and maintain the cultural tangible and intangible heritage of the world. Unfortunately it often fails to answer to the high level of digitalization of our society. In its own idea it is so deeply rooted in its classical expression that it does not manage to transform itself to a place which can truly answer to the demands of our time. Today’s museums are, as such, obsolete. New dynamics, the exposure by the web of all new works of arts  in an almost real time, the consumption of such works through the digital media, everything is challenging the notion of museum as a stationary box where artistic productions are displayed.

As Walter Benjamin predicted, the digital (mechanical in his age) reproduction of an artwork leads to the loss of its aura, but at the same time makes it available to the masses.

The project should address both the museum as a physical entity (or not) and the relationship of the museum as a public space with the urban context of the city, in this case Istanbul-one of the strongest examples of the evolution of contemporary global cities. As a place of high concentration of people from different nationalities, high density, it gives a good opportunity to face a possible concept for the museum of the future. Yenikapi is one of the most historically significant areas of the city. As a future infrastructural center it holds the urban potential for the development of a project of such typology.