CASCultural and Arts Studies3083-39573083-3949Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.10.26689/CAS.v2i2.15413ArticleFrom Cultural Fortress to Civic Forum: Boundary Dissolution in the Contemporary Museum and the Case of Suzhou Museumhttps://artdesignp.com/journal/CAS/2/2/10.26689/CAS.v2i2.15413ZhouZhe2026222026-04-30This article examines boundary dissolution in the contemporary museum through the case of Suzhou Museum. It argues that the museum is no longer defined only by the protection and display of objects, but by its ability to negotiate relations among architecture, knowledge, urban mobility, digital mediation and public participation. Drawing on debates in museum studies and new museology, the article first explains how museum boundaries are produced by walls, doors, display cases, professional authority and inherited cultural hierarchies. It then analyses Suzhou Museum as a regional institution that has transformed limitation into strategy: I. M. Pei’s architectural language softens spatial thresholds; the museum expands into an urban network of Wu-culture institutions and garden sites; digital tools assist wayfinding and visitor-flow management; and curatorial practice increasingly shifts from object-centered display toward contextual interpretation and public co-production. The article does not propose a museum without limits. Conservation, scholarship and spatial management remain necessary. Its central claim is that such limits become legitimate when they function as negotiated thresholds rather than instruments of exclusion. Suzhou Museum therefore offers a useful model for understanding how a museum can move from cultural fortress toward civic forum.Suzhou museum, Boundary dissolution, Museum architecture, New museology, Publicness, Digital mediation, Curatorship, Wu culture

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