Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Plannifgfor the .friture preszlpposes a backgrazind of experience from the past. Here,
that special, long-rmge vieiv of things provided by museums can give social plclnners
necessclv itgorniation about the posihve and negative effects of present development aizd
offer them constant docunzevztation and anaGysis oj- changes in the social sfruckire.
Siillzultaneozts use of exhibitions mzd other tzeatzs of irEf0riovi available t o /?iusezwis
can increase public zmderstanding of social problems ami!) consequently, improve
prospects for posititle solutions.
Il
I2
1 . Georges Henri Rivire
28
concerned not only with the human environment; they are concerned with the
natural- environment-as -man-sees,-affects -and- conceives--it;-And this;-under---- -- - - -- - - -- - -
their respective forms of covered museums and historical parks.*
Concentrating on historical art, the art museum contributes to the protection
of the human environment. Concentrating on both historical and contemporary
art, it offers a review of the natural and human environment as it is perceived
and figured by the creative artist (Fig. II, I Z ) . ~
As a new form of museum, the neighbourhood museum and the ecomuseum
have an interdisciplinary character and place stress on ecology.
screens, wall sheets, kits, video-cassettes. They may also take the form of a
SOIZe t Zzwzi~esystem applied to ecological units.
A museum gallery, however, is not a laboratory; nor is it an organ of docu-
mentation, such as a library, an image or photo library, an auditorium.
It is a place through which visitors pass, followed by other visitors, who
have come to look rather than to consult, and whose participation is requested.
Hence the need to keep audio-visual programmes intended for museum gal-
leries to a reasonable length. Hence the need to select verbal recorded informa-
tion so as to let the user take in and assimilate the message in the time allowed.
However, there is a danger that the sound and visual output of the devices
may harm the ambience of the objects and models, which is the major element
of the exhibition. A necessity, therefore, is the acoustic or optical insulation of
the audio-visual reception fields.
An audio-visual programme cannot be kept running continuously in a
museum gallery. Otherwise the material to be introduced into the machines
would wear out too rapidly. A not less serious objection is that the museum
audio-visual presentation would become assimilable to one for propaganda
and publicity. The best arrangement is for the emission to be triggered by the
visitor, or, in special cases by a museum attendant at his request; the visitors
acceptance of the medium is in itself participation.
Audio-visual devices and their cultural ammunition are alike fragile. It is
therefore necessary for a check to be kept on their functioning by a skilled and
conscientioustechnician.8 It is further necessary, for the same reason, to provide
for the replacement of worn rraterial from carefully preserved master copies.
A new style needs to be sought for audio-visual documents for the interpreta-
tion of the facts of culture and nature in a museum gallery, a style freed of
everything savouring of publicity or propaganda and implicit in the themes of
the presentation.
Art museums
The environment, as has already been pointed out, is a Limited-programme
subject for the art museum.10 The latter can take in architecture and town-
planning, arts of space-disposal; or it can ally itself with the history museum
and the science museum in the work of providing an introduction to the
IO. cf. Parkhurst, op. cit., environment.
p. 163.
I I. cf. Duncan F. Cameron,
Backing up the history museum, it can supplement the works it shows by an
The Language of Museum illustration of the environments from which they came and the concepts of the
Interpretation, in Mzmzims,
Socieg, Kioivledge. Special artists who created them; it can help the visitor to feel involved by bringing
number of the Jownal of World him nearer, by one means or another, to the artist from whom he is far sep-
Hisaory/.Cdtwes,No. XIV,
P. 48-57.
arated in time or space.ll
Role of museums of art and of human and social sciences 31
'3
MUZEUM w BISKUPINIE, Biskupin.
Reconstituted street and house in the
first settlement.
'4
MUZEUM w BISKUPINIE, Biskupin.
Reconstructed palisade, earthworks and
gateway of the first settlement
()-)-o-400 B.C.).
1.f
MUZEUM w BISKUPINIE, Biskupin. Site
museum: reconstituted interior of a house
in the first settlement.
16
MUZBUM w BISKUPINIB, Biskupin. Site
museum: exhibition of excavated objects
and documentary material.
History museums
For many years archaeological museums and history museums have gone along
different paths. The first archaeological museum stocked with antiquities
appeared in Rome at the dawn of the Italian Renaissance-the Museum of the
Capitol. I 2. cf. the exhibition Breighel'
et Son Monde (Breughel and
From the nineteenth century onwards the domain of the archaeological His World), Brussels, Muses
museum has been progressively pushed backwards in time and extended in Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,
1969 (a catalogue has been
space. Defined from the cultural angle, its material, long artistic in character, published).
