Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Historic buildings have long been a focal subject in the field of architecture, planning, and tourism. This paper examines historic buildings through museological and heritage management perspectives. In addition, the theory of historic buildings as collections and the practical application of historic building collections as museum exhibitions are explored. The traditional museum collection functions of preservation, research, communication, and administration can be applied to historic building collections in a town, city, county, region, state, or nation. Some differences have been noted between the traditional, climate-controlled museum collections, open-air museum collections, and historic building collections in situ, such as the adaptive re-use of historic buildings. However, adaptive re-use is not a hindering factor when considering historic buildings in political jurisdictional boundaries as collections. The purpose of this paper is to situate historic buildings, as in situ collections, in a city ready for exhibition use.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alsop

1982. The rare art traditions: a history of collecting and its linked phenomenon. New York: Harper & Row.

Boast

, and Chung

Y.S.S.

. 2001. Controversies in the Fitzwilliam Museum (1815–1857): the power of the will displayed. International Society for Intellectual History. Conference: “Quarrels, Polemics, and Controversies.” Trinity College, Cambridge, 26th–29th July 2001, under review.

Bennett

1995. The birth of the museum: history, theory, politics. London and New York: Routledge.

Burcaw

G. E.

1997. Introduction to museum work, (third edition). Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Chapman

1989. The organisational context in the history of archaeology: Pitt-Rivers and other British archaeologists in the 1860s, The Antiquaries Journal 69(1): 23–42.

Chung

Y.S.S.

2003. Object of exhibit: legitimizing the building of the National Museum of Korea. International Journal of Heritage Studies 9(3): 229–242.

Chung

Y.S.S.

2004. Museums and intangible folk heritage in the Republic of Korea. ICOFOM Study Series 33: 21–30.

Chung

Y.S.S.

2005. Seoul, Korea: its concept of culture and nature in heritage planning. International Journal of Heritage Studies 11(2): 95–111.

Chung

Y.S.S.

2005. Museological knowledge, recreational learning and the audience in the Vertebrate Paleontology Gallery “A Changing World: Dinosaurs, Diversity, and Drifting Continents,” Museum of Texas Tech University. Journal of Education in Museums 26: 6–12.

10.

Conn

1998. Museums and American intellectual life: 1876–1926. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

11.

Darvill

, Gerrard

, and Startin

. 1993. Identifying and protecting historic landscapes. Antiquity 67: 563–74.

12.

Dean

1996. Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge.

13.

Elsner

1994 A collector's model of desire: the house and museum of Sir John Soane, In The cultures of collecting, eds Elsner

and Cardinal

, pp.155-76. London: Reaktion Books.

14.

Elsner

, and Cardinal

(eds.). 1994. The cultures of collecting. London: Reaktion Books.

15.

Findlen

1994. Possessing nature: museums, collecting, and scientific culture in early Modern Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

16.

Fitch

J. M.

1998. Historic preservation: curatorial management of the built world. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

17.

Forgan

1986. Context, image and function: a preliminary enquiry into the architecture of scientific societies. BJHS 19: 89–113.

18.

Impey

, and MacGregor

. 1985. The origins of museums: the cabinet of curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

19.

Hooper-Greenhill

1992. Museums and the shaping of knowledge. London and New York: Routledge.

20.

Pearce

1994. Collecting reconsidered. In Interpreting Objects and Collections, ed. Pearce

, pp. 193–204. London and New York: Routledge.

21.

Pomian

1990. Collectors & curiosities. Cambridge: Polity Press. Main Library

22.

Swann

2001. Curiosities and text: the culture of collecting in early Modern England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

23.

Ucko

2001. Unprovenanced material culture and Freud's collection of antiquities. Journal of Material Culture 6(3): 269–322.

24.

van Mensch

1985. Museological relevance of management techniques. In Management Needs of Museum Personnel. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of ICOM International Committee for the Training of Museum Personnel at Leiden, ed. van Mensch

, Sept. 24–Oct 2, 1984. Reinwardt Studies in Museology 5 (Leiden): 9–15.

25.

van Mensch

1990. Methodological museology; or, towards a theory of museum practice.’ In Objects of knowledge, ed. Pearce

, pp. 141–157. London & Atlantic Highlands: Athlone Press

26.

Vergo

(ed.). 1997. The new museology. London: Reaktion Books Ltd.

27.

Verhaar

, and Meeter

. 1989. Project model exhibitions, Leiden: Reinwardt Acadamie.

The Collection and Exhibition of in Situ Historic Buildings

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References