A CASE FOR EVALUATION:
THE BROOKLYN CHILDREN'S MUSEUM
Kathleen McLean
Director of Exhibitions
The Brooklyn Children's Museum
LNTRODUCI'ION
Since The Brooklyn Children's Museum opened the doors of
its new facility in 1977, the award-winning building and ac-
companyin exhibits have earned an international reputation as
examples of excellence in museum and exhibit design for chil-
dren. During the ensuing decade of use, however, reactions and
observations by visitors and staff have led the Museum to
question the effectiveness of the architectural space and the ex-
hibits. Unfortunately, the psychological and physiological
impact of the building and exhibits on the Museum's 150,000
annual visitors was never systematically tested or evaluated.
Today, a much-needed critical evaluation is finally under-
way. Through observation, informal interviews, and visitor
questionnaires, the staff at The Brooklyn Children's Museum is
attempting to address the following concerns: first, what effect
does the unconventional architecture have on the children and
adults who visit the Museum; second, what levels of learning
arc achieved through visitor interaction with the exhibits; and
third, how do the exhibits and gallery environments affect the
staffs ability to inleract with Lhe public?
History
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the Museum today,
the historical significance of the institution must be consid-
ered. The Brooklyn Children's Museum, the oldest children's
museum in the world, has had a rich and colorful history.
Founded in 1899, the Museum was housed in two Victorian
mansions in Brower Park in the Crown Heights neighborhood
of Brooklyn, New York. As early as the 1920s, the Museum
had established a reputation for its commitment to furthering
young people's understanding of themselves, their communi-
ties, and their environments through innovative exhibits and
educational programs.
Although the major focus of The Brooklyn Children's Mu-
seum during the early years was the collection, display, and
examination of objects, the active participation of children
was also a primary concern. Exhibits of specimens were sup-
plemented with study models, research and collecting projects,
and focused, guided activities which encouraged children to ob-
serve and explore the world around them (Figure 1).
The buildings contained a variety of multi-purpose spaces
such as exhibit halls, a library, offices, club rooms, and a lec-
ture hall. Displays of objects, charts, maps, and illustrations
coexisted with tabletop projects, activity corners, books, and
demonstration spaces. Children could sketch from objects on
display or study charts and diagrams depicting a broad range of
subjects. Space was limited, and the clutter of objects inside
these Victorian mansions was typical of museums of the peri-
od.
When t..he buildLl1gs \vere event'....:~llly deemed inadequate in the
1960s, it was determined that a new facility with new exhibits
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should be built, reflecting advances in architectural design and
new thinking on learning environments for children. Guide-
lines were drawn up, which stated that the new museum should
"house collections that may be utilized in interpreting for the
child the natural world around him and man's place therein; and
provide facilities for the child to participate creatively in his
own developing awareness of self and environment" (The
Brooklyn Children's Museum, 1966).
In 1977, the new three-and-a-half-million dollar building
opened on the original Brower Park site, with great fanfare
from the press and accolades from the design community,
which bestowed both building and exhibits with awards of de-
sign excellence. The architects described the building as "a
half-buried strong box whose unassuming exterior acts as an
extension of the surrounding park. Only by moving through a
kiosk entrance into the interior can the observer come to un-
derstand the surprises inside. Children like discovery and a
sense of adventure. For them, The Brooklyn Children's Mu-
seum offers a continuous experience of exploration" (Hardy
Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, 1969).
The interactive exhibits, called the "Participatory Learning
Environment," were all based on the elements of earth, air,
fire, and water, with an emphasis on the logics of physical re-
ality. To quote from the exhibit conceptualizer's description,
"the learning environment is built up of these four aspects of
physical reality. They are completely interdependent. The chil-
dren are part of this interdependency and by experiencing the
air as it relates to the water, and the water as it relates to the
fire, the children can begin to discover all these patterns in
the physical environment, and the interrelationship between
physical reality and human expression and understanding"
(Schlossberg, 1975).
