The Rabbit Hole of St. Louis

I always wondered how Wired magazine would finally get its bleeding-edge angle on the venerable institution of museumry. And heavens! They've gotten round to it:

Imagine what could happen if you free a museum's staff from endless legal red tape, stuffy attitudes about what is and isn't art, and fear of what visitors might do when confronted by dark chasms, scary slides or a puking pig.

Imagine instead a museum staff comprising engineer-artists, free to create whatever they want, be spontaneous, take risks and play. And imagine a museum that figures people won't mind getting really dirty or rather wet during their visits, and you have St. Louis' City Museum

To be fair, it sounds and looks amazing. And of course, we generally approve of the ethos outlined by the curator, Elizabeth Parker:

The museum is a happy hybrid of solid grown-up engineering skills and childlike raw creativity. Our staff of artist-engineers, welders and construction experts builds totally on impulse. They build whatever they want to build, whenever they want to build it. The museum changes on a daily basis due to the staff's spontaneous and constant bursts of creativity.

I'm fascinated to find out whether this museum implies an attitude to history, and its artefacts, that's similarly ludic and post-modern. Or whether it's really just a big arts lab?