The article focuses on museums’ activity that
reaches beyond the walls of their premises in the context of
a concept of the so-called third place. The third place – as
a gathering place which is neither one’s home, i.e. first place,
nor workplace, i.e. second place – was described by an
American sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1999 in his book The
Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair
Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community.
Three study cases have been used in the article: Museum
Forum (project carried out by the National Museum in
Kraków), Bródno Sculpture Park (project co-conducted by
the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw), and the method
of work implemented by the Ethnographic Museum in
Kraków, including in particular the project Dzikie Planty
(Wild “Planty” Park). I discuss assumptions the projects
have been based on, how they fit in an overall strategy of
the museums, and reasons why they have been undertaken.
Finally, I wonder whether having been conducted in a fully
accessible public space and conducive to users’ interaction
make it justified to categorise them as the third places in the
meaning given by Oldenburg. Although Oldenburg’s concept
has been regarded by museum theorists as not applicable
to museums, I have come to the conclusion that projects
conducted by museums in a non-committal context of an
open space meet the conditions the third places do.
MUSEUMS BEYOND WALLS IN THE CONTEXT
OF THE THIRD PLACE’S CONCEPT