32 Georges Henri Rivire
has tended subsequently to embrace the whole of the cultural field. Defined
-- -from-the technical-angle,-the material-comes -essentiallyfrom Gxcavations, long- ----
A /
KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR DE TROPEN,
Amsterdam. Children being invited by a
museum demonstrator to try playing the
gamelatg.
I8
KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR DE TROPEN,
Amsterdam. Javanese gunzelatg being
demonstrated to children.
I7
The Tropical. Museum, Amsterdam: a way of studying tlie people of
the tropics, seen in their economic, social and cultural environment
and with regard to their heritage and development
The Tropical Mzisezim is a b r a d qf the R y a l Tropical Institute (I<oriinkZ&4 *
Imtitwt voor de Tropen) iut Amsterdam, which is a Co-operatve research, traitzing and
educatonaZ orgam'yatiofa. It pats on comtantiy changing exhibitions dealing with
variotis regions atzd themes, arranges programmes o f participatiorz and creative activg
aad prepares travellitg exhibitions a?idkits.
With the help o f a detnonsjrator, some visitors t o the " m tgi their hand at the
gamelang, iz4ich provides the nzz,sicdZ accoinpamkent to the Indonesian shadow
theatre.
34 Georges Henri Rivire
For about the last twenty years, if I am not mistaken, at the Hermitage
Museum, two sections in the archaeology department on Scythian and Slavonic
culture respectively have stood out resolutely from the other sections in this
department in dealing with social, economic and cultural themes, backed up by
clever cartography.
Established in Washington in 1964 by the Smithsonian Institution, the large
and magnificent United States Museum of History and Technology is con-
cerned not so much with political history and the history of events as with the
technical, economic, social, demographic and cultural history of the American
people.
In the new layout introduced around 1968 the Department of Greek and
Roman Antiquities of the British Museum has abandoned the classical formula
of subdivisions by techniques with contents in dated series for subdivisions by
periods with complex and selective contents. One such is the Roman Britain
subdivision which, with themes comprising economics, techniques, the society,
the clash of native and Roman cultures and human ecology, and, perhaps the
most remarkable, its renovated galleries.
Likewise abandoning its subdivisions by techniques, the department of
Greek and Roman antiquities of the Louvre Museum is preparing a new layout
with a succession of period exhibits with complex and eclectic contents on the
one hand, and study series on the other.
Through progressive approximation archaeological museums and history
museums end by merging with a system of successive mixed-content period
exhibits from the earliest times to our own day. By way of conclusion I shall
give a few examples.
From as long ago as the inter-war period in the Soviet Union, and since the
Second World War, in the peoples democracies, a good many local museums
have been effecting a periodiaation on the following lines: pre-feudal society,
feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society.
The frontier between archaeological and historical museums has also been
abolished, since the last war, in museums most ambitious in scale, e.g. museums
of urban history in Warsaw, Copenhagen, Stockholm and in the Hungarian
National History Museum in Budapest.
Rennes affords yet another example with the Muse de Bretagne started in
1946. Here, broadly speaking, the sub-themes of the periods have not been
determined by the collections available in advance, but by the structures of
history. In the last section to be opened, on the origins of Brittany, an initial
sub-theme deals with Brittany before mans arrival there, and the human periods
are presented in the context of the natural environment. The last section, cur-
rently in preparation, will deal with the Brittany of modern times of the future.15
A large department on the history of the Netherlands was opened in 1971,
in Amsterdam, in the Rijksmuseum. There are presented successive periods
of human history in their complexity with an accent, however, on the artistic
expression and the role of the popular structures in the society. The futurology
of the Netherlands is presented through the medium of a rich collection of
diagrams prepared by the national planning services.
A project for an Algerian national-history museum is under study in Algiers
to be presented in eight periods ranging from geological times to the foresee-
I j . cf. Jean Yves Veillard, the
able future in a detailed and consecutive context of natural ecology.1G problem of the history museum,
From this competition between archaeological museums and history mu- with reference to the museum
of Brittany in Rennes. In
seums of which I have mentioned a few aspects 1shall attempt to draw a few Musertm, Vol. XXIV, NO. 4,
conclusions. 972, P. 193-203.
16. cf. S. A. Baghli, Les
It is difficult to see how any but the most jagged of saw-tooth boundary lines Muses dHistoire et leur
can be traced between the two types of museum in chronological terms, in view Contribution au Dveloppement
des Pays du Tiers Monde,
of the great diversity of patterns of cultural development througlout the world. Museins, Society, Krioivledge
What differences there are in this respect, between Europe and pre-Columbian (special number of the Joinrnal
of World Hi.rtory/Czdfares,
America, between Maghreb and New Guinea, to go no further. op .sit)... __ .- ____ .
