This essay argues that museums are complex sites, standing at the intersection of scientific work and display. Three complementary approaches to analyzing museum buildings are suggested. The first focuses on the physical aspects of the buildings, their visual vocabulary and the ability to encode knowledge in material forms, and argues that architecture provided an arena where conflicts between the different parties involved were worked out. The second concerns the now familiar argument about the located nature of scientific knowledge, the particularity (...) of sites and their relation to civic cultures, urban activities, or metropolitan concerns, and suggests further directions for research. The third approach treats the museum visitor as an active participant and examines the impact of buildings in terms of their architectural appeal to the emotions through sensory experience. Finally, buildings have enormous transformative potential and, as a manifestation of the material culture of science, tell us much about the changing place of the science museum in culture.In designing museums, architects seem to pay little regard to the special purposes they are intended to fulfil. They often adopt the general arrangement of a church, or the immense galleries and lofty halls of a palace.—Alfred Russel Wallace, 1869“Man, Know Thyself,” Descriptive Catalogue of the Liverpool Museum of Anatomy, 29 Paradise Street .—Front cover of catalogue, circa 1871Visitors approach the museum from the north‐west. They emerge from a tunnel‐like entrance to find themselves midway in the volume of space, facing the nose of the B52 Stratofortress. Around and beyond the enormous B52, they can survey a panorama of aircraft on every scale, some suspended from the roof, and some on the floor below, before proceeding with their tour.—Foster and Partners, American Air Museum in Britain, AD Profile, 1997. (shrink)

This response from the museum workplace to the previous three “Focus” essays has two main thrusts. First, it seeks to place the recent interest in museums from historians of science within the broader study of museums in general and points to the value of this broad context for locating scientific practice. Second, it reminds historians of science that museums are not only objects of study but also living resources for public communication, and it reflects on how the “Focus” essays relate (...) to the role the history of science can play in museums with science collections. (shrink)

This survey outlines a history of museums written through biographies of objects in their collections. First, the mechanics of the movement of things and the accompanying shifts in status are considered, from manufacture or growth through collecting and exchange to the museum. Objects gathered meanings through associations with people they encountered on their way to the collection, thus linking the history of museums to broader scientific and civic cultures. Next, the essay addresses the use of items once they joined a (...) collection, whether classificatory, analytical, or in display. By thus embedding the study of scientific practice in material culture, this approach contributes to constructivist histories of science. The final section addresses the role of objects in the experience of the visitors, emphasizing how fruitful the history of museum objects can be in the study of the public engagement with science. (shrink)

Divided into three parts, this book's purpose, as given in the introduction, is to consider whether or not man is descended from a pre-existing form, his manner ...

Late nineteenth‐century public museums in the United States were intentionally built to be modern, guided by administrators like George Brown Goode toward scientific goals that included preservation, research, and education. Self‐consciously preoccupied with the management of museums, intent on attaining mastery over the objects that constituted their museums, and persuaded that meaning derived not just from the objects themselves but from their explanation and configuration by experts, museum masters led a “new museum” movement. A century later, the critiques of postmodern (...) scholars attest to the museum directors’ effective establishment of a modern profile. Historians of science, who once could take these institutions for granted as a lightly marked center of authority, now may use methods of social and cultural studies to open their institutional and intellectual frames. While cautious about theory‐driven arguments, such scholars benefit from the issues raised by cultural critics even as they rely on their own documentary methods to ensure that science is an integral component when examining ideas, language, and practice in context. (shrink)