Kulturarvens speglingar

Authors

  • Mattias Bäckström

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.3396

Abstract

Museums as mirrors of differing concepts of heritage

The museum – is it more a reflection of the present than an entrance to the past? In this essay we visit four museums from four different eras to investigate how the ideals of the contemporary society were mirrored in the museum’s preservation and exhibition practices. The museums, all located in Stockholm, are: The Royal Museum founded in 1792 which focused on the classical heritage; the Nordiska Museet 1873 and Skansen 1891 with their interest in Nordic folk culture; the Museum of National Antiquities and the Office of Cultural Heritage Management in the days of their important reorganisation around 1940; and finally the Swedish Travelling Exhibitions established in 1965 with its distributive and democratic ideas. I have used the typology of Friedrich Nietzsche from Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben revised by the historian Svante Beckman in order to understand the differences. The museums are positioned in an analytic diagram (p. 72) according to the ideals which were fundamental in the construction of the respective institutions. In the centre Heritage, at the top Society perspective, at the bottom Individual perspective, to the left Cognitive emphasis, to the right Emotive emphasis. The conclusions are condensed in the diagram on p. 88. 

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