Open-air museum
An open-air museum is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts outdoors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum.
Definition
Open air is “the unconfined atmosphere…outside buildings...”[1] In the loosest sense, an open-air museum is any institution that includes one or more buildings in its collections, including farm museums, historic house museums, and archaeological open-air museums. Mostly, 'open-air museum is applied to a museum that specializes in the collection and re-erection of multiple old buildings at large outdoor sites, usually in settings of recreated landscapes of the past, and often include living history. They may, therefore, be described as building museums. European open-air museums tended to be sited originally in regions where wooden architecture prevailed, as wooden structures may be translocated without substantial loss of authenticity.
Common to all open-air museums, including the earliest ones of the 19th century, is the teaching of the history of everyday living by people from all segments of society.
Origins
The idea of the open-air museum dates to the 1790s. The first proponent of the idea was the Swiss thinker Charles de Bonstetten, and was based on a visit to an exhibit of sculptures of Norwegian peasants in native costumes in the park of Fredensborg Palace in Denmark,"Valley of the Norsemen".[2] He believed that traditional peasant houses should be preserved against modernity, but failed to attract support for the idea.[2]
The first major steps towards the creation of open-air museums was taken in
Most open-air museums concentrate on rural culture. However, since the opening of the first town museum,
town culture has also become a scope of open-air museums. In many cases, new town quarters are being constructed in existing rural culture museums.Living-history museums
Living-history museums, including living-farm museums and
North American innovations
The North American open-air museum, more commonly called a living-history museum, had a different, slightly later origin than the European, and the visitor experience is different. The first was
In North America, many open-air museums include interpreters who dress in period costume and conduct period crafts and everyday work.[8]: 154 The living museum is, therefore, viewed as an attempt to recreate to the fullest extent conditions of a culture, natural environment, or historical period. The objective is immersion, using exhibits so that visitors can experience the specific culture, environment or historical period using the physical senses.
Performance and historiographic practices at American living museums have been critiqued in the past several years by scholars in anthropology and theater for creating false senses of authenticity and accuracy, and for neglecting to bear witness to some of the darker aspects of the American past (e.g., slavery and other forms of injustice). Even before such critiques were published, sites such as Williamsburg and others had begun to add more interpretation of difficult history.[9]
List of open-air and living museums by country
See also
- Sculpture garden
- Historical reenactment
- Human zoo
- List of Renaissance fairs
- List of tourist attractions providing reenactment
References
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009
- ^ a b Hurt 1978, p. 368.
- ISBN 8200070840, pp. 32–61 and 191–212
- ^ Hurt 1978, pp. 368–369.
- ^ "Welcome to Kulturen's museums". Kulturen. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
- ISBN 8276310230, pp. 41–66
- ^ "The Old Town. Denmark's National Open Air Museum of Urban History and Culture". Archived from the original on 2010-12-18. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
- ^ a b Kenneth Hudson, Museums of Influence, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
- ^ Scott Magelssen, Living History Museums: Undoing History Through Performance, Scarecrow Press, 2007
Bibliography
- Hegard, Tonte (1993). ″Romantikk og fortidsvern. Historien om de første friluftsmuseene i Norge″. Oslo, Universitetsforlaget. ISBN 8200070840.
- Hegard, Tonte (1994). ″Hans Aall – mannen, visjonen og verket″. Oslo, Norsk Folkemuseum. ISBN 8276310230.
- Hurt, R. Douglas (1978). "Agricultural Museums: A New Frontier for the Social Sciences". The History Teacher. 11 (3): 367–75. JSTOR 491627.
- Langer, Jiří (2022). Open-Air Museums in Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1527589568. Sample [1]
External links
- Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums
- Revista Digital Nueva Museologia Latin American Theory
- Main open-air museums in Britain
- European Open-air Museums An extensive list of Open-air museums in Europe.
- America's Outdoor History Museums
- Photos from Museum of Folk Architecture and Life
- Museum websites
- Open Air Museum Bokrijk Leading open-air museum in Flanders, Belgium
- Přerov nad Labem open-air museum – photo gallery
- Valachian Ethnographic Museum in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic
- Hjerl Hede, an open-air museum in Denmark showing life from the early days until about 100 years ago.
- The Old Town (Den Gamle By), Aa open-air museum in Denmark showing urban life.
- Jamtli – One of Sweden's largest and oldest regional open-air museums, in Östersund.
- Kulturen- The second oldest open-air museum in the world, opened in Lund in 1892.