36 Georges Henri Rivire
20
Terrace farming in the Cvennes: -
one-aspect-of-the natural environment as
modified by man, a traditional feature of
the Cvennes but now disappearing.
Actual examples of this will be observed
during ecological excursions organized in
the Cvennes and the Causse region for
young people of the district and tourists,
One example can be seen from one of the
museum's terraces. A model of this type of
farming will be displayed at the Cvenol
Museum, in one of the rooms dealing with
the National Park.
21
MUSECVENOL, Le Vigan. One of the
museum buildings. In the foreground is
the twelfth-century bridge, which can also
be seen from one of the museum's terraces.
22"
Abandoned Cvennes farmhouse restored
by volunteers from the Association oE the
Compagnons du Cap, using traditional
techniques and materials as recommended
by the National Park, It is now used as a
shelter for hikers. A view of it will be on
display in the Cvenol Museum in one of
the rooms devoted to the National Park.
20
The museum, which stands beside the
National Park, intends to encourage the
maintenance or careful restoration of rural The Gtveqol Museum: a natural and human environment
buildings that have fallen into disuse as a undergoing rapid change, shown in a multidisciplinary museum of
result of the industrial revolution and
which could be converted into hikers' modest proportions at the gateway to the Cvennes National Park
shelters, cultural centres or holiday homes
under a properly directed cultural tourism The Cvenol Mzsezun was set zq in 19 63 by the smalk town d' Le V i a n (Gard,
policy. France); it is hozbsed h an old silk-spinning mill, datingfront the end o f the
eighteenth centuy, a@oining a former BeBedctine nzonastelcy. It has been carying ozit its
progranzme on the ecology of the Cvennes since 1970, with the assistance o f the
National Park.
22
Role of museums of art and of human and social sciences 17
23
M u s h CVENOL, Le Vigan. Defence
against Wolves and The Pig; two themes
from the ethnography room.
24
MUSBECBVENOL, Le Vigan. Silkworm
cocoons on branches of heather; part of the
silkworm cultivation display in the
ethnography room.
2/
MUSECVENOL, Le Vigan. Hearth of
the family room in a country dwelling.
Cvennes, early twentieth century: diorama..
26
MUSECVENOL, Le Vigan. Loom for
weaving silk stockings, part of the silk
industry display in the ethnography room.
This machine is an article used in a regional
industry which flourished from the
nineteenth century onwards.
26
27
27
Mus5 CVENOL, Le Vigan. Neolithic
axe-heads discovered in the Causse de
Blandas: part of the display in the history
room.
28
MLJSECVENOL, Le Vigan. Entrance to
the room containing material on Andr
Chanson, a contemporary writer born in the
Cvennes.
28
38 Georges Henri Ri$re
%
EthnollogicaP mu,~ e u m s
Ethnology is the science of human groups, considered in their idiosyncracy.17
t
A large number of museums throughout the world are concerned with this
17. cf. A. Leroi-Gourhan, discipline. The first of them appeared during the latter part of the nineteenth
LExprience Ethnologique, century, already conforming to the three most common models in this category:
Ethnologie Gnrale, Encyclopdie
de la Pliade, 1968,p. 1816-18. the general ethnological museum, the regional ethnological museum and the
cf. also G. H.Rivitre, open-air museum.
Smnare Mzuologiqae National,
Algiers, Febrtaary 1969, Paris, Many problems which the museums in this discipline pose have parallels in
ICOM, 1969, P. 45-53 the history museums. I shall not go over this ground again here save to under-
(duplicated).
18. cf. Leroi-Gourhan, op. cit., line major roles which ethnological museums are called on to fill. These roles
p. 1817. consist in: teaching mutual understanding between cultures and peoples, in
19. The Museum of Niamey is
one of the most noteworthy their points of resemblance and their points of difference (Fig, 17, IS); com-
examples of open-air bating racial prejudice; expressing culture in all its different aspects, be they
ethnological museums for the
presentation of the human technical, economic, social or aesthetic, concrete or abstract, in the context of
environment (cf. Mmeum, their natural and human environment, in their world as they experience it,
Vol. XXIV, No. 4). The
current issue contains an . operate it and conceive it;18 illustrating the historical heritage of living popula-
account of an exceptional tions as a trampoline for development; helping the peoples o newly inde-
experiment, consisting of a
major structurization of an pendent countries to become aware of their national identity.19
ethnological gallery around an
ecological theme (cf. article on
the new gallery in M a n n Museums of the social sciences
Africa, American Museum of
Natural History, New York).
