How Museums Are Imagining Reopening in the Time of Social Distancing
Photo Credit: The Getty Center in Los Angeles Unsplash / Lydia Koh
Skift Take
The world's leading museums pride themselves on taking the utmost care of their collections. In the context of the pandemic, they have perhaps an even bigger task: keeping their visitors and staff safe, as well.
It was just six months ago — when many of the world's leading museums were battling crowds and strained capacity in the era of overtourism — when a New York Times critic made a modest proposal: To ease crowding at the Louvre, give the Mona Lisa her own pavillion.
The Mona Lisa stayed put. But now, she sits all on her own, with the kinds of daily mass gatherings she used to preside over off limits for the foreseeable future. But as museums begin to inch towards reopening, the concern of crowds remain, albeit in quite a different fashion.
Museums all over the world are trying to figure out what the visitor experience will look like in the context of social distancing, enhanced hygiene, and lower visitor numbers. It's a delicate calculation, as Elizabeth Merritt, director for the center of the future of museums at the American Alliance of Museums wrote: "When is it actually safe to reopen without risking spread of the disease? Financially, how should museums balance the relative
