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 audiences."
As Korody explains, this is mainly thanks to the Louvre. As a former medieval fortress that became "the first public and modern art museum" in the midst of the French Revolution, the Louvre's Hermit Crab typology set the tone for exhibition design since modernity.
More examples of the Hermit Crab typology include...
The Tate Modern in London, formerly the Bankside Power Station:
Museum für Gegenwart at the former Hamburger Bahnhof train station in Berlin:
Share your own Hermit Crab museums in the comments.
7 Comments
diversion to crap is inevitable ..
or did I take the poison pawn?Is it a true lexical term if it was just coined 4 days earlier, by a colleague in the same organization, and has only appeared once before? Phonetic spelling inside brackets appears to lend credence, yes, but... maybe we wait another week or so before the official declaration? See if it gets used a second time?
citizen to be fair, architects make-up words all the time, so what better place than here. Archinect - Architecture + Connect
not sure I quite understand the choice in words but can add an example to the definition.
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as the AOR I helped get the gallery shown below built in an NYC Loft Law building in NOHO. Loft Law buildings, there are less than 400 in NYC, basically means a bunch of artists years ago got some lawyers, pushed through a policy that would allow them to have residences in buildings and zones not meant for residencies. This is similar to Hermit Crab, but living quarters for artists.
In this building shown below all the floors sloped dramatically which could mean a few things, but most likely the originally built industrial building of the past involved a task where the floors were washed dailing and the water had to drain out of the building, like a meat packing place, etc...
The ceiling remained sloped in the final build.
The art shown below is by Vicky Colombet. She did the glass in a very interesting architecture project worth checking out - Villa NURBS
Point taken, Chris, and Amelia's taken more than a fair share of (mild) scorn from me in these threads. Mostly, I'm poking fun and not meaning to offend. Invented terms are of course fine, and ubiquitous. My (mostly joking) reaction is mainly to the whiff of presumption in these posts, informing us of an yet another induction into the lexicon.
Why not a title like: "How Museums Commandeer Buildings and Space"? Same interesting subject, without the bold (and largely meaningless) language reference....
haha citizen, your usage of elaborating through the existing language reminds me of an older architect I know and have worked for for years.
I think us young people like to make the titles and wording short, so we invent words, but with this older architect the "Title" on the "Titlesheet" often looks like a dissertation...but once you get into legal issues, the lengthy elaborate version of existing words is much better than made-up short words.
Design vs Architecture (professional).....archispeak don't fly in Arbitration.
Well said!
Someone needs to write up the possible "transcript" of a theory-spouting starchitect being deposed by the the client's lawyer in a lawsuit. Cosmological inferences, I'd like you to meet sheet-metal flashing!
read this in this context - MATTER OF SEAGRAM & SONS v. TAX COMM.
this is where Design meets the rest of the world...
trying to think of fancy archispeak term for waterproofing?
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