Archaeological Museum Design in Re-Used Historical Buildings

The historical buildings, over the generations, have been built in order to represent a culture, a belief or act as protection from attacking forces. However, with the changing needs, some functions become obsolete or some buildings fail to adapt to contemporary needs. Due to these reasons, when the 21st century arises, Northern Cyprus as an example, with its rich history and culture, is also left with many abandoned and unused historic buildings, which have passed through the years. The buildings being mentioned are looked at, as possibilities to re-liven the site by conservators. These kinds of sites and buildings are re-functioned as archaeological museums in various parts of the world. This research takes these into consideration and investigates the design approaches of archaeological museums, within adaptive re-use of historical buildings, with an effective focus on contemporary display and the approaches towards achieving this goal. In the first chapter the problem definition, aim, methodology, and limitations of study are given in details. Chapter 2 gives general information about archaeological museums and their evolution. Later, the chapter goes into detail of archaeological museums in terms of space organisation, space character, display/exhibit design, and lighting, including successful examples from around the world. Chapter 3 is an investigation of contemporary approaches for adaptive re-use of historic buildings, focusing on the values, degrees of intervention and functions that can be given to re-used buildings. This chapter ends with successful worldly examples to support the research. Chapter 4 takes the Davidson Centre as an example to be learned from; through an in-depth research which is based on the theoretical knowledge in the previous chapters, the analysis and classification is deeply made for this archaeological museum, formed by the adaptive re-use of a historic building within an archaeological site. Keywords: Adaptive re-use, archaeological museums, architectural design, interior design, contemporary display of artefacts.