Temples of delight.docVIP

Museums Temples of delight Museums the world over are doing amazingly well, says Fiammetta Rocco. But can they keep the visitors coming? Dec 21st 2013?|?From the print edition MUSEUMS USED TO stand for something old, dusty, boring and barely relevant to real life. Those kinds of places still exist, but there are far fewer of them, and the more successful ones have changed out of all recognition. The range they cover has broadened spectacularly and now goes well beyond traditional subjects such as art and artefacts, science and history (for a sample of oddball specialities, see chart). One of the biggest draws is contemporary art. Special report Temples of delight The Bilbao effect On a wing and a prayer Mad about museums Feeding the culture-vultures Sources acknowledgmentsReprints Related topics United Kingdom Louvre Visual arts Amsterdam Berlin To be sure, museums remain showcases for collections and repositories of scholarship, but they have also become pits of popular debate and places where children go for sleepovers (pictured, above, at the British Museum). They are no longer places where people look on in awe but where they learn and argue, as they would at universities or art schools. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of Britain’s Tate galleries, describes the museum as “a forum as much as a treasure box”. The statistics suggest that these new-look museums are doing something right. Globally, numbers have burgeoned from around 23,000 two decades ago to at least 55,000 now. In 2012 American museums received 850m visitors, says the American Alliance of Museums. That is more than all the big-league sporting events and theme parks combined. In England over half the adult population visited a museum or gallery in the past year, the highest share since the government began collecting such statistics in 2005. In Sweden three out of four adults go to a museum at least once a year (though not all Europeans are equally keen). The Louvre in Paris, the world’s most po