On Museums

Le Saboteur

Active member
Advance Disclosure: The following is an argument in progress. In other words, it's not fully formed. I thought opening it up to a wider audience might provide some interesting viewpoints.

Cartoons, Slavery, Pinball, Trains, Beatniks, Long-term thinking: these are some of the alternative museums here in the Bay Area. They occupy a niche alongside the more traditional (some would staid) offerings by the art, science, and natural history museums found on both sides of the Bay.

Growing up I have: been tossed from the Smithsonian, spent hours "lost" in Chicago's Field Museum and the San Bernadino County Museum. While traveling I have seen museums dedicated to erotic art, booze, the superb natural history museums in Vienna & Paris, the Lipizzaner stallions, and others. Yet, if I wasn't traveling would I spend that much time surrounded by dead and/or idle objects?

In some instances, yes, I would. As something of naturalist I could spend several hours combing through the local natural history museum, but wild horses couldn't drag me through the Hofburg's Silver Room again.

Why? Aside from the obvious answer of: How much of your life do you want to spend looking at the Hapsburg's silverware collection? Well, it's dead bric a brac used for only for the occasional state function. Yes, that Hapsburg Imperial Napkin Fold is fantastic, but after you've seen it once there's not much else about it unless you want to decipher the thread count. They don't share the secret to recreating the fold.

So, following a household conversation, the below video, and Stoo's comment about the welcome addition of in-character actors at the Sherlock Holmes Museum I couldn't help but wondering: What do museums mean to Ravenites? Does every niche activity/hobby/whatever deserve or need its own museum? Is everything dead? Or is everything fascinating?

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2_y7n7OGslg?list=UUkyfHZ6bY2TjqbJhiH8Y2QQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you're into the Natural sciences take a gander at The Brain Scoop, the lovely Emily Graslie's YouTube channel. She's recently taken up residence at the Field Museum.

The wolf dissection is worth the visit alone.

I, for one, prefer a living culture and/or history. A collection of cabins and houses in Valley Forge, for example, are just that; the living history actors really put things into perspective. The Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul is another example of a dead structure; despite a superb collection of mosaics, artwork, and Janissary-artifacts & weaponry it feels restrictive after a while.

Sure, the Mehteran Band has a summer programme every Wednesday through the end of September, but what about the rest of the months? How about a demonstration of Janissary combat, etc.? The Qur'an is recited 24-hours day in the harem museum, but could something else be done on the main grounds? A primer on Islam for the tourists?

Some of the referenced museums are:
 

Stoo

Well-known member
My favourite museum, so far, has been "The House of Terror" in Budapest, Hungary which chronicles the German and Russian control over that country. It is a totally immersive & overwhelming, multi-media experience. Not your average museum and one that will leave you thinking for a long time after you leave due to the situations that it puts you through.

This museum opened in 2002 and the Hungarian father of one my past girlfriends HATES the existence of it!:eek:

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2nd Favourite: Musée de l'Armée in Paris, France.

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What is a museum?
It's a public warehouse of stuff!:gun:
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Good thread. When I was 17 in 1985, I chose to do Work Experience in my senior High School year at the Queensland Museum, when it was at Bowen Hills just north of Fortitude Valley. Already then the plans for moving to its current location in the Southbank Cultural Precinct were in progress and I remember seeing the scale models of the current Queensland Museum.

But the old Museum, now known as the Old Museum Brisbane, is a fantastic old building that was just as fascinating as the exhibits and stores of specimens inside.

When I went for an interview about doing the work experience there, the fellow interviewing me asked, "What do you think a Museum is for?" I think I answered something to the effect of "Displaying stuff to the public(?)" He said "No! A museum is a place for primary sources of information. Books and so forth are secondary sources of information but museums contain the actual things from which we derive our knowledge..." etc. He finished by saying that my time doing Work Experience would be spent getting in the way of people doing their work. He was a bit brusque.