In the ten years since the building opened, a generation of
children has passed through its doors. Today, under a new ad-
mirtistration, the building remains as a framework within
which a vital community of educators, curators, designers, and
technicians are formulating a new conceptual basis for all ex-
hibits and programs, evaluating existing public spaces and ex-
hibits, and developing new exhibits and programs which re-
flect the character and substance of the Museum's mission. In
many ways, the mission of the Museum has not changed sub-
stantially over the years. As an 1899-1900 Yearbook ex-
plains, the Museum's primary goal was to "bring the child
into direct relation with the most important subjects that ap-
peal to the interest of children in their daily life, in their
school work, in their reading, in their rambles in the fields
and in the industries that are being carried on about them or in
which they themselves later may become engaged" (Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1900).
The Museum still recognizes the importance of providing
children with interactive and entertaining educational experi-
ences which draw upon issues relevant to their interests. The
Children's Environments Quarterly
 Figure 1. Working
Museum also seeks to anticipate the demands which will be
placed upon today's children as they assume adult roles in so-
ciety.
Audience
Since its inception, the Museum has selVed the Crown
Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn as well as the greater met-
ropolitan area of Ne\v York City. Today, this inc1udes a di-
verse, multi-ethnic community of people with widely differing
culrural, economic, and educational backgrounds. Although its
audience consists primarily of family groups, the Museum has
a commitment to allowing unaccompanied children into its fa-
cilities, a policy which is not found al most other children's
Vol. 4, No,l, (Spring) 1987
with puzzles in the Bird Room, 1930.
museums. While this occasionally complicates the tasks of
crowd control and exhibit maintenance, it provides the Mu-
seum with opportunities to observe and evaluate the activities
of these children as they freely discover, explore, and roam
through the Museum spaces.
The Building: Learning Lab
or Architectural Shrine?
Known in the architectural and design communities for its
innovative usc of space and materials, the building is more a
tribute to the field of architecture than a flexible environment
for a functioning museum. In fact, when the building had just
opened, the Museum staff proudly stated that it "is not just a
25
'house' for artifacts, it is an 'artifact' itself" (The Brooklyn In-
stitute of Arts and Sciences, 1977).
Built primarily underground, the building is almost always
an astonishing experience for the first-time visitor. The exhi-
bition area is arranged in four tiers, bisected diagonally by a
lUnnel walkway, or "People Tube." Visitors enter the Museum
at the top of the tube, through a 1907 subway kiosk, and flow
down the walkway, entering each tier through breaks in the
tube, and continuing daVin fronl the top tier at street level to
the bottom tier below ground. An excavated comer of the
building provides two stories of windows, allowing daylight
into the bottom tier (Figure 2).
The building dominates the visitor's experience at The
Brooklyn Children's Museum. One can guess that certain as-
sumptions by its designers led them to conceive of a building
which was fun, interesting, not confining, and which fostered
a spirit of excitement and discovery. The industrial aesthetic,
which predicated the use of exposed construction materials and
exposed and even accentuated systems, gave shape to a build-
ing which was unusual and provocative. The use of open spac-
es with few interior walls provided the possibility for free-
flowing movement and psychological accessibility to the en-
tire building. No matter how interesting the building may be,
however, visitor disorientation, over-stimulation, congestion,
and "museum fatigue" have been consistently observed.
The traffic flow through the building is one cause for con-
cern. The sole entrance, exit, and access to most galleries in
the Museum is tllfough the "People Tube." Although the Mu-
seum was theoretically designed to accommodate several thou-
sand people at one time, with only half that many, congestion
and bottlenecks occur at the first tier, while bottom tiers re-
main relatively empty. Since all public rest rooms and tele-
phones are located on the first tier near the entrance, conges-
tion is compounded.
The floor plan appears clear and rational on paper, with
columns, ducting, and passageways laid out in an orderly ar-
chitectural grid. However, the physical experience in the build-
ing can be quite disorienting. Structural elements and function-
al systems are exposed to view and often interrupt the open
spaces. Columns obstruct passageways, and air ducts, water
pipes and electrical conduits are juxtaposed next to exhibits.
