Permanent and temporary museum spaces: A study on human behavior and spatial organization relationship in refunctioned warehouse spaces of Karaköy, Istanbul

In Istanbul between Karaköy-Kabatas there is a region consists of warehouse spaces. Two of them are refunctioned as a museum building and a temporary space, which is used mostly for biennial exhibitions. Museum spaces are an important part of everyday life in the context of social life. Visitors' behaviors in a museum space is affected by the spatial order that we may also name as configuration, the attraction potential of the items that are exhibited in spaces, and the movement of the visitors in these spaces. Visual perception within the space in terms of accessibility and visibility that are affecting the integration levels are also keys to this investigation. In this study, temporary and permanent exhibition spaces will be scrutinized with a study based on the behavior of people in relation to configuration and exhibited materials. The main questioning is whether the type of the space (temporary/permanent) affecting the behavior of people in relation with the exhibited items and configuration or not. Two of the former warehouses are selected as case studies where Istanbul Modern Museum in Antrepo No.4 is a permanent museum space now; and Antrepo No.7 is recently used during Istanbul Design Biennial in 2014, which is a temporary exhibition space. Both of the warehouse structures that we call "Antrepo" are the parts of the main warehouses region between Karaköy and Kabatas in Istanbul; have similarities in the context of space configuration, size and environmental characteristics. In this study, both qualitative methods that are including the observation of behavioral modes and frequencies with on site analysis, and quantitative methods that are including the space syntax methodology are used. After these studies, results are overlapped to evaluate the relation between user behavior-space relationships and to compare permanent and temporary museum spaces. In conclusion, the behavior of people seemed affected by the type of the artworks mostly on the basis of the time spent over them. In both cases, behaviors of people are verifying attractormovement-configuration theory. In temporary case, artworks are the major parameter affecting the behavior whereas in the permanent exhibition case interfacing spaces between interior and exterior are affecting the behavior, as well. In the temporary one, artworks are affecting the usage more than the permanent one, with their physical being besides their context. The further discussion in that sense is how future curation of exhibitions and architectural design of spaces may be evaluated through these types of venues.