The link between Contemporary Art Museums– visitors: MAC-Parque Forestal and MAC-Quinta Normal, Santiago de Chile

Museums are urban shelters, meeting places, and reflection centers. They are not only engines of urban transformation but also places of integration and generation of identities constructed from a relational sense and historical significance. However, it must be kept in mind that museums only become a place if there is a relationship, a link of meaning and significance with their visitors. It must be considered that the percentage of the population in Chile that attends museums is meager. This situation is further aggravated in contemporary art museums by the very definition of this art that questions and puts strain on visitors. Thus, the objective is to analyze the connectivity, legibility, and accessibility to establish the relationship in the public space of the two locations of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Parque Forestal and Quinta Normal. These factors will be reviewed from four dimensions historical, urban, architectural, and sociocultural, which intersect and make it possible to study the approach of the visitor and the city with the museums. As a result, relevant characteristics are obtained from the analyzed factors. They are feasible to consider when analyzing, projecting, remodeling, or enhancing architectural works that shelter contemporary art in its link with visitors and public space.