So, that was straightened out for me. What I found out was that the public displays were only a very small part of all that is contained in the Qld Museum. I saw the basements and attics and research rooms that were filled with all the various specimens, tables with ancient fossils set out, rooms lined high and long with cabinets filled with preserved animals, insects, all manner of creatures, aboriginal artefacts as well as artefacts from the Pacific cultures as well.

It struck me that the public is only allowed to see a token slice of all that is contained there. I did elect to be situated in the Anthropology section, so the evidence of the study of societies and cultures was a real eye opener. The then Head of the Anthropology section was an older portly fellow who would invite me to have morning tea with him and as he drank his tea he would remark that he thought it was very civilised to drink tea in the morning. I think I just nodded and agreed, as all I drank then was water or milk with milo.

I was given several tasks, the first was to treat some old bones that had been lying outside for a long time. I had to sort of clean off non bone layers on the outside then treat them with some sort of preserving fluid much like a lacquer. I suspect that the bones were valueless as I didn't know if I was doing it properly and supervision was almost none. The second and far more engaging work was cataloguing donated items in a great big old ledger that was stored in an old safe somewhere in the heart of the museum's labyrinth. Again it was token work. But some of the items had been donated as far back as 1900 and were still waiting for cataloguing! But I found it intriguing. I would go get drawers and boxes of these objects, pull out the big old ledger and using a fine artists ink pen mark the objects with the appropriate number proceeding the last one written in the ledger. The objects were then officially catalogued and then stored away in an appropriate area, perhaps never to be seen again!

I could go on and on about this time. It was really quite fascinating and the current Qld Museum seems a sterile place to me after being able to navigate the passage ways, corridors and musty rooms of that old museum.
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
[Echoing Mickiana]Hat-tip to Le Saboteur for a great topic.

Le Saboteur said:
Does every niche activity/hobby/whatever deserve or need its own museum? Is everything dead? Or is everything fascinating?

George Saunders deals with this indirectly in his fiction (and re-enactors for that matter). Check out Pastoralia and CivilWarLand In Bad Decline. Hilarious stuff.

I found this educational and interesting:

Mickiana said:
When I went for an interview about doing the work experience there, the fellow interviewing me asked, "What do you think a Museum is for?" I think I answered something to the effect of "Displaying stuff to the public(?)" He said "No! A museum is a place for primary sources of information. Books and so forth are secondary sources of information but museums contain the actual things from which we derive our knowledge..." etc. [...] So, that was straightened out for me.

I appreciate the distinction the fellow was trying to make but you should have said, "Sorry dude but the real primary sources are out there in the world -- live action -- unfolding in real time."

Mickiana said:
What I found out was that the public displays were only a very small part of all that is contained in the Qld Museum. I saw the basements and attics and research rooms that were filled with all the various specimens, tables with ancient fossils set out, rooms lined high and long with cabinets filled with preserved animals, insects, all manner of creatures, aboriginal artefacts as well as artefacts from the Pacific cultures as well.

It struck me that the public is only allowed to see a token slice of all that is contained there. I did elect to be situated in the Anthropology section, so the evidence of the study of societies and cultures was a real eye opener

I've got my childhood memories of testing doors and going through basement passages of The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and know what you mean about only a fraction of the works of older museums being available to the public. But a lot has changed since I was a kid.

Nowadays, museum design has gotten smart. First, work rooms have glass walls and have been converted into (or designed as) performance spaces -- to make learning more 'interactive' and 'interesting' (but note, it seems to me that these fantastic labs are empty and inactive most of the time). Second, I read somewhere that museum fatigue sets in after twenty minutes -- so no matter who you are or how smart or how good the exhibit is -- you get tired of an exhibit after twenty minutes. So now museums are designed to get you to a cafe or gift shop in roughly that amount of time to break things up. The consequence? There is a lot less content in Museums today -- aisle-after-aisle of specimen cases are no more. Heck, what's being built today -- new museums -- are not even museums, strictly speaking.

In the natural sciences realm, compare the Natural History Museum in Manhattan with the California Academy of Science in San Francisco. The former is a classic museum, the later is more of a living science center/botanical garden/aquarium (I'm proud of the living roof).

