Function Follows Form: How Mixed‐Used Spaces in Museums Build Community

Abstract This article examines three elements largely overlooked by the museum profession when thinking about community building—space, space mix, and unexpected use of space. It suggests that if museum planners were to pay overt attention to these, they could greatly enhance the community‐building role museums increasingly play. When considering museums and communities, writers in the museum field have focused on broadening audiences, public programs, collections and exhibitions. Physical spaces have been regarded as necessary armature but not as catalysts themselves. There are many subtle, interrelated and essentially unexamined ingredients that allow museums to play an enhanced role in the building of community and our collective civic life. The article describes the characteristics of the Livable Cities Movement and New Urbanism and suggests ways in which museums could encourage these characteristics—and thereby consciously use their interior and exterior spaces to build community.