MUSEUMS BEYOND WALLS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE THIRD PLACE’S CONCEPT

The article focuses on museums’ activity thatreaches beyond the walls of their premises in the context ofa concept of the so-called third place. The third place – asa gathering place which is neither one’s home, i.e. first place,nor workplace, i.e. second place – was described by anAmerican sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1999 in his book TheGreat Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, HairSalons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community.Three study cases have been used in the article: MuseumForum (project carried out by the National Museum inKraków), Bródno Sculpture Park (project co-conducted bythe Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw), and the methodof work implemented by the Ethnographic Museum inKraków, including in particular the project Dzikie Planty(Wild “Planty” Park). I discuss assumptions the projectshave been based on, how they fit in an overall strategy ofthe museums, and reasons why they have been undertaken.Finally, I wonder whether having been conducted in a fullyaccessible public space and conducive to users’ interactionmake it justified to categorise them as the third places in themeaning given by Oldenburg. Although Oldenburg’s concepthas been regarded by museum theorists as not applicableto museums, I have come to the conclusion that projectsconducted by museums in a non-committal context of anopen space meet the conditions the third places do.