First-time visitors appear to be dazzled and intrigued by the
uniqueness of the space, then lost and confused.
Although the building is relatively small, with only fifteen-
thousand square feet of public space, the most often-asked
questions of the Museum's security staff are "Where am I?" and
"How do I get to ... ?" With parents standing only several feet
away, young children are observed as they look around the
building in panic, apparently unable to focus on their parents.
Visitor disorientation is a major staff concern, since many mu-
seum professionals have associated visitor disorientation ,with
visitor stress and "museum fatigue" (Melton, 1933 and 1972;
Parr, 1967; Royal Ontario Museum, 1976; Sears, 1983).
Neighborhood children who visit on a regular basis, howev-
er, seem to have "conquered the territory" and have a comforta-
ble relationship with the space. They have even been observed
assisting newcomers with directions in the Museum. In these
repeat visitors, one finds an attit1lde towards the building
which encourage:, exploration and discovery. The Museum's
task is to make the space as accessible for the majority of its
26
audience-{;omposed of first-time family visitors~as it is for
the neighborhood children.
Although the neighborhood children seem to be at ease in
all the public areas in the Museum, they tend to congregate in
several similar types of spaces~those that are quiet, enclosed,
and carpeted. 111is fact has prompted the Museum staff to eval-
uate the effects of the large open spaces which comprise a ma-
jority of the public areas in the Museum.
Visitors can usually see all levels of the Museum simultane-
ously, and architectural clements, exhibits, and activities all
compete for visual attention. Also, a cacophony from exhib-
its, visitors, and activities competes for auditory attention.
With very few people in the Museum, the building reverberates
and amplifies a variety of sounds.
When questioned in an interview about the intensity of
noise in the Museum, one of the building's architects replied
that the noise level was appropriate. "Many city kids who
come here spend lots of time hanging out on streets or at the
comer candy store. This place should have noise. It should
feel like those places" (Sutphen, 1978). Museum staff disa-
gree, arguing that the Museum is not a street comer. In fact, it
appears that many neighborhood children consider the Museum
a refuge from the streets.
Until very recently, one of the only areas in the Museum
where children could focus their attention was the Children's
Resource Library, a more traditionally-organized room with
four walls and sound baffling suspended from the ceiling.
While children in the public exhibit spaces were seen in vari-
ous states of excitement, often having difficulty focusing on
any specific task, children in the Resource Library were able
to spend long periods of time in concentrated focus on one
particular object or program.
It is often very difficult to distinguish between over- stimu-
lation, which is known to cause visitor fatigue, and environ-
mental diversity, which has been shown to stimulate learning
and reinforce a positive visitor experience in museums (Royal
Ontario Museum, 1976). The critical task for The Brooklyn
Children's Museum is to emphasize the architectural individual-
ity of the building as a basis for diversity, and at the same
time create more intimate spaces as containers for specific ac-
tivities or exhibits which require concentration.
The Exhibits: Interactive or Hyperactive?
Within the unique building, a series of permanent exhibits
were installed which stressed visitor-exhibit interaction. Few
museums in the mid-1970s were developing interactive exhib-
its which emphasized visitor participation and experimenta-
tion, and these exhibits were hailed as an impressive and ex-
citing development in the field of exhibition design.
From conception, the exhibits were meant to provide chil-
dren with a "research laboratory," allowing "children to fmd
out about themselves, their environment, their relationship to
their environment, their relationship to other members of the
world" (Schlossberg, 1975). The exhibits were meant to pro-
vide children with a means of discovery, but not to limit their
discovery or provide "static ideals." This philosophical ap-
proach was an extension of and an improvement upon the pro-
gramming philosophy which had been the mainstay of the in-
stitution since its inception.
Children's Environments Quarterly

Figure 2. The Brooklyn Children's Museum, floor plan of the public spaces.
