thesis on museum

Architecture and the art museum in search of a significance

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• Abou, Robert-Habib
• Because it is chiefly a "place of meeting" of architecture with the other forms of art, the museum participates necessarily in the elaboration of an architecture that goes beyond the usual concern for "habitable" space--a functionalism derived from western civilization's pragmatism. The concept of the museum has provoked profound changes in the cultural significance of what it represents. The museum reflects a culture of "pluralism," of different world views as well as an intention to represent the world through a categorization of the "fragment." Hence it brings forth the contradictions inherent in our anthropocentric society which is, itself, the product of the complexity and contradictions specific to man. Thus the present thesis investigates the potential for significance of the main architectural themes pertaining to the art museum.
• Art museum architecture
• McGill University
•  https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/j67315123
• All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
• School of Architecture
• Master of Architecture
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JSmol Viewer

The interplay between spatial layout and visitor paths in modern museum architecture.

1. Introduction

2. objectives and museum management requirements.

• Preservation of heritage and architectural integrity: Due to heritage protection laws and architectural copyrights, the building’s layout and facades cannot be altered using permanent elements.
• Revenue enhancement through diversified pathways: There is a necessity to increase museum revenue derived from ticket sales. The premise is that this can be achieved by expanding the museum’s offerings regarding possible visitor pathways, thereby providing a greater variety of time allocations suitable for different visitor types. Additionally, a comprehensive list of potential visitor paths could introduce a new parameter in the creation of narratives for each pathway. Each proposed path should undergo further analysis by museum curators.
• Linear type: Typically found in historic buildings with an enfilade layout arrangement. In this case, the doors leading to each room are aligned along a single axis, restricting movement. Visitors must pass through preceding rooms to access subsequent ones, which limits the number of potential walking routes.
• Divergent type: Found in both contemporary and historic buildings, especially those with multiple wings. This type allows for more varied routes as visitors can diverge from a central point to explore different parts of the museum.
• Hall type: Characterized by multiple routes intersecting in a central zone, which is advantageous for organizing autonomous exhibitions with separate tickets.
• A tool designed to generate all possible visitor pathways could serve as a platform not only for developing new narratives but also for advancing technologies that facilitate navigation throughout the museum building (especially in the sense of ensuring that visitor paths conclude at the starting point).
• The current number of visitors, approximately 123,000 in 2023 for the indoor exhibitions, is planned to triple in the years following the competition of the building’s reconstruction.

3. Methodology

4. transformative capacities of the museum layout, 5. algorithm formulation and resultant data.

• Visitors select the galleries they intend to visit.
• It is essential to identify the optimal entry point that facilitates the longest route traversing all selected galleries.
• Optimality is defined as the route that encompasses the greatest number of selected galleries.
• Participation in gallery visits is contingent upon possessing tickets for the selected galleries.
• Entrance selection: Users can select entrance galleries (the first rooms/galleries they wish to visit) from a list of predefined options. Each option is presented with a checkbox, enabling multiple selections.
• Target selection: Like the entrance selection, users can choose target galleries using checkboxes.
• Routes display area: This area displays the generated routes. It updates in real time based on user inputs and presents the routes in a formatted text box.
• Find routes button: A clickable button that initiates the route generation process. Upon clicking, it retrieves the selected entrances and target galleries, executes the DFS-based route generation algorithm, and displays the resulting routes.

6. Discussion of Results

• Clear signage and wayfinding: Implementing clear, consistent signage and wayfinding throughout the museum can help visitors navigate the space more easily. This includes directional signs, maps, and visual cues that guide visitors through different areas without confusion. Utilizing smartphone navigation apps can also enhance accessibility.
• Interactive and informational displays: Incorporating interactive displays and informational panels can engage visitors and provide context, helping them understand the spatial arrangement and the significance of the exhibits. This approach reduces disorientation by keeping visitors informed and engaged with the museum’s layout and content.
• Adaptive lighting solutions: Using adaptive lighting techniques can manage the impact of natural light on exhibits. For instance, automated blinds or UV-protective films on windows can control light exposure, ensuring artworks are protected while maintaining optimal lighting conditions. Strategically placed artificial lighting can further enhance exhibit visibility and overall visual coherence.
• Spatial markers: Incorporating distinctive spatial markers such as sculptures, large artworks, or unique architectural features can serve as reference points within the museum. They help visitors orient themselves and navigate the space more easily.
• Feedback and iterative design: Collecting visitor feedback and using it to make iterative improvements to the layout and design can significantly enhance the overall visitor experience. By understanding how visitors interact with the space and identifying areas where they encounter difficulties, designers can make targeted adjustments to improve navigation, reduce disorientation, and ensure a more enjoyable museum visit for all.

