Most Visited Galleries

Palace Museum	Beijing	16,000,000	2016[2]
Louvre	Paris	7,300,000	2016[3]
British Museum	London	6,820,000	2015[4]
Metropolitan Museum of Art	New York City	6,700,000	2016[5]
National Palace Museum	Taipei	6,142,892	2016[6]
Vatican Museums	Vatican City	6,002,251	2015[7]
National Gallery	London	5,900,000	2015[8]
Tate Modern	London	4,700,000	2015[9]
National Gallery of Art	Washington, D.C.	4,104,331	2015[10]
State Hermitage Museum	Saint Petersburg	3,668,031	2015[11]
Reina Sofía	Madrid	3,646,598	2016[12]
Victoria and Albert Museum	London	3,460,500	2016[13]
Musée d'Orsay	Paris	3,440,000	2015[14]
Musée National d'Art Moderne	Paris	3,335,509	2016[15]
Somerset House	London	3,235,104	2015[16]
Museum of Modern Art	New York City	3,066,337	2013[17]
National Museum of Korea	Seoul	3,052,823	2013[17]

At the top of their trade, the art galleries can become worldwide / international attractions, and even build up entire cities. For example the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, a museum of modern and contemporary art in Spain, was designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry, and due to its immense beauty, became a landmark attraction and saved the deterioration the the city:

"One of the most admired works of contemporary architecture, the building has been hailed as a "signal moment in the architectural culture", because it represents "one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something."The museum was the building most frequently named as one of the most important works completed since 1980 in the 2010 World Architecture Survey among architecture experts."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ae7d656-73a5-11dc-abf0-0000779fd2ac.html?ft_site=falcon&desktop=true#axzz4ccHaeIeo - The Museum That Saved A City 

The Louvre, Tate and National Gallery all withhold famous pieces of art that have transcended the realms of high art into popular culture society whereby everyone knows of the messages, artists and aesthetics of these pieces regardless of class. Instead, works such as the Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's starry night, are visited on the basis of popularity and reputation rather than the art itself. 

As such, it is important to apply this trend and motives of social activity into my own developments of transforming a high art environment into one that attracts a mass audience. 

These institutions may become so well known due to:

- Age - historic building are well known due to their prolonged existence 

- TV and Film referencing either the institution of a famous piece of art itself - e.g. mona lisa and stealing it is often referenced in some action films 

- Artist figures - Leonardo Da Vinci and Van Gogh are extremely famous figures themselves and thus it is the celebrity rather than the art that attracts mass culture - e.g. Andy Warhol was a celebrity and so were his subjects thus attracting everyday people who have posters of their favourite celebs in their rooms anyway