For me, as far as museums go, I'm more into art than natural or historical museums. I think the nicer or broader question is what's the best way to learn? Generally, I like historical places that have been converted into museums but note there's a lot of variance here. Touring Hemingway's childhood home and school-house turned museum is not on par with sun yat-sen's home turned museum. And does the experience suffer if the site is a repro? Like Ford's Theatre, Williamsburg or (most of the) the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings? As for actual museums, I like it when they themselves are a part of history. I don't care much for Egyptian artifacts (for me, the Met's exhibit in New York seems more like an excuse to have a good room for a party rather than an exhibit) but I know I enjoy looking at Egyptian artifacts more when housed in the battle-scarred Neues Museum in Berlin (even if our good German friends won't return Nefertiti).

I've got loads more to discuss on this topic. It's a good one!
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Joe Brody said:
George Saunders deals with this indirectly in his fiction (and re-enactors for that matter). Check out Pastoralia and CivilWarLand In Bad Decline. Hilarious stuff.

I will certainly add them to my ever growing list of things I need to read. Towards that end though, I would recommend Julian Barnes’ England, England.



Joe Brody said:
Nowadays, museum design has gotten smart. First, work rooms have glass walls and have been converted into (or designed as) performance spaces -- to make learning more 'interactive' and 'interesting' (but note, it seems to me that these fantastic labs are empty and inactive most of the time). Second, I read somewhere that museum fatigue sets in after twenty minutes -- so no matter who you are or how smart or how good the exhibit is -- you get tired of an exhibit after twenty minutes. So now museums are designed to get you to a cafe or gift shop in roughly that amount of time to break things up. The consequence? There is a lot less content in Museums today -- aisle-after-aisle of specimen cases are no more. Heck, what's being built today -- new museums -- are not even museums, strictly speaking.

Museum design has certainly gotten interesting, but I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘smart’. Not unless you’re a fan of the Exit Through the Gift Shop strategy pioneered by the Walt Disney Company. Using our local Academy of Sciences as an example, how much space is lost to that cafeteria; or, that high-end restaurant in the basement? While I am all for a place to sit down and have a bite to eat, that loss of space on the main exhibit floor is something of a crime. Do visitors need fifty different dining options? Change the menu daily if you want. The oft missed earthquake simulator could have gone in either of those spots.

The Exploratorium, however, is the worst culprit of this new high-end dining trend found amongst Bay Area museums.

It’s funny that you mentioned the new lab spaces. In a handful of visits, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything happen in them. Sure, there have been excellent video presentations of the work they could do in them, but little to no actual work. Would the museum’s work be better served by being conducted off-site somewhere?

And museum fatigue after twenty-minutes? Yes, I can definitely see that for the average visitor. Breaking up case after case of artifacts with an interactive display that hopefully puts things into perspective is a definite improvement.


Joe Brody said:
In the natural sciences realm, compare the Natural History Museum in Manhattan with the California Academy of Science in San Francisco. The former is a classic museum, the later is more of a living science center/botanical garden/aquarium (I'm proud of the living roof).

I’ll assume you mean the American Museum of Natural History? That’s the one in Manhattan. If so, yes, the differences are definitely evident; despite the whiz bang building in Golden Gate Park, I can’t help but find it to be an inferior experience. Too much floor space was lost in combining the facilities. I’m still not sure what to make of it these days. Science Center seems appropriate, but I always walk out feeling like it’s very… uh, zoo-lite.

Taken individually the Living Roof, the Rainforest Dome/Bubble/Globe, and Steinhart Aquarium are all exceptionally well done. Worthwhile upgrades all around, but shoving the Kimball Natural History Hall into the back corner is something of a disservice. I think people only go in there for the penguin exhibit.

Speaking of penguins, a metric tonne of ink has been spilled regarding visitors and their behaviors in zoos. Most of it isn’t positive; i.e., 90-something percent of visitors don’t read the signage; they don’t stay at any exhibit for more than ten seconds; and, they often disappear once the children reach a certain age. With that in mind, in a museum/science center setting, are live animals the best way to teach children about biodiversity?




