ACCESSIBILITY TO CULTURAL HERITAGE: FIVE COMMONPLACES, FIVE STRATEGIES

Antonio Espinosa Ruiz
Chief of Archaeology, Ethnography and Museums Municipal Department of Villajoyosa and Lecturer of Archaeology at the University of Alicante.

The majority public in our museums will be, in the medium term, cultivated aged people that are looking forward to accessing culture, so it isn't a bad idea to adapt our museums to those who will be our main clients. Everyone will have some disabilities in the future: designing accessible museums is equivalent to invest in a pension for the society.

For the last twenty years the 'new museology', a tendency that pursues the democratisation of the cultural values and products, has developed. Museums have changed their centre of interest from objects to visitors: temporary exhibitions and cultural events have multiplied, audiovisual technologies have invaded places where cold displays, full of antiquities, reigned before. Despite its achievements, one of this tendency's greatest failures has been the lack of integration of disabled people. The interest went from the object to the visitor, but not to every visitor. Most of the enormous recent investments in museums don't take account of the main accessibility as a priority. These new museums will hardly adapt, once proudly inaugurated, to disabled people. It is urgent, therefore, to identify the causes of the problem and some strategies to raise politicians, architects and persons in charge of these institutions' awareness. In my opinion, some commonplaces hinder this necessary process.

The first commonplace is that it isn't worth adapting for a minority that, moreover, doesn't go much to those places. It is, however, an overwhelming minority (more than 10%), and progressive population's ageing is contributing to increase it. The majority public in our museums will be, in the medium term, cultivated aged people that are looking forward to accessing culture, so it isn't a bad idea to adapt our museums to those who will be our main clients. Everyone will have some disabilities in the future: designing accessible museums is equivalent to invest in a pension for the society. On the other hand, the fact that handicapped people don't go very often to museums is due to the physical and intellectual difficulties of these places and their contents. You can easily understand certain despondency. It is important, therefore, publishing up-to-date guides for visitors with disabilities.

The second commonplace is that benefiting this 'minority' the majority loses out. But if we take into account those who, temporary or permanently, don't possess the same physical abilities as the average adult -children, pregnant women, injured or low-sized or aged people- then the minority isn't so any more. Besides, accessible places favour everybody because they are comfortable. They adapt a great variety of visitors, they don't damage the rest of the public: they benefit them. What is good for disabled people is ever better for those who aren't, including those who are simply tired.

The third commonplace is related with the cost of accessibility. You can firmly say that, when you are still designing the museum, accessibility isn't more expensive (an accessible and a non-accessible display cost just the same). Once finished the building or the setting up, the necessary improvements to adapt it -if accepted by the institution, something really difficult in the short of medium term- can involve an important additional cost.

Fourth, most population -including technicians and architects- usually reduce the question to the existence of ramps and lifts, but accessibility is not only the absence of architectural barriers. While the first museums tried to look like classical temples, with podiums and staircases, nowadays you usually avoid barriers because laws oblige you to do it, but the matter is not only entering the museum or cultural place, but also -as far as possible- its contents (displays, texts, objects, images, models) and its environment: urban transports, parking.

Lastly, there is a tendency to solve the question with special spaces: some museums have separate rooms for blind visitors but, in spite of that way of meaning web, this visitors are treated there as special ones, and is much better the integration in common spaces. A touchable model is not only enjoyed by the blind, but also for the rest of the public.

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