7. Conclusions

Author contributions, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Medaković, J.; Atanacković Jeličić, J.; Ecet, D.; Nedučin, D.; Krklješ, M. The Interplay between Spatial Layout and Visitor Paths in Modern Museum Architecture. Buildings 2024 , 14 , 2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14072147

Medaković J, Atanacković Jeličić J, Ecet D, Nedučin D, Krklješ M. The Interplay between Spatial Layout and Visitor Paths in Modern Museum Architecture. Buildings . 2024; 14(7):2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14072147

Medaković, Jelena, Jelena Atanacković Jeličić, Dejan Ecet, Dejana Nedučin, and Milena Krklješ. 2024. "The Interplay between Spatial Layout and Visitor Paths in Modern Museum Architecture" Buildings 14, no. 7: 2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14072147

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Olfactory Experiences in Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art. Smell as a New Curatorial Strategy.

This thesis examines the notion of productive multisensory experiences in museums of modern and contemporary art, as well as the pedagogy of current olfactory curatorial strategies and fruitful conceptual tools for such future strategies in art museums. It sets out to develop a theoretical framework for understanding immersive, multisensory art museum experiences as meaningful and educative. The sense of smell functions exemplary in this for it is an exceptional multisensory sensation in itself that requires thorough reconceptualization since it has long been repressed in Western epistemology.

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: In this article, I look at the meaning of scent as art, as exhibited artefact, and as an experience-heightening scenographic agent to create a multisensory whole in the museum. I discuss olfactory art, perfume exhibitions, and scented scenographics using fragrance as communication tools and highlighting the sense of smell as a key factor in the sensory and bodily communication of scented events. In the exhibition Art of Scent 1889–2012 (New York 2013), perfume was exhibited as artwork, stylistically compared to art history. The exhibition Perfume (London 2017) visualized the fragrances in scented scenographies where the stories conveyed by the perfumes where conceptualized. Belle Haleine. The Scent of Art (Basel 2015) exhibited olfactory artworks, among them the smell of fear. This is compared to scented scenographics at play in contemporary visual art at the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) 2019. Scent as a bearer of meaning in the museum is fundamentally about communicating through multiple senses – and creating interesting exhibitions. It also conveys, however, new aspects of culture and transforms our understanding of the meaning of scent.

2016 22nd International Conference on Virtual System & Multimedia (VSMM)

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Olfactory experiences are powerful triggers of personal memories and can play an important role in connecting audiences to intangible heritage. This is recognized by museums seeking to move beyond the dominant visuocentric exhibition paradigm, broadening the spectrum of sensorial stimuli on offer. However, the delivery of olfactory experiences in a museum presents important and unique challenges, largely related to the odorant's physical nature, which impose constraints to the design of experiences that can reach the visitor with impact and efficacy. Here, we present an olfactory delivery device designed to address these issues, which was prototyped and implemented over a 10-year period as an integral element of a display dedicated to the culinary heritage of Singapore. The device was also utilized in two other exhibitions, with radically different purposes: in one case as an element of the indigenous natural and cultural heritage, and in the other as a comparison tool to provide an intuitive illustration of progress. The diverse subject matters covered, and the different approaches to the delivery of olfactory stimuli demonstrate the versatility of the olfactory device in a range of exhibit settings. The case studies presented indicate that olfactory experiences can be effectively integrated in local museums, but their inclusion demands additional processes and specific consideration. Growing interest in this area of exhibition design, consistent with a global trend to transform museums into multisensory environments, makes this an important field for further research.

The Senses and Society

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Caro Verbeek , Bernardo Fleming

This vision document is a result of 20 years of working with scent in museums of visual art and 5 years of evaluation. "In Search of Lost Scents" is a collaboration between Vrije Universiteit (Caro Verbeek), IFF (Bernardo Fleming) and Rijksmuseum (Pauline Kintz). It answers questions such as: which smells should I use to tell stories surrounding artefacts and paintings? how do I safely distribute smells? How can I integrate smells for inclusive purposes? How can I help visitors evaluate smells?

