THE VISITOR APPRECIATION OF THE EYE FILM INSTITUTE ARCHITECTURE

Despite the financial crisis and the high expenses, many museums in the Netherlands invest in the (re)construction of new buildings. There are many reasons to do this, but the question rises if architecture interests the museum visitor. The aim of this research is to find out which values of architecture are important to these visitors using a case study of the EYE Film Institute and their remarkable new museum building. Research firstly is done with a literature review in order to analyse which values architecture can have in general and for museum visitors. A review of different articles and researches on architecture resulted in the seven categories exchange, use, image, social, environmental, aesthetic and symbolic value of architecture. Secondly these architectural values were analysed for their importance to museum visitors with an empirical research and the case study of the EYE Film Institutes is used in order to investigate this link. A Contingent Valuation study with a Willingness To Pay survey is done with 121 visitors of the building of EYE in order to see which values are most important to them. The results show how visitors are mainly positive about the influence of architecture. The Aesthetic value, if the building is beautiful, is most important to them. Also the Use value and functionality is important. The symbolic and image value or what the building communicates, were moderately important. These values motivated respondents to visit EYE and they were willing to pay an extra fee for them. Less important to the respondents were the buildings influence on the environment and strikingly its ability to encourage social contact. The social value of architecture was less important to visitors than the other values. Furthermore this research goes deeper into the values of architecture and their importance to visitors.