Museum & Place

This book of essays explores concepts of museum, place, memory and landscape. It is inspired by the 2016 ICOM General Conference in Milan, the topic of which was Museums and Cultural Landscapes. The organizers of the Milan conference proclaimed that museums should become musei diffusi, extended museums to protect and interact with the cultural and natural heritage outside their walls. This idea was based on the Siena Charter of 2014, which proclaimed that “Involving the museums in the management and care of the cultural landscape means to develop their natural vocation, by extending their responsibility from their collections to the cultural heritage and surroundings: their local towns, villages and communities.” How should museums react? And what relations do museum, big and small, have to place? Essays here examine aspects of the place of museums in an environment and the role the environment should or could play on museums. They deal with places made into museums, preserved landscapes and heritage sites in general – from a critical point of view; museums in place; place in museum, ecomuseum ideas. Some ask what role does the concept of collective memory and identity as well as the materiality of memory play in processes directed to making place a museum – or making a museum in a specific place? Others question the power of a museum to effect the desired changes. These papers address both museum/ musealization and place/landscape, however these terms are defined, with a sustainable future as the goal