The global pandemic of Coronavirus has led to a rethink of people’s interaction with public
spaces. As the spreading of infection is still not controlled, it is the role of spatial designers
to figure out proper approaches for keeping social distance between people through
spatial modification of public buildings as well as urban spaces. This study focuses on
the reopening strategy of art museums in post-COVID-19 time, asking: what are the
strategies for reopening adopted by museums and which spatial factors affect the
adaptation of their layout and curatorial organisation? The purpose is to provide not only
practical solutions but also a theoretical model for the future evaluation of the capability
of museums for doing so.
Building on Hillier’s theory of spatial types and spatial structures (Hillier 2019), four British
museums have been chosen for the investigation of the socio-spatial changes implicated
in their reopening process. These are: The National Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern
and The Wallace Collection. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is also explored in
terms of the changes in its spatial layout brought about by successive strategies of
expansion. The study attempts to have a more in-depth understanding of the role the
spatial structure plays in the organisation of movement in art museums, both spatial and
transpatial, based on the analytical findings. The study suggests that the use of d-spaces
in spatial layouts is the determinant factor for the capability of museums to successfully
respond to specialists’ guidance for the reopening. It also proposes a model for a multilayered
spatial system in relation to the global-local network. On each layer, d-spaces
present the particularity for the spatial configuration and transpatial intention in the
meantime.
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