Archinect's Lexicon: "Hermit Crab"

2015-01-16T18:09:00-05:00

Hermit Crab [hərmət krab], noun: a museum typology where the art is exhibited in a structure not originally or usually meant for exhibiting and/or selling art.

The term was coined by Nicholas Korody in his piece, White Space: The Architecture of the Art Fair:

"the Hermit Crab typology refers to the temporary takeover of an existing building that is not normally used for the display and sale of art works, such as with the use of hotel rooms by NADA (New Art Dealers Association), a periphery art fair of Art Basel Miami Beach. Such parasitic or interventionary events often still require architectural construction, but this consists primarily of interior design, chiefly the organization of walls and booths. [...]

New York’s Armory Show intentionally invokes the legacy of an older example of a Hermit Crab exhibition: the 1914 International Exhibition of Modern Art which was held in one of the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories and helped introduce European modern art to American au...

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Archinect's Lexicon: "Hermit Crab"