Permanent, Temporary, and Loan Display Case Guidelines

Many institutions develop guidelines and specifications for exhibition casework. These documents can take many forms and reflect the priorities, resources, and collection needs of each institution. Common to all is an attempt to provide guidance about how to safeguard art on exhibit and prevent adverse reactions between art and case construction material.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) undertook a major institutional effort to standardize and improve the design, construction, and procurement of permanent and temporary display cases, motivated by longstanding challenges in preventing chemical and physical risks to artwork.

This effort was undertaken because case designs varied widely, leading to:

Inconsistent performance
elevated VOC exposure
improper humidity control
other environmental hazards.

A summary of this work was published as:
Stephens, C.H, de Lapérouse, J.-F., Breitung, E.M., 2024. Temporary and Permanent Display Case Guidelines Developed Through Interdepartmental Collaborations at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 65(2):1-9. DOI:[10.1080/01971360.2024.2337983]

The article describes how interdepartmental collaborations, spanning Scientific Research, Conservation, Construction, Design, Curatorial, Security, and more, resulted in three formal guidelines, available on the Taylor and Francis website as supplemental information along with the published article. Updated versions of these documents are linked here:

For all display cases used at The Met, these documents collectively establish clear expectations for:

Choice and use of materials
Engineering performance
Installation protocols
Environmental stability

The JAIC article emphasizes exhibition guidelines, which reflect broader preventive care and conservation principles, tailored to The MET’s extensive program of exhibition and loan activities, including:

In house exhibitions: Standardized temporary and permanent display case designs capable of housing any object to reduce inconsistent historical practices and simplify case selection for curators, designers, and conservators.
Loans: A dedicated set of guidelines for borrowing institutions, specifying temperature and humidity parameters, lighting limits, and detailed lists of acceptable and forbidden materials.

These guidelines prevent last minute issues during courier travel and ensure that artwork is displayed in environments that meet common standards for preventive care and conservation. These guidelines function as practical and enforceable exhibition standards - to streamline planning and improve the safety and predictability of display environments.

Another central theme is rigorous materials testing and selection, a process closely aligned with AIC’s Materials Working Group (MWG) practices as applied specifically to The Met’s institutional needs.

The guidelines require that all materials used inside the art envelope—from adhesives and paints to gaskets and boards—undergo formal evaluation through in house Oddy testing to minimize levels of reactive chemicals within display cases. Timelines for mockups and prototypes are embedded into the project plan to ensure that case designs cannot advance until materials are verified to be safe.

This structured approach echoes a broader emphasis on analytical screening of construction materials used for museum display, and it ensures long term preservation by avoiding known hazards such as acetoxy cured silicones, oil based paints, and problematic wood products. The guidelines documents appended to this page will be updated as The Met’s policies and procedures for exhibition and loan continue to evolve.