The Impact of Museum Architecture on Urban Development through Social Interaction: The Case of the Museum of Ethnography

Abstract

Cities unite diverse communities, cultures, and activities, fostering socio-cultural life and evolving through social processes. A city's physical structure and its social dynamics exist in a symbiotic relationship, necessitating analyses that extend beyond economic and technical activities to include physical, cultural, and social formations supported by architectural space and the communicative qualities of these relationships. This article foregrounds an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on the potential of museum architecture to contribute to urban development by structuring social interaction through its physical and spatial configurations. To explore this potential, the Budapest: Museum of Ethnography Museum was selected as a case study and analysed through architectural description. As part of Europe’s largest cultural urban development initiative, the museum exemplifies a design that produces urban commons and enhances urban quality of life through its interior-exterior integration. This serves as a significant example of how an architectural object, rather than being solely a symbolic entity, an attraction or a prestige element, can function as an open social interaction space accessible to all, thereby ensuring the continuity of public spaces and supporting urban development. The study contributes a holistic perspective on the relationship between societal processes and spatial configurations, extending from interior spaces to the urban scale.