In many ways, however, these exhibits marked a break with
the Museum's rich past. Renowned as one of the few children's
museums with a substantial collection of objects and a reputa-
tion for innovative methods of teaching with objects, the new
exhibit plan professed to " ... not want to have precious items
but [ ... ] to have respect for preciolls children." The exhibit de-
signer determined that "we are not going to be the guards of
things but the guides to further understanding" (Schlossberg,
1975).
These statements imply exclusivity and an inability to si-
multaneously maintain and display objects and encourage crea-
tive learning. They also suggest that the institution was be-
coming a "discovery center" rather than a "museum," which is
generally defined as an institution which owns and utilizes
Vol. 4, No.1, (Spring) 1987
MAIN LEVEL
tangible objects (Swinney, 1978).
Another break with tradition was the new design's emphasis
on the physical world---earth, air, fire, and water-with little
consideration for natural history or ethnography, disciplines
which had previously been considered essential. The new ex-
hibits also did not reflect the progranuning methodology de-
veloped by Museum staff. Exclusion of staff from the exhibit
development process was unfortunate, since the new exhibits
needed major staff support and interaction in order to function
effectively.
In evaluating the effectiveness of each exhibit, consequent-
ly, two key questions are being posed, allowing Museum staff
to deiCIJHine whether the exh.ibit should be kept, rnodifieJ, or
removed from the Museum. First, is the exhibit relevant to the
27
Museum's stated mission and programming philosophy; and
second, how and what docs the visitor learn from the exhibit?
A wide range of exhibits were conceived for the new build-
ing. Many of the original exhibit components were never im-
plemented, however, leaving major gaps in the conceptual
framework of the "Participatory Learning Envirorunent."
Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the exhibit system as a
whole. While the following exhibits are described in isolation
from the total conceptual framework, they have been chosen
to illustrate specific issues of concern.
The "Minimal Surface Structure" or "Curved Space"
Originally conceived as a giant plastic model of a molecule
or crystal through which children and adults could crawl, the
"Curved Space" has been the subject of on-going debate during
the ten years the new building has been open. Children love
to crawl through the giant plastic structures, which wind their
way around the building, descending down the tiers and over
the "People Tube." The "Curved Space" was designed to pro-
vide intimate spaces for discussion and observation, display
and demonstration, and allow children to circulate through the
Museum in different patterns. It was also meant to provide a
source of experience of molecular and crystalline structure
(Schlossberg, 1975).
The "Curved Space" is one of the most popular components
at The Brooklyn Children's Museum. Although it was original-
ly designed to remain open and accessible at all times, many
injuries have occurred inside it, requiring that constant super-
vision and control be maintained. As a result, it is often
closed. When it is open, children line up and jostle one anoth-
er for position. The passageways become a racecourse, with
larger children overpowering smaller childr~n in their eager-
ness to get through first.
Because of the frenetic and hyperactive nature of the experi-
ence, the "Curved Space" is seen by some staff to be disrup-
tive, noisy, troublesome, and inappropriate in a museum envi-
rorunent. They suggest that it should be used outdoors in a
playground atmosphere. Others consider it an exciting compo-
nent which can be the basis for experimentation with the con-
cepts of structure, form, and space.
The" Stream"
Running down the entire length of the "People Tube," metal
troughs with recirculating water provide the basis for the
"Stream" exhibit. A small label asks, "What is a stream?"
while a waterwheel and various dikes and dams illustrate the
flow and energy of moving water. The sight and sound of run-
ning water inside the building certainly evoke a sense of ex-
citement and wonder. Besides providing a dramatic introduc-
tion to the Museum's facilities, however, it is questionable
whether the "Stream" exhibit, as the designer described,
"demonstrates the energy patterns that exist in the learning
envirorunent, serves as a medium of energy transfer, serves as
the structural means of demonstrating component interaction,
indicates the desire for the children to have a full sense of par-
ticipation in the learning envirorunent, is a way for the chil-
dren to experience sensorially, abstractly and kinesthetically
the physical, biological, and ecological basis for the entire
system." (Schlossberg, 1975).
