Case for Analysis The Addlington Gallery of Art. Locals referred to it—affectionately or sarcastically—as the "Adding Museum." Housed in the massive Romanesque-style former mansion of Horace and Margaret Addlington, the 100-year-old Addlington Gallery of Art had, by 2016, reached a tipping point of institutional and financial distress. Considered a point of civic and cultural pride, the home and its extensive collection of art had been the generous gift to the city’s residents under terms of the legal wills of the childless industrial tycoon and his wife following their deaths in a 1910 motor-car accident.
The museum was established and controlled, as dictated in the will, by a Board of Directors comprised of old-moneyed families, friends of the Addlingtons, whose seats on the board historically passed from one generation to the next. In accordance with Horace and Margaret’s desires to make their collections "accessible to all," the museum was, for several decades, free to the public. In its opening days and weeks, the rarefied opportunity for locals to "see inside the mansion," as much as to see the art, lured scores of visitors who endured long lines to enter the city’s most palatial residence. Once the newness had worn off, however, the museum settled into a reputation as the cultural domain of the "la-de-dah art elite." Questions
What are the possible purposes of the Addlington Gallery of Art? Which purpose would you choose for the museum?
What are the implications of the selected purpose and customers for the museum’s structural design, the qualifications of its director, and its relationship to the university?