| Today, museums must make plans to remain financially sustainable and relevant throughout the next century. A twenty-first century collector museum has the unique ability, as an alternative to the traditional public art museum, to remain committed to the art without the financial pressures to commercialize the museum experience. Two upcoming collector museums in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, California have the possibility of be this alternative. The goal is achieved through a commitment to community, effective use of the building, and harnessing technology in a productive way. The plans for these two collector museums are analyzed in the context of existing museums that are making radical and expensive changes to remain relevant. Some critics fear museums are sacrificing scholarship and the visitor experience in a frantic response to the economy and the pressure to compare museums to the entertainment industry. Museums have an important cultural role in society. Through interviews with representatives at the Rubell Family Collection and The Broad, this paper aims to disprove the popular opinion that collector museums are constructed through vanity. Instead, the two examples prove to be a successful business model for the upcoming museum era. |
