AECOM - the future for museums

The global network AECOM which is working on innovative solutions to complex challenges in cities, agreed to present at our June Future Cities Forum on the topic of 'the future of museums'.

Director Margreet Papamichael discussed the 2016 Themed Entertainment Association or TEA/AECOM Museum Index Report, ranking museums around the world according to their attendance records.

She revealed that museums globally must look to interactivity and immersive experience in order to maintain and extend interest from the visiting the public. Technology today, she explained, can allow museums to reach much larger audiences through virtual reality, The Van Gogh Museum's exhibition in China for example, did not contain a single masterpiece but allowed visitors the fun of 'sitting' on the artist's bed and at his easel.

Margreet also talked about a development in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where a company called Meow Wolf has designed 'The House of Eternal Return' a unique and interactive experience. Located inside a seemingly normal Victorian house, a 20,000 square foot exhibition allows visitors to walk, climb and crawl through an imaginative muliverse of unexpected environments. See the video below which gives a glimpse of this: