Museum as Classroom

As the Curator of Education, one of my core principles is to ask open-ended questions that elicit diverse responses to the artworks on view in the galleries. I felt it was fitting for me to start with a series of seemingly simple questions that I had while researching this moment, “Museum as Classroom.” What were classroom structures like in the 1970s and what did it mean for an art museum to be a classroom back then? What is the role of an art museum today as a community resource and nontraditional classroom space on a public college campus?

Across the US and Britain in the 1960s and 1970s there was a post-WWII education movement in schools called Open-Education, where classrooms were reconfigured as wide-open concept spaces to encourage a cross-pollination of ideas across subjects. Students could learn freely in a hands-on active learning environment that was setup as workshop stations.

Prior to the Neuberger Museum of Art opening in May 1974, it was similar to an open classroom space, not by design, but in practice. There were students and faculty sprawled throughout the Philip Johnson-designed building: rulers were out on drafting tables in a graphic design class, a photography course critiqued darkroom developed works, feminist conversations echoed throughout the galleries. I’m romanticizing a bit, but from accounts from Purchase College alumni nostalgia lives within the Museum’s bricks.

By early 1974, Roy R. Neuberger’s collection, the founding gift of the museum, arrived on campus, marking a moment when faculty and students moved out of gallery spaces and offices into the new buildings intended to be classrooms. There is a black and white photo with school-aged children peering out the windows of the museum looking towards the Art and Design building, under construction, and steel beams exposed just to give an idea of what the campus looked like.

Then on Wednesday, February 6, 1974, classes were canceled for the move from the museum’s storage to the newly built campus library. In an orderly fashion, stacks of books with tags were carried through the tunnels. Students were hired to assist, and a slate of activities and refreshments filled the day.

I loved this quote by Phillip Johnson in the catalog from the first exhibition The Making of a Museum in 1974, “In a building of this nature, much of the design is perforce left to the users. The architects can only give the outlines. The final impression of the building will be the result, therefore, of a type of collaboration with the museum director, the architects, and the university.” Similar to a work of art, which the building is, the viewer’s presence completes the narrative.

Today, we’re inviting students and faculty to use the museum as classroom space in a variety of interdisciplinary ways in our galleries and in an incubator space called “Open Classroom.” A cyclical idea from our founding that is still being practiced today.

Diana Puglisi
Curator of Education
Neuberger Museum of Art