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Information about Living Museum

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"The old town" (Den gamle by) — an open air museum in the town of Aarhus, Denmark
An open air museum is a distinct type of museum exhibiting its collections out-of-doors. The first open air museums were established in Scandinavia towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the concept soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Open air museums are variously known as skansen, museums of buildings, living farm museums, living history museum and folk museums. A more recent but related idea is realized in the Ecomuseum, which originated in France. A comprehensive history of the open air museum as idea and institution can be found in the Swedish museologist Sten Rentzhog's book "Open air museums. The history and future of a visionary idea", 2007.

Definition

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) defines a museum as "a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment." [1] Most open air museums specialize in the collection and re-erection of old buildings at large out-door sites, usually in settings of re-created landscapes of the past. Most of them may therefore justly be described as building museums. Open air museums tended to be located originally in regions where wooden architecture prevailed, as wooden structures may be trans-located without substantial loss of authenticity.

European origins

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World's first open air museum, King Oscar's collections at Bygdøy near Oslo in 1888.
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An old log house at the Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo.
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Traditional buildings from Blekinge relocated to skansen, Stockholm.
The earliest open air museum appeared in Scandinavia in the late 19th century. One reason may be the ancient tradition of moving and re-erecting wooden buildings, based on the local log building technique. The idea was a predictable further development of the by then well-established in-door type of museum. In order to collect and display whole buildings, it would have to be done outdoors. Precursors of open air museums were the "exotic" pavilions, "antique" temples, "ancient ruins" and "peasant cottages" to be found in 18th century landscape parks. Later precursors were the real or constructed peasant cottages shown at the international exhibitions of the mid- to-late 19th century.

The world's first open air museum was King Oscar II's collection near Oslo in Norway, opened in 1881. The original plans comprised 8 or 10 buildings intended to show the evolution of traditional Norwegian building types since the middle ages. Only 5 were realized before the king lost interest because of the expenses involved. The royal open air museum was later incorporated into the Norsk Folkemuseum, established on an adjacent property in the 1890es. Influenced by a visit to the Norwegian open air museum, Artur Hazelius in 1891 founded the famous Skansen in Stockholm, which became the model for subsequent open air museums in Northern and Eastern Europe, and eventually in other parts of the world (subsequently, the name "skansen" has also been used as a noun to refer to other open-air museums and collections of historic structures, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.

Around 1900, national and regional open air museums were established in all Scandinavian countries, notably in Norway and Sweden.

More recently, modern social history museums such as the Black Country Museum in England and Westville in Georgia in the United States were created, reflecting the trend towards learning the history of everyday living, rather than wars and monarchs.

North American interpretation

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 Henry Ford's Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan (1928), where Ford intended his collection to be "a pocket edition of America" [2]. But it was Colonial Williamsburg (opened in 1934) which had a greater influence on museum development in North America. It influenced such projects through the continent as Mystic Seaport, Plimoth Plantation, and Fortress Louisbourg. What tends to differentiate the North American from the European model is the approach to interpretation. In Europe, the tendency is to usually, but not always, focus on the building. In North America, the open air museums invariably include interpreters who dress in period costume and conduct period crafts and everyday work.[3] 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 total immersion, using exhibits so that visitors can experience the specific culture, environment or historical period using all the physical senses. Performance and historiographic practices at American living museums have been critiqued in the past several years by scholars in anthropology and theatre 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) [4].

Selected list of open air and living museums

Europe

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The wooden church in Drvengrad open air museum, Serbia

Canada

United States

Living transportation museums

Ecological and environmental living museums

Some ecological living museums are zoos

Notes

1. ^ [1] ICOM Statutes
2. ^ Kenneth Hudson, Museums of Influence, Cambridge University Press, 1987. p. 153
3. ^ Ibid, p. 154
4. ^ Scott Magelssen, Living History Museums: Undoing History Through Performance, Scarecrow Press, 2007

See also

External links

museum is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education, enjoyment, the tangible and intangible
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Motto
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"


