Museums are institutions that document, curate, and examine all sorts of things surrounding the human experience. You’ve probably been to an art museum, a history museum, a science museum, or even The Museum of Ice Cream! But…have you ever been to a museum of emotions?

I’m almost positive the answer is no. However, this was the prompt for the young architects in our Architecture program at PS 33! They were challenged with creating a museum based on probably the most intangible aspects of human existence, and boy, did they rise to the challenge!

Many of us, as we age, lose touch with our emotions and we struggle with expressing them, causing us to feel shame and loneliness. Imagine feeling that way, and stepping into a museum all about the range and variety of human emotions!

The written prompt was: “Design a museum that includes two separate exhibition halls that bring out contrasting emotions —one inducing negative emotions, and the other inducing positive emotions. Participants are free to choose the specific emotions to incite with their designs — fear, anger, anxiety, love, happiness, laughter, etc. The purpose of the Museum of Emotions is to use architecture as the primary tool to create emotional states, through consideration of the scales of the spaces, the journey through the space, color, lighting, and material choice.”

The architects in the class were also encouraged to take it further, and even go in a different direction if that’s what they wanted.

Architecture instructor, Emily Daniels, had this to say about the class: “The kids had such a fun time creating museums of feelings. They did not necessarily base the projects off their own feelings, but each of them incorporated a range of possible feelings. I got us started by discussing what kind of museums we have all been to, how the information is displayed, what parts are interactive, and what they like about museums. I made a Fountain of Tears for them to get started and we discussed how this could be tears of all sorts of emotions. I also helped them create an elevator that takes the rider from upset and back down to calm.”

*The elevator that takes the rider from upset back down to calm.*

Being the architect of a museum of emotions sounds just as therapeutic as attending one!

The projects created ranged from being easily discernible to being very abstract — which is quite on the nose when it comes to the spectrum of human emotions. They also thought about all kinds of mediums that could be incorporated to showcase different emotions such as music, paintings, sculpture, and film!

Are you interested in building your own museum of emotions? Make sure to create a free GIANT account to receive these daily creative prompts inspiring you to build at home!
Click here to view our “Design a Museum of Emotions” prompt!

SEL Meets STEM: Designing a Museum of Emotions

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