Whether Museum Spatial Experience can Synthesize its Exhibits in the Museum with Chinese Garden Configuration

Abstract

Traditional Chinese private gardens with their fascinating spatial layouts represent a tiptop accomplishment of classical garden art. However, whether the museum spatial configuration with Chinese style garden can still synthesize its exhibits when the spatial attribute of Chinese private garden is imitated and imbedded into modern museum? To better testify the consideration, this paper took Suzhou Museum as an example, a museum with the layout of Chinese style garden, to analyze its spatial visual attribute by using Depthmap software based on space syntax theory. Meanwhile, through comparing with Zhuozheng Garden which is a classical private garden adjacent to Suzhou Museum, we found a similar spatial attribute both in Zhuozheng Garden and Suzhou Museum: the indoor spaces for exhibit layout are separated while the outdoor spaces for traveling and landscape are continuous by studying visual connectivity and integration graphs. That is to say, Suzhou Museum with Chinese garden configuration, its space for exhibit layout is generally segregated from the overall museum spatial experience. In addition, in order to re-examine above findings, visitors were randomly selected to be observed and recorded their traveling routes or stops for sightseeing. The analysis results of visitor behavior pattern also showed a relatively close relation with the former visibility graph analyses.