Buckle Up! Riding the Museum Roller Coaster in 2025
Do you like roller coasters? How do they make you feel – terrified, exhilarated, euphoric, terrorized? In today’s age of volatility, these feelings may feel very familiar outside of amusement parks, too. As we approach a new year, we can reflect on the significant changes and upheavals of the past five years that many of us, particularly cultural institutions, have endured.
As a museum person leading a cultural market-focused design studio, I can say that collectively we’ve learned a lot since 2020. Back then, I spoke about the importance of flexibility, resiliency, moments with nature and connecting to community. Today, these same themes are still true, reinforced by a resurgence in museum attendance.
As we look to 2025, these are five key issues affecting cultural arts organizations and museums.
1. CENTERS FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES
“Museums become better places when they recognize that they can’t be community centers, but they could be at the center of their communities,” Lonnie Bunch, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, relayed to Ashawnta Jackson in an Artsy article in 2020. In the five years since, cultural institutions across the U.S. have found that they are, indeed, a center for their communities.
Museums and cultural places fill a need for which the public yearns – offering solace, encouraging collective experiences, fostering discovery, and allowing for conversations and debate. Many institutions served the civic needs of their constituents by acting as polling places during the recent election season. Others provide free Wi-Fi and workspaces for virtual workers. Museums can be a unique “third space” – locations separate from home and school/work that foster a sense of community. No longer built solely for housing artifacts, these institutions are becoming the nexus of social connection, as non-traditional programming and amenities encourage people of all ages, race, gender, religion or class to engage with and experience art, stories or nature.
While cultural institutions are still evolving to confront their own histories, they have pushed towards providing space for belonging, respite and engagement, actively seeking to garner public trust. While internally they may continue to wrestle with aspects of the past, externally the shift in defining themselves as hubs, centers and conveners will most certainly continue.
2. THEY ARE COMING BACK . . . WE NEED TO BUILD
The “if you build it, they will come” days of 20 and 30 years ago are over. Today, institutions are flipping the script, evaluating the need to fulfill their role in their community. With over half of U.S. museums now back to their pre-pandemic attendance, many are rethinking and repurposing their spaces, structures and landscapes to better serve today’s visitors.
The spectrum of building projects for cultural facilities has widened to include smaller, less visible, but no less vital projects. SmithGroup’s expertise spans this range of project scopes, allowing us to form a more complete understanding of what drives the needs and building goals for a range of institutions. Much of this work is not “sexy”; it’s back-of-house or HVAC and infrastructure upgrades rather than a new wing, making securing donations difficult.
Even the major expansions underway today are different. Escalating costs of construction, the desire to engage more diverse, multi-generational audiences while serving the everyday needs of their communities, and the transition to more sustainable and resilient practices are all influencing how organizations prioritize their greatest facility needs. Flexibility and the impact on operations budgets and staffing are driving space decision-making for cultural institutions today and we expect this to continue.
3. LET THE SUNSHINE IN
Zoos have it easy; there is an expectation of connecting to nature and wildlife in their experience. However, more cultural entities are catching on to realize the importance of outdoor spaces for their institutions. In a post-pandemic world, these open-air spaces have gone from stopgap to valuable real estate for expanded programming and exhibition.
The traditional approach of a nice garden or park surrounding an austere mausoleum of a museum building doesn’t cut it today. To be a cultural destination, today’s cultural building must further integrate with its site to attract and engage visitors and the community. “Cultural institutions thrive when walls become bridges, fostering transparency and porosity that connect history, humanity, and nature”, says SmithGroup design director, Dayton Schroeter. “By turning the museum inside out, the experience can extend beyond the physical footprint of the built structure to foster a broader and more intimate connection with its surroundings. This approach not only invites engagement and belonging but also redefines these spaces as inclusive environments where communities feel welcomed and history feels alive.”
Cultural audiences yearn for greater porosity with visible connections between indoors and out. While this poses unique challenges to artifact-holding entities, many design solutions enable cultural facilities to reach out to their neighbors, dismantle the figurative fences, and overtly signal a welcome for all. In doing so, today’s museum can become a source of local pride and a landmark destination for traveling visitors.
4. SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T USE THE MARIE KONDO METHOD
While museums, libraries and other collecting institutions have become more “audience centered,” they are still stewards to collections. In the past several years, there has been an upswing in focused building projects for collections preservation, conservation and storage. Many institutions have exceeded their current capacity in both on- and off-campus storage while access to collections for research continues to grow.
Today’s collection facilities are no longer just warehouses for objects and artifacts to be stored but not seen. Collections facilities are sophisticated hubs of interdependent spaces and systems designed to protect and preserve the collections, and to create a healthy workplace environment for staff and researchers.
However, collections projects sometimes don’t appeal to donors the way a new wing might. “While collections projects are too often viewed as a ‘back-of-house’ project like an infrastructure upgrade or renovation would be, they are crucial to support the mission of any collecting institution,” says SmithGroup Cultural studio leader Chris Wood. “These facilities ensure collections are available for future generations to experience, so if we can find a way to balance the technical systems, envelope and security requirements with a strategy for increased visibility, it can be a win-win.”
Expansions to increase collections storage are becoming more common. And many savvy institutions are looking beyond their own needs and welcoming other entities to join forces and use facilities together.
5. WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
Cultural institutions are a space to pose questions about how history is represented, which stories are told and whose voice defines the interpretation. Many museums, history centers, archives, libraries and universities are evolving, coming to terms with their historic involvement with slavery, displacement of communities, or injustices perpetrated against Black, Indigenous, and communities of color.
In addition to meeting the needs of current members and visitors, more museums and cultural organizations are striving to encourage audiences who are reticent or have previously felt unwelcome. Before the pandemic, some institutions were grappling with engaging broader communities and attracting new audiences. Today, this is a growing priority for more organizations.
No matter the project scope or scale, stakeholder and public involvement has never been more crucial. Cultural architect Monteil Crawley explains, “Engagement must expand beyond the doors of an institution to the surrounding community. Planning and design efforts represent especially unique opportunities to actively engage with the public, fostering meaningful dialogue, building consensus, and cultivating a sense of shared ownership among diverse stakeholders. By prioritizing inclusive participation, these efforts not only address community needs but also empower individuals to contribute to shaping solutions that reflect collective values and aspirations.”
However, this responsibility does not lie solely with the cultural institution. The designers of cultural projects should reflect the diverse communities these places will serve. Authentic diversity allows for deeper connection and understanding of the many sites, histories and communities we engage through design. Especially in the U.S., this allows us to amplify underrepresented voices, shedding light on untold, ignored, or hidden stories and histories, creating cultural places truly meant for all.
Whether you find the loops and speed of roller coasters thrilling or anxiety-inducing, being prepared for the next twist or turn can help. While we foresee more ups and downs for arts organizations and museums in the future, today they are on more solid footing than five years ago when their existence was questioned. By navigating and forging new directions in response to these five key issues, cultural institutions can be better prepared and more effective leaders for the change sure to come.