Art museums into the 21st century

The museum boom, which has produced a constant stream of new buildings in many cities in Europe and the USA since the seventies, has reached another high point.
Important museum buildings by high-profile architects have opened within a single year in Bilbao, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Bregenz and Basel. The concert hall in Jean Nouvela (TM)s Culture Centre in Lucerne has been completed. The New York Museum of Modern Art held a competition for a large-scale extension, and the new Tate Gallery in the disused Bankside power station in London has moved into a crucial building phase.
These museum buildings and designs reveal current perceptions of how art is presented in public in their architectural design, their functional planning and their relationship with the cities in which they are sited. Harald Szeemanna (TM)s contribution, written from the point of view of an exhibition curator, describes the prospects that these trends offer museum culture, and possible threatening consequences.