Museums of the City in Small Centres. The Case of Montepulciano (original) (raw)
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City of Museums. Museum Cluster as a Manifesto of the Paradigm Shift
Proceedings of the 6th Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism TOURbanISM-toURBANISM, January 25th-27th, 2012 in Barcelona. Barcelona: Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona - UPC, IFOU, 2012, pp. 1-10. ISBN: 978-84-8157-620-7., 2012
No cultural institution has experienced such a boom and similarly marked the end of the twentieth century as the museum, establishing itself as a tourist magnet, an architectural manifesto, and a symbol of the postmodern city and the culture in which we live. In this culture, the museum occupies a privileged place also physically, in the city. And not only does it occupy this place, but it creates it, defines it, changes it and gives it meaning. I argue that that place is in the museum cluster. And in the cluster, the museum is changing; the meaning and the importance of its basic aspects are changing. My hypothesis is that in the museum project the (to)urbanistic aspect - its place and relationship with the city and the citizens, permanent or temporary - takes precedence over its museographic and architectonic aspect. The content - collection and display - and the architecture of the museum merge into the cultural density or touristic offer of the cluster, highlighting the place and urbanism of the museum in the foreground. This place - the cluster - becomes a manifesto and an instrument of changes in the city and society. It acquires new dimensions and roles, and provides the key to a new reading - not only of the museum, but also of the city - showing a profound shift in their relationship and in their conception. It reflects the intimate interaction of architecture, urbanism and tourism on different levels. New models of the museum-cluster, the cluster of museums and the "city of museums" represent different scales of a (to)urbanism that maximizes the use and impact of museums and public spaces between them - or more broadly, of the complete cultural infrastructure - in the mobilization and dissemination of culture and cultural information. Drawing on the theory of the locus genii, I confirm the fundamental role of the museum cluster as a force that organizes, generates and transforms the museum system and the urban system. In the best tradition of the Grand Tour, this (to)urbanism, this “city of museums”, integrates tourism and didactic intentions, creating a new understanding and presentation of the cultural heritage – spatial (including the very urban structure), object (which spills from the museum into the pubic space) and symbolic – and making possible a transformation of the cities of past into the cities of future. It places new challenges also to the public space, as a three dimensional relational, educational and cultural space, demanding that it be the mediator in this transformation.
Industrial type cities represent a complex object for the implementation of various social scenarios due to the polycentric incompact structure of their territory planning. The history of such cities and their “cultural gene” develop inorganically as the appearance of new city districts was always connected with the large-scale adjacent territory development and the launch of a specific production cycle. Besides, three key areas – industrial, “green” and residential – were singled out. The planning structure took into account the important ideological role that cultural, social and sport objects played in the life of the “working” city and allocated major recreational arteries for them. Being common and at the same time no one’s territory, public spaces became an important attribute of the city. The period of the so-called social modernism was characterized by a particular spirit of internationalism and love for a paradoxical synthesis of “pure forms” in architecture and monumental and decorative art. Despite the globality and experimental nature of Togliatti as an urban planning phenomenon, a peculiar feature of the city’s cultural map is that museums and museum complexes are not self-sufficient architectural ensembles capable of playing a significant role in the spatial, environmental and symbolic context of the city. With some minor exceptions, all the museums are temporary residents of microdistricts with high-rise buildings. A project for the development of the Museum Quarter Togliatti concept is aimed to change the status quo. The Local History Museum and the Art Museum, which are the city’s oldest cultural objects, will be the main residents of the future Quarter. Being in the “center-periphery” opposition, the museums are located on the urban-natural boundary of the Central District and in the area of the main “void”. The project started in 2014 as an initiative project of the Board of Trustees of Local History Museum and the Social Policy Committee of the Togliatti Duma. The project idea was supported by the Vladimir Potanin Foundation’s program “Muzeinyi Desant”.
Searching for a state-of-the-art public space: city museums among archives and networks
Planning Perspectives, 2012
Introduction The reorganization of city museums and the plan for new museum spaces dedicated to telling a city's urban history should be considered in the light of the consolidation of a new generation of 'spaces of memory'. The most recent embrace hybrid functions which combine different techniques, such as conserving and cataloguing a wide variety of documentation, as well as studying and developing interpretative hypotheses and, last but not least, showing collections and the results of research to the public. These changes in the conception of museums are often linked to projects for the transformation of big cities and a new focus on the works of famous architects. 1 A broad public, increasingly interested in these large-scale and dramatic urban phenomena, is attracted by and becomes involved in, discussions about the city, its image and its history, to the extent that groups emerge for and against change. Very few of these interventions are included in the town planning documents drawn up by the authorities; they are more like city marketing endeavours. In this context, museums, and the city museum in particular, become a strategic element in the construction and promotion of the city's image to attract tourists, investors, students and those big cultural events that seem to have become the real driving force behind the contemporary city. 2 Another important part of the reason for shifting emphasis to museums relates to changes in museology; new museum layouts have identified materials and forms of display that enrich the interpretation of traditional documents, allowing a more articulate and somewhat more appealing portrayal. 3 Recent developments are far removed from the nineteenth century ideas which created many museums and archives; they pay specific attention to the present-day city and even to the city of the future. The reorganization of the Museum of London is one example. Another is the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine which opened in Paris in 2007. The more traditional Musée Carnavalet, steeped in its nineteenth century origins still survives but the Cité is a new exhibition space which considers national developments, focusing mainly on Paris, the cradle of new architecture (Figure 1). 4 In order to convey the last two centuries of the city's history, the new Parisian museum includes the antique collections of the Musée des Monuments Français, and the drawings and models of the archive of the Institut Français de l'Architecture.