MEETING VISITORS AT THE DOOR

I went to Munich this early spring. It was rather cold still, you can see me with my pink ear mufflers in the reflection of one of the pictures. While I was there, my attention was caught by the way that two museums visually drew visitors in right from the front door. The two museums are quite different from one another and both did it in their own unique way.

Strolling through the city centre right past the Viktualienmarkt I came across the Jewish Museum Munich and was immediately intrigued by the way they had designed their ground level facade next to the entrance doors. The facade is almost entirely made out of glass and allows you to peak into the ground floor of the museum. It is covered in texts of various lengths in German and English. The shortest text in the largest font is the “Grüß Gott” right next to the entrance door. “Grüß Gott” translates to welcome in the southern parts of Germany, so this museum greets everyone with a very large welcome right at the front door.

The facade design is the work of the Israeli artist Sharone Lifschitz. It is part of her project Speaking Germany which was realised for Munich’s Kunst am Bau programme Quivid. The text fragments are the result of personal conversations that she has had with a number of people all over Germany who responded to an ad the artist had posted in several newspapers saying: „Young Jewish woman visiting Germany would like to have a conversation about nothing in particular with any one reading this.“

One shorter text caught my attention. It was someone explaining,  how they had seen Jewish people placing small stones on a grave in a movie, and the person was wondering what the meaning of this custom was. Reading this did make me curious to learn more about Jewish burial traditions and I was sure that I would be able to find an answer to this question inside the museum.

For me the facade design makes the museum more accessible because it makes its content more graspable and concrete. Even from the outside I felt welcomed by the sign and got a glimpse of what was going on in the inside of the museum. Of course I was able to catch a glimpse through the vast glass windows, but more importantly the different texts gave me a variety or very concrete examples of topics and themes to be encountered inside, with questions that raised my curiosity to go in and search for the answer.

Finally, on Sunday I visited the State Museum of Egyptian Art. And I must say the museum blew me away. It was completely overhauled with a new building build especially for it fairly recently in 2013. I do not want to get into too much detail but the most exciting thing about the museum for me was the front of the new building. As you enter it seems as if you yourself are descending into an Egyptian tomb. Then, once you are at the front door, instead of seeing the usual disclaimers found at many shop doors, one is greeted by funny renditions of familiar museum signs. To me this little design choice made me feel welcome at the museum right from the start. It seemed to say “this is a place entirely dedicated to Egyptian artefacts and also a place where you will enjoy yourself”. I do think that small design features like this one, can put a smile on people’s faces and make the museum feel like a more welcoming place. Making a greater number of visitors feel like the museum is a place where they belong is what accessibility should be about.