The environment is featured in It is the function of sociology to establish advance frames of reference which
the renovated museum of clearly make it possible to explain the traits whereby any distinctive group fits
general ethnology recently
opened in West Berlin. into a social mould.20 In the face of terms of reference as broad as these, social-
20. cf. Leroi-Gourhan, op. cit., science museums are by way of being rare birds in the international repertory
p. 1818.
21. Only a few museums of of museums.21It is tempting to seekthe reasons for this.
social sciences are listed in the As an abstract discipline, sociology does not appear to be interested in the
archives of the Unesco/ICOM
. Documentation Centre. language of the object, the real thing whose vital communication is one of
Role of museums of art and of human and social sciences . 39
I
the museums major attributes. While sociology uses diagrams it usually does
S in the two-dimensional form, by w reason of its overt preference for the written
word. It lacks at present the relatively large number of mass platforms available
to archaeology and ethnology, with the press, radio and television. It does not
yet feel the need to equip itself with a verbal language of wide diffusion, trans-
posed from a scientific verbal language nearly incomprehensible to the layman.
All these are perhaps circumstances which account for the small number of
sociological exhibitions, the tenuous contacts between sociology and museology
and that rarity of specimen museums in this domain of which I have spokenzz
with the exception, of course, of the accomplishments of one sociological
branch of the museum, the pedagogical museum.
To tell the truth, if sociology does not use the museum, it is used by the
museum, in so far at least as the museum avails itself of the rigorous methods of
sociology to evaluate the reactions of its real public and to estimate its potential
p~blic.2~
At allevents, an iqcrease in the numbers of social-sciences museums and more
frequent inclusion of sociological themes in historical, artistic and ethnological
exhibitions would contribute to building up the image of discipline useful to
modern societywith a public which too often ignores it when it does not confuse
it with technocracy.
Sociology would gain access to new communication media, both visual and
audio-visual, those in fact which the museum already has at its disposal, adapted
to the specific needs of sociology; statistical and structural three-dimensional
modelsz4(Fig. 19); sound-tracked and moving graphic diagrams in the form
of superimposed transparencies and films; figurative presentations in the man-
ner of cartoon strips; real things serving as concrete and vivifying symbols,
inlaid in the visual sociological communication.
Neighbourhood museums
Mz/sezm has described this new type of museum which has already passed from 22. A gallery is supposed to be
the stage of experiment to that of success. The Anacostia Neighborhood Mu- under way, relating to social
structures, in a large American
seum is a remarkable example of this type of museum; started in Washington museum of natural history. The
with the assistance of the Smithsonian I n s t i t u t i ~ nIt
. ~serves
~ a community of Muse des Arts et Traditions
Populaires, Paris, announces a
some zo,ooo persons, in the black ghetto of Washington. temporary exhibition on the
The neighbourhood museum is not a museum in the traditional sense of the .
2 z cf. Mzfserivz. Vol. XXII.
family.
word. Following the acquisition of a Mobile Division and thanks to the NO. 314, p. 204-11.
additional facilities to house both an Arts and Crafts Centre and a research 24. Such as the remarkable
three-dimensional sociological
centre and library, it has become at once a museum, a multi-media centre, a model featured in the first part
skills training facility, a meeting place for community groups and a cultural of the allery Mati iti Africa
in the imerican Museum of
arts centre.z6 History in New York.
Here people dance, sing and work, debate social issues, study and create :T. cf. Zora B. Martin,
Urban Ecology and the Inner
Afro-American culture and put their hands to the museographic clay in this liv- City Museum, Museam and
ing neighbours museum, actually a multidisciplinary museum of urban ecology EtiviyonnzetJt, op. cit., p. 168-71.
The Anacostia Museum was
created by a poor community to be held up as an example to great museums. the subject of a communication
to ICOM in 1971, presented,
together with a film, by its
From the open-air ethnological museum to the ecomuseum Director, John IGnard.
26. Of two of the most
striking exhibitions put on by
The name ecomuseumyis a new one, but the idea is by no means new and to the Anacostia Museum, one
be found in germ, and in more than the germ, in various parts of the museum held on the premises and
organized at the request of the
world. youth commission of the
Its most obviously recognizable ancestor is the open-air museum: a collection museum was devoted to This
Thing called Jay?, and the other,
of specimens of traditional architecture, mainly rural, transferred to a park a travelling exhibition, was
along with their domestic, agricultural craftsmen; or other equipment or with staged by the children,
adolescents and adults of the
period items from elsewhere and with re-creation of their original surroundings. community and was entitled
This type of museum is particularly well represented in Scandinavia, where it The Rat: Matzs Itiviied
Aflictoon. cf. Mz~serm,
originated. Several hundred such museums exist in the world. Vol. XXIV, NO. I, 1972.