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This research explores the relationship between customized sensory experiences and their ability to facilitate deeper object connections and overall museum satisfaction for people of varying age ranges and capabilities. The needs of people with sensory sensitivities, including those on the autism spectrum, those with learning disabilities, and those with physical disabilities are the focus of this essay. Three different case studies are examined of recent methods used to aim at helping museums appeal to all of the senses, such as: hands-on experiences with artifacts, sensory gallery guides, and augmented reality technologies. The study concludes that implementing these approaches in museums can have multi-tiered benefits, such as forming deeper connections to the past and reaching new demographics of people. However, the study also acknowledges that each approach presents its own set of obstacles which must be considered during the development and implementation stages of said solutions.

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Artists’ Books, 19th-Century Landscapes, the Ottonian Dynasty—These Museum Directors’ Thesis Topics Might Surprise You

By Maximilíano Durón

Maximilíano Durón

Senior Editor, ARTnews

Getting the top job at a top museum can involve working in various curatorial and managerial roles for several years, putting together lauded exhibitions, and leading trailblazing initiatives. Sometimes it’s being the first to recognize the merits of an emerging art scene that might otherwise be overlooked. But for many of today’s museum directors, the path starts with completing a post-graduate degree, either a master’s or a doctorate, and in a few notable cases—such as that of MoMA’s Glenn Lowry, who started as a scholar of Islamic art—that thesis or dissertation may have nothing to do with the focus of the museum they end up leading.

We spoke to five museum directors in various parts of the United States and asked them to share the stories of their academic research and what they learned along the way. Many of the directors spoke of the ways in which doing their research, and learning about the specific historical contexts in which art is produced, informs their thinking today. As Rebecca Rabinow , director of the Menil Collection in Houston, put it, “knowing about what was happening at the time the art was made, generally—and, specifically, [what it meant] to the person who was making it—can add levels of richness to the understanding of the work.”

Max Hollein The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thesis topic: Contemporary art during the market boom of the 1980s

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest museum in the United States and its directorship is perhaps the most coveted art job in the country. Best-known for its encyclopedic collection that spans more than 5,000 years of art making, its director’s expertise in a particular field is perhaps incidental—chances are, the Met has related work in its holdings. (A previous director, Tom Campbell, who’d been a curator at the museum, was known for his focus on medieval tapestries.)

When Max Hollein was announced as the new director of the Met in 2018, he brought with him an expertise in contemporary art, the art market, and business management. In Vienna, he completed two master’s theses: one on business administration that looked at the “distribution channels in the contemporary art market” and the second focused specifically on contemporary art during the boom of the 1980s art market that saw the rise of such art stars as Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Other people he interviewed for his thesis were dealers Leo Castelli, Larry Gagosian, and Jeffrey Deitch, artists Haim Steinbach, Peter Halley, Claes Oldenburg, and art historian Kirk Varnedoe. Hollein spent two months in New York doing research for his papers, and along the way he was helped by the late media mogul S. I. Newhouse, who ranked among the  ARTnews  Top 200 Collectors each year from 1991 until 2017.

Hollein said that his thesis, which was later published as a book, “deals with the question of how the market influences the reception of art and artists, and if some artists need a booming market to create outstanding work.”

Melissa Chiu Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

Dissertation topic: Chinese contemporary art, focusing on artists in diaspora

The original idea to create a museum dedicated to contemporary art in the nation’s capital started in the late 1930s, but because of the Great Depression it never took off. It wasn’t until the 1960s that this idea was revived, when Joseph H. Hirshhorn agreed to donate his collection of modern art to the country, under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution, to what became the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which opened in 1974. Among the artworks donated were pieces by Rodin, Picasso, Matisse, Calder, Giacometti, Pollock, and de Kooning. More recently, under the stewardship of its current director, Melissa Chiu, who arrived in 2014, the Hirshhorn has presented daring installations by Mark Bradford, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and acquired 50 works by Marcel Duchamp from Barbara and Aaron Levine.

Chiu, who grew up in Australia, first started going to China in 1992, shortly after the student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 that catalyzed a new art scene in the country. “When I said to my supervisor that I wanted to focus on this field,” Chiu remembered, “she asked me, ‘How many books were produced on the topic,’ and I said, ‘two,’ and she said to me that that was not a field of inquiry. But I persisted.” Despite her initial concerns, Chiu’s advisor supported the aspiring curator in her research, which was among the first anywhere in the world to focus on emerging art in China.