Joe Brody said:
Touring Hemingway's childhood home and school-house turned museum is not on par with sun yat-sen's home turned museum. And does the experience suffer if the site is a repro? Like Ford's Theatre, Williamsburg or (most of the) the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings?

Anthony Max Tung's Preserving the World’s Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis has a great section on this very topic. To summarize: The Western world believes in preserving the original building; the Eastern world believes essentially believes in preserving the spirit of a building and/or place. I forget the exact example, but he mentions how the Japanese basically rebuild one of their major shrines every fifty years or so.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Joe Brody said:
[Echoing Mickiana]Hat-tip to Le Saboteur for a great topic.
+1. Thanks Sab.

Mickiana said:
When I went for an interview about doing the work experience there, the fellow interviewing me asked, "What do you think a Museum is for?" I think I answered something to the effect of "Displaying stuff to the public(?)" He said "No! A museum is a place for primary sources of information. Books and so forth are secondary sources of information but museums contain the actual things from which we derive our knowledge..." etc. He finished by saying that my time doing Work Experience would be spent getting in the way of people doing their work. He was a bit brusque.
I have to say, your interviewer was both telling you a very important truth of museums and playing up his own importance a little.

There are three human instances that together form a larger whole called the "memory organizations", namely libraries, archives and museums. However, none of the three are more important than the other, given how they all store different aspects of the mankind's collective memory. To simplify things, we could say that the libraries are the cultural memory, the archives store the memory of various events (yes, libraries do this too, but the documents made by man are first-hand proof that something has happened) and museums contain our physical memory.

Now, it's true that an experienced eye can tell a lot from a physical piece, things such as what it is, what kind of action it has seen and so forth. But in the end, those are nothing more than very educated guesses. If you want the whole story, you also need an account from someone who's been present in the same situation than the item under examination. And given how that person is likely long gone, your best bet is an archive or a library. Though when you're checking up another person's account of an event happened in long past, you can never be certain of its accuracy - at which case being able to examine the physical trace of said event helps. But there is no instance that more important than the other two. The best results are gained when all three work in conjuction, either confirming theories or pointing out disrepancies.

Mickiana said:
It struck me that the public is only allowed to see a token slice of all that is contained there.
It's indeed curious how probably the most visible part of a museum is one of its lesser functions. I can't tell how much Stoo was joking when he said that a museum is a "public warehouse of stuff", but he wasn't that far off the mark.

A museum's main function is simply to store old things, simply because you never know when they might become relevant again. It doesn't actually matter whether they're all visible to the public or not - what matters is that they're simply there. And since Le Sab wondered what's the point of some museums, there's his answer. In fact, the comparison to memory is quite adequate. Just like our brains can't contain all its contents in the working memory, everything can't be put on display. But in case a memory or other becomes relevant again, we can call it back up at will. Similarly, it's obvious that museums can't store every interesting object from our past, just like our minds can not.

While I just said that a museum's job is to store things, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, we all know that thanks to the space restraints alone, they can't of course store just about everything.

So, when does something truly belong to a museum? I'd say that it does when somebody thinks it does - and they've also got the necessary facilities for it. And this rule could be extended outside the public museums as well. So if your spouse seems reluctant to throw old things away after cleaning up the garage, never laugh or brush him or her off. If he or she thinks it's still relevant - it probably is. Now, it simply becomes a matter of negotiating whether you still have room for it or not.




By the way, I also live in a city that seems to have a knack for setting up bizarre museums dedicated to things a bit further from natural history and other mainstream topics. To list a few, we've got ones dedicated to:

-Working class
-Spycraft
-Ice hockey
-Moomins
-V.I. Lenin

Relevant in the big picture? Well, who am I to judge...
 

Montana Smith

Active member
The museum I have the fondest memories of is the Natural History Museum in London.

To start with the architecture itself is awe inspiring.

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Then there's the animals. As a small child standing inches from stuffed tigers and polar bears was another awe-inspiring experience. There was a life-size model of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling, which no longer seems to be part of the display.