40 Georges Henri Rivire
29
Position of Bou Sada (Algeria).
- -- -
Woman of Bou Sada. Painting signed
Gtienne Dinet.
31
Bou Sada: the oasis on the edge of the
wadi, with rocky hills on the horizon.
CONSTANTINE
e Ghardaia
expected that the niziseum zvll take the form of ay2 ecomzlsezm based on Algeratz idem,
and ivth the folloiung programme:
I . In a building t o be special4 constrzicted, Algeria12 and Saharan in sole, there zvill
be a joint exhibition of the l$e and the artistic and literacy work of
?tienne Dinet, arranged in chronologcal order (Fig.3 o).
2. In the same balding there will be. an exhbition of the natnrad and humafi histoTy
of Bou Saida, from geologicad times t o the present dayJ in three successive perods:
bffore, dziring and since the tme of .?tieme Dinet (Fig. 3 I and 3 2 ) .
3. Near this buijding, where the oasis meets the desert, the hozlse, garden and tomb of
tienne Dinet will be preserved; und an anaphithentre, czit oat of the rock, ivill be
ased as a rneetitii-$lace and pkace o f entertainmentfor h e people o f Bou Saida and
their guests. (Fk. 29, 3 3-41).
4. Throzghout the oasis and its surroundings there will be a network of paths leading
to representative monuments, districts, and areas of both natural and man-made
beauo. .
Generall'y speaking, evey effort zvll be made t o ensure that the people of Bou Sada
f e e l that the ecomuseztnz is their affair, by representing the artistic heritage of tbe towi
and its development, givngyoungpeople apart to play in the preservation of examples of
traditional architecture, promoting a new s$e of architecture, based on regional
tradition, and encouraging cultzJral towspz of a high standard, iuhich will be projtable
t o Bou Sada.
Role of museums of art and of human,and social sciences 41
34
32
Sand rose: gypsum crystals, found
particularly in the desert around
Bou Sada.
33
Pistol belonging to Abdel Kader
(c. 1808--1883), a prominent figure in the
Algerian Resistance, who lived for a while
at Bou Sada.
34
etienne Dinets house and tomb, Bou Sada,
where the oasis meets the desert.
33
42 Georges Henri Rivire
?/
3/
A working-class caf in the town of
Bou Sada.
?6
Mosque of the Palm Tree, eleventh century:
entrance passage, Bou Sada.
37
Interior of the Mosque of the Palm Tree,
Bou Sada.
36
37
Role of museums of art and of human and social sciences 43
39 ,
38
School buildings under construction,
Bou Sada.
39
Faade of the El Harmel Mosque, early
twentieth century, Bou Sada.
40
The tomb of Btienne Dinet, Bou Sada.
41
Doorway of the El Harmel Mosque,
Bou Sada.
44 Georges Henri Rivire
Park of the Cvennes: Several ecomuseums .are in process of installation in France, either in the
ecomuseum called Cvenol
Museum (cf. above page 36 setting of nature parks (nature reserves) (Fig. 20-28) or Other eco-
and inset plate). museums are under consideration in Fran~e.~O An ecomuseum is under study
In the setting of the
urban community of Le in Algeria, i n ~ a noasis of the north Sahara at Bou Sada (Fig. 29-41).
Creusot-les-Mines: Ecomuseum
of Industrial Man.
30. Especially in the setting Conclusion
of the National Park of the
Cvennes, in the neighbourhood
of Mont Lozre and the source Since the subject of human ecology is a condition rather than a thing . . . the
of the Tarn; and on the shores condition, rather than the things that exist under the condition, is the central
of the Etang de Berre, at
Istres, an Ecomuseum of theme of an ecological e~hibit.~1
Industrial Man. This proposition advanced by an American museologist in an article on the
3 I. G. Carol1 Lindsay,
Creating and Building principles of environmental exhibits may serve as a conclusion to my study.
Environmental Exhibits, May the museums of human and social sciences take it to heart and find
n/~me&~ns and the Environment,
op. cit., p. 131. inspiration from the experiments which this article evokes, responsible as they
32. cf. generally, already are for introducing their communities and their foreign visitors to the problems
quoted in respect of art
museums, the publication by of human environment-nay more, as we have seen, the problems of the natural
the American Association of environment, so closely are the two domains d o ~ e - t a i l e d . ~ ~
Museums: n/fiisezMns and
Environment. [Trandated from French]