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International Council of Museums (ICOM) is an international organization of museums and museum professionals which is committed to the conservation, continuation and communication to society of the world's natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible.
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A non-profit organization (abbreviated "NPO", also "non-profit" or "not-for-profit") is a legally constituted organization whose primary objective is to support or to actively engage in activities of public or private interest without any commercial or monetary profit purposes.
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Scandinavia is a historical and geographical region centred on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe which includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
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Expo (also known as World Fair and World's Fair) is the name of various large public exhibitions held since the mid-19th century. The official sanctioning body is the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), translated in English as the
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King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway (January 21, 1829 - December 8, 1907), born Oscar Frederik, ruled Norway from 1872 until 1905 and Sweden from 1872 until his death.
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Oslo   (help info ) (called Christiania from 1624 to 1878, and Kristiania from 1878 to 1924) is the capital and largest city of Norway. It is also a municipality, and a county of its own.
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Motto
Royal: Alt for Norge ("Everything for Norway")
1814 Eidsvoll oath: Enige og tro til Dovre faller
("United and faithful until the mountains of Dovre crumble")

Anthem
Ja, vi elsker

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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1850s  1860s  1870s  - 1880s -  1890s  1900s  1910s
1878 1879 1880 - 1881 - 1882 1883 1884

:
Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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Norsk Folkemuseum, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History at Bygdøy in Oslo, has a large open air museum. It was established in 1894 by Hans Aall and contains 155 buildings which have been relocated from different districts of Norway.
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Artur Immanuel Hazelius (30 November 1833 – 27 May 1901), Swedish teacher, scholar and folklorist, founder of the Nordic Museum and the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm.
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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1860s  1870s  1880s  - 1890s -  1900s  1910s  1920s
1888 1889 1890 - 1891 - 1892 1893 1894

:
Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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Skansen is the first open air museum and zoo in Sweden and is located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It was founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius (1833-1901) to show the way of life in the different parts of Sweden before the industrial era.
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City of Stockholm
Stockholms stad

Coat of arms
Location of Stockholm in northern Europe
Coordinates:
Country Sweden
Municipality
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Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. In addition, Northern, Southern and Southeastern Europe may variously delimit or overlap into Central Europe.
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This article has been tagged since September 2007.
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Motto
Royal: Alt for Norge ("Everything for Norway")
1814 Eidsvoll oath: Enige og tro til Dovre faller
("United and faithful until the mountains of Dovre crumble")

Anthem
Ja, vi elsker

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Motto
(Royal) "För Sverige - I tiden" 1
"For Sweden – With the Times" Â²
Anthem
Du gamla, Du fria
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Black Country Living Museum (formerly The Black Country Museum) is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings, located in Dudley in the West Midlands of England.
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Westville is an open air museum recreating an 1850 working town in Lumpkin, Georgia, United States.

There are over thirty authentically furnished genuine antebellum buildings and "townspeople" in period dress demonstrate woodworking, baking, pottery turning, blacksmithing,
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Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry.
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Location: The Henry Ford
20900 Oakwood Boulevard
at Village Road
Dearborn, Michigan
 United States

Coordinates: _ ]

Built/Founded: 1929
2003 restoration

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City of Dearborn
Location in Michigan
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Michigan
County Wayne
Settled 1786

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Location: Williamsburg, Virginia

Built/Founded: 1927

Added to NRHP: October 15, 1966

NRHP Reference#: 66000925 [1] Colonial Williamsburg is the historic district of the independent city of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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Mystic Seaport is a maritime museum situated along the banks of the Mystic River in Mystic, Connecticut, USA. It is notable both for its collection of sailing ships and boats, and for the re-creation of an entire 19th century seaport, consisting of over 60 original buildings, most
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Plimoth Plantation is a living museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts that reconstructs the original settlement of the Plymouth Colony established by the Pilgrims.

The museum was started in 1947 by Henry Hornblower II (November 5, 1917-October 23, 1985), a Boston stockbroker with
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Fortress of Louisbourg (in French, Forteresse de Louisbourg) is a Canadian National Historic Site and the location of a partial reconstruction of an 18th century French fortress at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.
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Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significant importance.
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