A living culture museum? No, I much prefer a museum without the dress-up re-enactors.

While the conservation of exhibits and empty museums don't go hand-in-hand, I prefer museums to be as quiet and as devoid of human life as possible. Everywhere's crowded today, which is good for business, but I treasure the time walking through the quiet corridors of the Natural History Museum, never wanting to leave.

The closest experience to it in recent times has been the hours spent walking through the empty halls of Cyrus Pinkney's Institute for Natural History.

The British Museum was busier, but that was on a school trip.

Can't remember if I ever got to the Imperial War Museum, but I worked in the basement of one its storage locations. A red brick building that reminded me of a Victorian hospital or asylum. There wasn't a lot to see.
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Finn said:

A museum on Moomins! I'm there! I was given a box set of Moomin novels about 35 years ago and always loved them. If a museum could recreate that Moomin world....

A lot of the appeal for me, besides those fascinating characters and the wonderful stories, was the snowy and frozen landscapes, which is so foreign to my experiences of growing up in the subtropics where the only ice we see is what we buy.

Moomin Museum = great idea! (y)

NB Big reversion to childhood for me here. :D
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Thanks, Finn. It is a very good interactive. (y) Nearly as good as being there. A lot cheaper for me anyway.
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
While I don't have much to offer this thread, I will say I am enjoying it and it's value here at TheRaven.net.

To that end, much of my time in museums of late are at the Children's Variety. I'm remembering things I've long forgotten, and learning new things too, along with my offspring.
 

roundshort

Active member
Well tomorrow is National Museum day! I will be spending the day going in and out of the Museum of Wine, my favorite interactive museum. (This is also know as my personal wine cellar, at home, and I plan on taking many of the exhibits out.....
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Joe Brody said:
I appreciate the distinction the fellow was trying to make but you should have said, "Sorry dude but the real primary sources are out there in the world -- live action -- unfolding in real time."

That's why we have David Attenborough!

Another interesting thing I noticed in the Old Museum were the little scientists and researchers scuttling about the shelves and cabinets pulling out their specimens for their study. Many of them looked so typically 'scientist', small, wiry, bearded and bespectacled, that they seemed like specimens themselves. I mean this in a kindly way, though it did strike me almost as a bit comical.
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Le Saboteur said:
Not unless you?re a fan of the Exit Through the Gift Shop strategy pioneered by the Walt Disney Company.

I'm not a betting man but I wouldn't be surprised if Disney boosted the concept from the World's fairs -- they did that with a lot of stuff.

Le Saboteur said:
I?ll assume you mean the American Museum of Natural History? That?s the one in Manhattan.

Sorry -- lived down the road from it for 9+ years and never picked up the actual name.

Le Saboteur said:
I think people only go in there for the penguin exhibit.

Guilty.

Le Saboteur said:
Anthony Max Tung's Preserving the World?s Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis has a great section on this very topic. To summarize: The Western world believes in preserving the original building; the Eastern world believes essentially believes in preserving the spirit of a building and/or place. I forget the exact example, but he mentions how the Japanese basically rebuild one of their major shrines every fifty years or so.

Interesting. Will try to check out.

Finn said:
There are three human instances that together form a larger whole called the "memory organizations", namely libraries, archives and museums. However, none of the three are more important than the other, given how they all store different aspects of the mankind's collective memory. To simplify things, we could say that the libraries are the cultural memory, the archives store the memory of various events (yes, libraries do this too, but the documents made by man are first-hand proof that something has happened) and museums contain our physical memory.

[half-jokingly] So Professor where would you peg that crazy seed vault your good neighbors to the West have constructed?

Mickiana said:
That's why we have David Attenborough!

Another interesting thing I noticed in the Old Museum were the little scientists and researchers scuttling about the shelves and cabinets pulling out their specimens for their study. Many of them looked so typically 'scientist', small, wiry, bearded and bespectacled, that they seemed like specimens themselves. I mean this in a kindly way, though it did strike me almost as a bit comical.

I love the way the scientist type is dealt with in Silence of the Lambs. Very Geek Cool!
 
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