
On being shushed (twice) inside the museum: Expectations and experience.
Museums are complex structures that serve multiple purposes. Mental stimulation, knowledge acquisition, cultural enrichment, visual enjoyment and, for many, stress and anxiety relief. Museums and art galleries are havens of calmness, but also, importantly, places of delight. I like to think of them as essential environments of wellbeing. The museum experience is historically associated with a respectful, reverential silence. From the moment we cross that threshold, we are tol