#spatial function

After learning about the taxonomy of spatial function and the importance of the whole audience experience, I’ve decided to revisit the V&A and the Theatre & Performance Gallery with the new awareness in order to understand the full visitor experience and how the different spaces could affect them.

I travel to the museum via the London Tubes which this by itself is a very “London” experience. And to my surprise, there was an underground tunnel that goes from the station and will lead the visitors straight into the V&A. The visitors don’t even need to go out of the underground to get to the museum, thus, their experience will not be affected by the outside environment. This could play a small but significant role in the enjoyment of the museum trip because for example, if it was a horrible and gloomy rainy day, the audience will be sheltered from the weather.

V&A Tunnel Entrance

Once I was in the V&A, I took a more natural navigation route and just follow where my eyes took me to as I feel like this is how regular visitors would act like.  I notice that I was drawn more by the bigger and grander galleries such as the Raphael Cartoons Gallery, the Medieval & Renaissance Gallery, and the Cast Court. This is mainly because of the astonishingly impressive exhibit items and the sheer gigantic sizes of these gallery spaces.

I remember when I first walked into the Raphael Cartoons Gallery, I immediately took a big gasp as my eyes and brain were struggling to comprehend the vast space of the gallery. This experience was purely phenomenological as I did not even know what was displayed in this gallery or its significance. It felt otherworldly as I did not expect there would be such a great space within this intricate building and the contrast of the vast gallery with the other compact galleries helps to emphasise this feeling. In the end, I was more fascinated by the gallery space rather than the Raphael’s paintings.

the Raphael Cartoons Gallery 

Similarly, I’ve also experienced the phenomenological sense when I saw the craftsmanship of the works in the Cast Court and in the Medieval & Renaissance Gallery. I could not believe that these colossal elaborately crafted objects were real and it is standing right before my eyes.

Cast Court

The powerful impacts of these impressive galleries made me question how the T&P Gallery stand out from them and how can visitors be transitioned fluidly from the experience that they’ve gained from these performance spaces into the T&P Gallery.  

The Audience Experience of a Space

The taxonomy of spatial function was a framework proposed by Gay McAuley in her book Space in Performance (1999) that examine the relationship between the audience and the performance by looking at the space in which the two come together. It basically investigates all the different spaces within a performance and considering how each space can affect the overall experience and how they create a meaning together – the Thematic Space.

It is important to consider all these spaces when designing for an exhibition/ space because all of them will have a certain effect on the experience of the “performance”. The external context and environment of your design must be considered as your design does not stand in an empty space, it is a part of an existing landscape. The audience’s response and approach to the design is key to create a successful design hence the visitor’s introduction to the performance is “crucial to preparing the visitor for the experience.” (Lorenc, Berger and Skolnick, 2007)

The Holocaust Exhibition, Imperial War Museum London

An example of this is the design for the Holocaust Exhibition in the Imperial War Museum London. Visitors enter the building through the entrance (Theatre Space) and immediately they are met with the atrium (Audience Space) that displays these amazing aircrafts and machinery of war. The grand building and the displays in the atrium are a spectacle in itself and it gives a sense of wonders, which to some extent acts as a glorification of war.

Thus, it would be extremely inappropriate for the visitors to travel from the atrium with the uplifting mood and then to plunge straight into the heavy topic of the Holocaust. The visitors are not going into the exhibition with the right mindset and it is not hard to imagine that they would feel uncomfortable and strange.

To solve this problem, the designers created a space called The Drum between the atrium and the exhibition that acts as a buffer. The Visitor will enter and exit the exhibition through the Drum and in this space, they are allowed to calm down and have a moment of reflection. The Audience Space and the Performance Space are entwined in the Drum, hence there will be a smooth transition into and out of the exhibition.

Also, the designer has thoughtfully planned out emergency exits and back of the house spaces (Practitioner/ Rehearsal Space) throughout the exhibition space as they understand that this is an extremely emotional and sensitive subject therefor the visitor can leave at any point of the exhibition if they need to have a break.