New art museums in Central and Eastern Europe and the ideologies of urban space production

Abstract

This article focuses on the processes of new museum constructions in Central and Eastern European capitals. We examine the processes related to three new building constructions for national, public museums in Estonia, Hungary and Croatia through Henry Lefebvre's theory of the production of space. The architecture of new museum buildings is seen as an outcome of historical, economic and social processes that have grown out of the recent past of the three countries. We examine these museums in the context of their multi-faceted locations, ranging from the suburbs to the new city centres, and the plans for their establishment in the context of privatization, urbanization and rapid internationalization of markets. The social space of the museum depends on the combination of the different actors involved in its production – public authorities, market actors and civil society and their relationship to one another. New museums in Central and Eastern Europe are, thus, regarded as monuments that also, inevitably, relate to the construction of new narratives of identities and statehood.