“It was for me a formative moment in which I observed an art scene in formation,” Chiu said. Among the artists she focused on are ones that have now become international superstars, acclaimed for their trailblazing work, among them Xu Bing, Cai Guo-Qiang, Chen Zhen, and Huang Yong Ping. Many of them had left China in the 1980s for Paris, New York, and Sydney. (In the years after 2000, several of them returned to China and set up studios, living between China and the cities in which they had been in exile.)

After she was awarded her Ph.D., Chiu published her dissertation and, soon after, founded Gallery 4A in Sydney, a nonprofit space that focused on Asian art. In 2001, Chiu left that post for one at the Asia Society in New York, serving as the institution’s curator of Asian contemporary art, the first such position anywhere in the United States.

“Seeing an entire art scene emerge and being a witness to that does provide me with insights into managing a modern and contemporary art museum,” Chiu said. “Part of our work is not just recognizing the historical elements of 20th-century art but also being able to try to be very attuned to how artists are thinking, to see how things are coalescing at this great pluralistic moment.”

Madeleine Grynsztejn Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Thesis topic: 19th-century American landscape painting, focusing on Fitz Hugh Lane

Originally founded as a non-collecting institution in 1967, the MCA Chicago started acquiring work for its permanent collection in 1974 and now has more than 2,500 objects, dating from the 1920s to the present. Important works in the collection include those by Kerry James Marshall, Howardena Pindell, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Gertrude Abercrombie, and Marisol.

When Grynsztejn began her Ph.D. program in art history at Columbia University, she wanted to become an expert in Manet, and began studying with the day’s leading scholar, Theodore Reff. Her focus was on connoisseurship, and to this day, she can still tell a real Manet drawing from a fake. But ultimately she settled on studying 19th-century American landscape painting under Barbara Novak, the great American art history specialist, who also taught at Columbia. “I found myself very surprisingly on this track,” Grynsztejn said, “and the reason I say surprising is that at that time I had very little to do with the United States. I was a recent immigrant. I was a green-card holder. I had grown up in Peru, Venezuela, and England, and so landing on an M.A. on something that was so American, if you will, surprised even me.”

For her master’s thesis, Grynsztejn focused on the little-known American painter Fitz Hugh Lane, tracking his movements around the country in parallel with Emerson’s lecture circuit, which she argued, greatly influenced Lane’s output. “What made me fall in love with that trajectory was that it was fundamentally contextual in its approach in that you didn’t only look at the beauty in the work of art, but you understood it within the larger societal, political, and economic forces that were brought to bear on that particular moment and on that particular artist. It’s how I chose to understand the world,” she said.

Grynsztejn never completed her dissertation—much to Novak’s “chagrin,” as Grynsztejn put it. Relying mostly on secondary sources, she felt she wasn’t able to arrive at something new to say. So she left Columbia and did the Whitney Independent Study Program. “I was looking for a place where I could make an art history my own. And that’s what eventually led me to contemporary art,” Grynsztejn said.

Christina Nielsen The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California

Dissertation topic: Art commissioned by the Ottonians around the year 1000 in Europe

The art collection of the Huntington is perhaps best known for its focus on European art, broadly ranging from the 15th century to the early 20th, with a particular focus on British art from the late 18th century. The two most famous works in its holdings are Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 portrait The Blue Boy and Thomas Lawrence’s 1794 portrait of Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton, commonly called Pinkie . Recently, the museum has also started working with contemporary artists, acquiring a video work by Carolina Caycedo produced during a yearlong residency there, and partnering with the Hammer Museum to co-present the upcoming Made in L.A. biennial.

So it might be a surprise that the museum’s director, Christina Nielsen, is actually a medievalist by training. Her dissertation focused on art made in Europe around the year 1000. At the time, the Ottonian Dynasty, which ruled much of modern-day Germany and northern Italy, was trying to solidify its power across Europe. One means to do this was to commission new art objects that reused materials from previous eras, including architectural fragments from Roman buildings and carved ivory panels from about 200 to 300 years earlier made for the Carolingians.

“I find it most exciting to think about when those different cultures butt up against each other and the tensions that produces and the complete paradigm shifts that those things produce and new thoughts and ideas that come out of the meeting across time and place,” Nielsen said.

Since arriving at the Huntington in 2018, Nielsen has focused on how the museum can look at its collection transnationally and across media, and how it can partner with other institutions. “When I talk about transhistorical and transnational exchange or juxtaposition, that’s what I was doing 20 years ago in my Ph.D. research, but I didn’t understand that it was going to set me on this trajectory where I would always seek out exchange between cultural practices,” she said.

