Cultural accessibility: visible and invisible barriers in cultural venues

The national course and the lecture

This perspective is at the heart of the national course “Accessibilità culturale: principi e pratiche” [‘Cultural accessibility: principles and practice’], promoted by the Scuola nazionale del patrimonio e delle attività culturali (opens in a new tab) (Italy’s National School of Heritage and Cultural Activities) with the Directorate-General for Museums, as part of the programme Personeper – Accessibilità nei luoghi della cultura (opens in a new tab) [‘Accessibility in cultural venues’]. The programme is funded by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) through NextGenerationEU; the Plan allocates €300 million to removing physical and cognitive barriers in museums, libraries and archives (M1C3, Investment 1.2).

Within this training programme, Francesco Rodighiero and Antonella Agnoli (opens in a new tab) created the lecture “Le barriere visibili e invisibili: comprendere il contesto per definire le soluzioni” [‘Visible and invisible barriers: understanding the context to define solutions’], a module that examines in depth the obstacles, tangible and intangible, that limit the full experience of cultural venues.

The five-hour course was delivered online and self-paced; the lecture was available on the School’s platform from 26 June to 31 October 2025.

The Personeper programmePersoneper (opens in a new tab)

Recognising barriers beyond the obvious

A barrier can be a step, an incomprehensible text, a cost or a service that does not respond to people. Recognising it means observing how a place is reached, moved through and experienced.

In the collective imagination, museums, archives and libraries are seen as places naturally open to everyone. In reality, their accessibility is often limited by a constellation of barriers that interfere with how people experience them, find their way, understand what they see and feel that they belong.

Physical barriers

Physical barriers are the first level of obstacle: steps, inadequate ramps, unsuitable lifts, narrow passages, fragmented routes through the building. They affect not only people with mobility impairments but anyone facing a limitation, even a temporary one: parents with pushchairs, older people, visitors with reduced mobility.

Perceptual and sensory barriers

Then come perceptual and sensory barriers: wayfinding that does not guide, poor lighting, hard-to-read text, spaces with difficult acoustics. These affect everyone’s experience, not only that of people who are hypersensitive or hyposensitive to sensory input.

Technological barriers

Finally, technological barriers are an increasingly important dimension. QR codes that are the only way into the content, inaccessible digital interfaces, content that does not work with assistive technologies and a lack of digital literacy all create new forms of invisible exclusion.

Obvious as they are, these barriers are often tackled piecemeal, without an overall strategy. Cultural accessibility, by contrast, calls for a coordinated, person-centred design.

Organisational barriers: what cannot be seen

A significant part of the lecture addresses systemic barriers: the invisible obstacles created by organisational and management choices.

Opening hours that are limited or do not fit people’s daily lives, few flexible services, no staff dedicated to cultural mediation, staff not trained to welcome every visitor, a gap between what is promised online and what visitors find on site: all these factors shape the visitor’s experience profoundly.

Cultural accessibility depends not only on spaces and technologies, but on the quality of the processes that govern the life of a cultural institution.

In the process for the Bologna Civic Museums (Musei Civici di Bologna), more than 80 anonymous questionnaires gathered the views of in-house staff, external collaborators and volunteers, and accessibility was treated as a driver of cultural, organisational and design change: we describe it in Accessible museums and Design for All.

Social justice and economic barriers

Accessibility is also a question of resources. The cost of transport, educational services, workshop activities or technologies can be a significant obstacle for many people.

Designing inclusively means asking whether cultural experiences are affordable for the people who take part, and imagining fair, accessible ways for them to do so.

Equity is not an abstract principle: it is a concrete element of design that determines who will, and who will not, have access to culture.

Relational barriers: the most fragile dimension

The subtlest barriers, but perhaps the most decisive, are relational ones.

A lack of listening, difficulty in building trust, a sense of loneliness, no human support at critical moments: all of these have a decisive influence on access to culture.

Relationships are an essential component of cultural design. Without relationships, no place is truly accessible.

Investing in how visitors are welcomed, in cultural mediation and in community building creates real conditions for participation.

Accessibility as an opportunity for cultural regeneration

Treating cultural accessibility as a design principle means recognising it as an opportunity for regeneration.

It is a strategic investment: it allows institutions to rethink services, ways of working and how they welcome visitors, broadening participation and recognising the diversity of their audiences.

Accessibility is not a bureaucratic constraint, but a condition that enriches cultural venues, strengthens their public mission and makes them vital hubs of contemporary communities.

Recognising barriers is the first step; turning them into solutions requires a process that involves, from the outset, the people who actually use those places. This is the work we do with cultural institutions, from consultancy to guidelines: the Design for All process and Design for All and Inclusive Design consultancy.