The Contemporary Museum and Leisure: Recreation As a Museum Function

Overview

Today, the museum in modern society has acquired a significantly broader public role than its early predecessors. Underlying its present-day symbolic and utilitarian roles, therefore, is the goal of benefiting the wider public. This contribution first recapitulates the traditional view of the museum as partner in curating public education, and then moves to a more synoptic consideration of the museum's interaction with the public and advances the view that this broad public context facilitates the experiences of leisure. It proposes that the museum, without abdicating what it currently does, can usefully examine itself within the framework of leisure facilitation with the intention of enlarging its value (i.e. the museum's value) within contemporary society. Using that foundation, the museum can articulate and harness the possibilities of leisure (whose attributes the museum already embodies) as an added function in its mission of serving the contemporary public. This contribution concludes with a poetic look at the value of leisure in modern society and suggests that the functions of the museum discussed here can all be integrated.