28
Children send boats downstream, play with buckets and
small floating toys, and splash wildly in the water. Issues of
learning versus play constantly arise, as museum designers and
educators attempt to examine methods for expanding the capa-
bilities of the "Stream" as an interactive exhibit, fostering the
rich experience the designer originally described.
The "Windmill"
The "Windmill" exhibit attempts to illustrate harnessing the
energy of the wind. The giant fans, started by a visitor- oper-
ated button, provide the air currents necessary to rotate the
blades of the windmill, which in tum engage the pump, allow-
ing water to pour into a trough. The visitor can also disengage
the connection between pump and windmill, and pump the wa-
ter by hand. The designer assumed that "the Windmill func-
tions directly and obviously and one can see just how the flow
of wind, just like the flow of water, or the stream, causes the
energy produced to work" (Schlossberg, 1975).
However, when the staff began informal questioning of visi-
tors during the last year, it was discovered that many people,
adults and children alike, had developed major misconceptions
as a result of the exhibit. Some said they learned that fans
make a windmill move. Others thought that water moving
through pipes turned the blades of the windmill. One child
wondered how he got water in his apartment, since he didn't
have a windmill on his building. What may have seemed sim-
ple to the creators of the exhibit was misinterpreted by Mu-
seum visitors.
This problem dramatically illustrates the need for on-going
evaluation of all exhibits in the Museum, identifying a con-
ceptual framework based on the Museum's mission, and testing
the effects of each exhibit on Museum visitors. Obtaining
feedback from visitors will only encourage and improve com-
munication, the basic goal of all museum exhibits and pro-
grams.
The Future
During the past ten years, The Brooklyn Children's Museum
has been confronted with a number of practical and philosoph-
ical issues which were, at times, confounding. Today, the Mu-
seum is embarking on an exciting new phase in its develop-
ment. As a result of an extensive process of institutional re-
view and long-range planning, the staff is ready to reffie ex-
isting exhibits and implement a series of new exhibits and
programs which reflect the history, philosophy, and goals of
the institution.
New programs are being developed with input from consult-
ing specialists, parents, children, and staff. On-going evalua-
tion, prototyping, and testing of all exhibits are being built
into the development process. The public spaces in the Mu-
seum are being redesigned in response to stated needs from
visitors and staff. The new design will provide an orientation
area, improve circulation, increase public amenities, and carve
out cozy areas to complement the open spaces.
Although this article has focused critically on untested de-
sign assumptions made regarding the building and exhibits,
the underlying concepts of interaction, exploration, and ad-
venture expressed by the architects and designers are still as
vital and relevant today as they were when the new facility
was in its planning stage.
Children's Environments Quarterly
 The challenge for the Museum is to adequately integrate those
underlying concepts with the Museum's mission, its program-
ming methodology, its collection of objects. its unusual facil-
ity, and its diverse audience. As the Museum rapidly appro-
aches its centennial, its mission to provide children of all ag-
es and from all backgrounds with experiences which help them
shape their lives will always be its guiding spirit.
Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. (1969). The Brooklyn
Children's Museum: The program idea, p. 1.
Melton, A. W. (1935). Problem~ of installation in museums of
art. Washington DC: American Association of Museums,
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Melton, A. W. (1972). Visitor behavior in museums: Some re-
search in environmental design. lluman Factors, 14, pp.
393-403.
Parr, A. E. (1967). Remarks on layout, display, and response
to design. Curator, 7. pp. 131-142.
Royal Ontario Museum. (1976). Communicating with the mu-
seum visitor: Guidelines for planning. Toronto: Royal Onta-
rio Museum.
Vol. 4, No.1, (Spring) 1987
Schlossberg, E. (1975). The learning environment for the
Brooklyn Children's Museum. Brooklyn: The Brooklyn In-
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Sutphen, M. (1978, May). Where the lea.Tning is lively: The
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Swinney, H.J. (1978). (Ed.). Professional standards for mu-
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