Hypermuseum

The trend of hyper-museums is a global museographic and museological phenomenon which sees its birth in the 20th century and it evolves fully in the 21st century.
The hyper-museum is a museum with spectacular and imposing volumes and formal and aesthetic choices, that resembles a sculpture more than a building, which aim is to amaze the viewer.
With the hyper-museum phenomenon we assist to the competition between the container and the content with a strong prevarication of architecture on the collection for the first time.
History
The phenomenon of the hyper-museums started with Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the final great project of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Guggenheim Museum in New York is one of the most important architectural works of the 20th century, one that is still recognized as one of the masterpieces of contemporary architecture to this day, it is also the museum that revolutionized museum architecture in the 20th century.
Guggenheim Museum in New York, which is the prototype of the hyper-museum in addition to being a strong urban landmark influencing the neighborhood but also the entire city. Over subsequent decades the New York Guggenheim Museum went on to become one of the central models in museum architectural design .
Europe
A museum that can be considered the perfect example of the hyper-museum is The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao commissioned to Frank O. Gehry one of the most influential names of the Deconstructivism movement (a Postmodern architectural movement) and one of the most famous architects at an international level. From an aesthetic and formal point of view, the museum is surprising due to its structure which is extreme, unusual and rash. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a work without precedent, due to its museography and museology but also its architecture and city planning . The museum has a strong impact on the area and the suburb, but it manages to fit well with the surrounding spaces and it was fundamental in the re-qualification of the city and the surrounding area. It became not only the greatest landmark of the city but also the new symbol of the city and its new identity, which helped Bilbao to escape oblivion, giving it notoriety and international fame instead.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao completes the 20th century. It became a bridge between the architecture of the 20th century and the future architecture of the 21st, which will consider the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao a key, indispensable reference.
Two excellent and interesting 21st century European hyper-museums that can be citated are MAXXI and Fondation Louis-Vuitton in Paris.
MAXXI opened in 2010, is located in Rome and was designed by Architect Zaha Hadid (Baghdad, 1950 - Miami, 2016). Hadid was an Iraqi-British architect and designer who was one of the leading exponents of Deconstructivism. She won many awards: the Pritzker Prize in 2004 (the first woman to receive it) and the Stirling Prize in 2010 (for the MAXXI project) and in 2011. The Fondation d'entreprise Louis-Vuitton museum opened in 2014 and it was designed by Frank O. Gehry who had designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was chosen.
Arabian Peninsula
In the last decade, many Arab countries have decided to build hyper-museums. These are all buildings with ultramodern shapes and are above all built on a huge scale. Two of them that must be mentioned are the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ), opened in 2019 and located in Doha and the Louvre Abu Dhabi (Louvre A.D.) opened in 2018 in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Both museums are spectacular and designed by another great international “archi-star”, namely the French architect and designer Jean Nouvel (Fumel, 1945), winner of many important awards such as the Pritzker Prize in 2008.
The priority of the hyper-museum is to turn the museum building into a spectacle over the effectiveness of the display of the works of art preserved.
The building went on to become a work of art that was independent of its exhibitive function. The hyper-museum cannot be considered a simple container of arts like traditional museums were, its expressive power is so strong that the collection's principal work of art to be considered is the building itself.
The hyper-museum has become the leading building within the urban context, influencing not only the neighborhood in which it is located but also the entire city. The great success of the hyper-museum is due to the creative potential that makes it an excellent means of communication. During the 20th and 21st centuries, hyper-museums have become meeting points for an increasingly large, diverse and demanding public who desire larger exhibition spaces but also entertainment areas.
In a global society, in which the architects of hyper-museums are international stars, called upon to build museums and works of art, all museums have the same features. They are spectacular, scenographic, vast and concerned with their public who they aim to welcome and entertain in the best possible way.

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