What makes a museum building successful? Until the arrival of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao in 1997, this question might have been almost exclusively focused on the best environments in which to view art. But the Guggenheim’s phenomenal success, which allowed the Basque government to recoup the construction costs within three years, moved the debate on to issues of branding and statement architecture. 

Now the discussion has moved on again. ... 

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Thomas Demand, Artist: Architects often build museums for their taste, rather than for the collection that will be housed there—that’s the first problem. Philip Johnson hated certain artists and when he designed museums, he prevented them from being shown. You will never see a Carl Andre in one of his museums; he’d put down a tropical wood floor or something. But whatever you do, the artist will challenge the context to make their show unforgettable. The best museums are the ones you can take a walk through. You mustn’t see everything at once; every space should not be the same and, because artists create their own worlds, you need windows to connect you to the outside world. ...