A sound indoor climate for a museum in a monumental building

Museums are often housed in monumental buildings. These buildings were originally not built for this purpose. For the preservation of the artefacts in a museum the indoor climate is often restricted to a very narrow interval for temperature, but most of all for relative humidity. This restricted indoor climate originally dates from the 1970-ties. This indoor climate, however, does not fit well into an old building. The indoor surface conditions near cold walls under winter conditions lead to mould building and other deterioration of the wall surfaces. But principally the museum conditions of artefacts near the cold walls are not in line with museum recommendations. For some typical Dutch museums case studies have been done to show the building physical effects of housing a museum climate in an old building. A number of well known Dutch museum were selected to be examined. The buildings and their HVAC systems were analysed in a methodical way. For at least a year temperature and relative humidity measurements were recorded in different rooms and at different external wall surfaces of the museums. Additionally outdoor climate, CO2, ventilation and infiltration measurements were recorded when needed. The results of this measurement campaign were a large number of indoor climate conditions in different museums in rooms and near external walls. There was a large contrast between the aimed indoor museum climate and the measured resultant indoor climate in rooms and near external walls. The aimed indoor climate in museums which are housed in monumental buildings should be reconsidered. In the Netherlands a multidisciplinary climate network of people involved with the museum climate like conservators, museum-, monumental building- and HVAC consultants and building physicists is formed to formulate new guidelines for the indoor climate in Dutch museums.