The Delirious Museum: A Journey from the Louvre to Las Vegas

Abstract

The Delirious Museum gives a new interpretation of the relationship between the museum and the city in the twenty-first century. It presents an original view of the idea of the museum, proposing that it is, or should be, both a repository of the artefacts of the past and a continuation of the city street in the present. Storrie reviews our experience of the city and of the museum taking a journey that begins in the Louvre and continues through Paris, London, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, re-imagining the possibilities for museums and their displays and reexamining the blurred boundaries between museums and the cities around them. On his quest for The Delirious Museum, he visits the museum architecture of Soane and Libeskind, the exhibitions of Lissitsky and Kiesler and the work of such artists as Duchamp and Warhol. Calum Storrie's premise is that the museum and the city street are continuous with one another: the city is a delirious museum, overlaid with levels of history and multiple objects open to many interpretations just as museums and their contents are. In support of his theme, he draws on multiple sources, from Walter Benjamin, Daniel Libeskind & Greil Marcus through Paul Auster and Peter Ackroyd, to Stephen Bayley, Norman Bryson & Sadie Plant and takes readers on a stimulating journey through cities and museums worldwide. Serious general readers interested in urban culture, design and architecture, as well as professional architects, cultural studies and museology academics will enjoy the book, which is beautifully illustrated in black and white.

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