Cities and Urban Studies: Four Perspectives on Art Museums

This chapter asks, What can visitors learn about the art museum and the city from urban studies? We tackle this question from four perspectives, and in particular, we draw on a few of our previous publications position ing the investigation in the literature about museums in general. We dis cuss basic conceptualizations from values, to economies, to the built environment, and, finally, to future transformations and offer examples specific to art museums. Section 2 explains how museums can be seen as bearers of civic and cultural values and describes the emblematic case of Newcastle and Gateshead, in the United Kingdom. Section 3—based on Nuccio and Ponzini (2017) and Ponzini (2009)—analyses the connections between museums and cultural districts and illustrates the impact of the agglomeration of cultural institutions in the Mount Vernon Cultural District in Baltimore, Maryland. Section 4 brings to the forefront the role of museums in the city fabric, considering both museums as landmarks and their surroundings (based on Ponzini, 2020). Finally, Sect. 5—based on Ponzini (2011)—focuses on museums as flagships and provides a critical perspective on the case of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The conclusion brings this thread together to show four ways through which visitors and citizens can see the connections between the city and the art museum.