Rebecca Rabinow The Menil Collection, Houston

Dissertation topic: Artists’ books published by Tériade during World War II

The Menil Collection started out as just that—a private collection amassed between the 1940s and 1990s by Houston-based oil tycoons Dominique and John de Menil. Their holdings covered quite a range, from Byzantine and medieval works to Surrealism to objects from indigenous cultures of the ancient Americas, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Pacific Northwest as well as contemporary artworks that they commissioned by the day’s leading artists, including Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Dan Flavin, and Barnett Newman.

Rabinow, who became director of the Menil in 2016, first learned about Tériade through the most famous of the artist books he published, Henri Matisse’s Jazz , while she was an undergrad at Smith College doing a study abroad program in France. At the Musée Matisse in Nice, she was stopped in her tracks by the room holding the artist’s illustrated works. “I just had never seen anything like that,” Rabinow said. “I didn’t know these kinds of things existed, that Matisse had done them. I refused to go on the rest of the tour.”

When she started work on her Ph.D., Rabinow thought she would study Soviet art, but returned to her earlier love of Matisse, which eventually led to her meeting Tériade’s widow, who had shoeboxes filled with his correspondence with the artists he contracted to work on the books. Tériade was an art critic who had first moved to France to study law in Marseille, but quickly left that career path and moved to Paris, where he befriended some of the leading artists of the time, among them Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Fernand Léger, Le Corbusier, Alberto Giacometti, and Georges Rouault.

Beginning in 1943 Tériade contacted several of his artist friends about working on a project that would provide people with a distraction from the ongoing war. “There were different points where Tériade was getting depressed,” Rabinow said. “He was isolated from Paris, he was isolated from his community. He felt very alone and was asking himself why he was he doing this. But among the letters I found, somebody wrote, ‘The public is eager for artistic food and escape from current events.’”

Among the other artists’ books Tériade published were Bonnard’s Correspondence , a fictionalized account of a summer early in the artist’s life that many scholars once took as fact, and Rouault’s Divertissement , or “Amusements,” created to entertain two grandsons for whom Rouault was caring in his third-floor apartment on the French Riviera at a time when food was short and movie theaters had closed.

“It was rather extraordinary to read some of this again,” Rabinow said, “because the parallels between then and now—take the war out of it—but there are a lot of things that have a resonance that I hadn’t recognized back in the ’90s when I wrote this.”

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• Published: 20 August 2024

Exploring the influence of gamified learning on museum visitors’ knowledge and career awareness with a mixed research approach

• Wei Xu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9042-213X 1 ,
• Qian-Wen Xing 1 ,
• Yue Yu 1 &
• Li-Ying Zhao 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  1055 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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In recent years, museums have become valuable venues for students to develop career awareness outside of school. However, optimizing the educational potential of museums and improving learners’ outcomes presents a significant challenge in museum learning design. This study integrates three main game elements—goals, stories, and role-playing—into museum visits to design a Gamified Learning Activity (GLA). To verify the effectiveness of the GLA, we conducted a quasi-experiment with 66 elementary school students at the Handicraft Museum. Using a mixed-methods approach with convergent parallel design, we collected quantitative data from knowledge tests and qualitative data from DAST (Draw-a-Scientist-Test) and interviews for a comprehensive analysis. The results showed that learners who participated in the GLA paid more attention to the details of the handicrafts, appreciated the craftsmen more, and eliminated stereotypes about the age of craftsmen. This indicates that the GLA not only enhances learners’ acquisition of museum knowledge but also has a profound impact on their non-cognitive aspects, such as career awareness.

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Introduction.

Career development begins during childhood and continues throughout a person’s life (Hartung et al., 2008 ; Super, 1990 ). Researchers emphasize the importance of “one’s talents and interests or understanding the opportunities and requirements of various career fields”, a concept known as career awareness(Braverman et al., 2002 ; Hartung et al., 2005 ). This has always been a hot topic of research and practice (Kier et al., 2014 ; Hartung et al., 2008 ). In the U.S., employment and entrepreneurship education courses are widely offered from elementary schools, integrating basic education with vocational education (Shen and Zheng, 2009 ). In Japan, “employment and entrepreneurship education” has been implemented in elementary schools since 1998 to cultivate students’ psychological awareness and willpower for employment and entrepreneurship(Cai and Zhang, 2009 ).Some studies and practical experiences have shown that career awareness evolves with changes in environment and personal experiences(Kong et al., 1998 ; Losh et al., 2008 ). Suitable learning formats and environments are crucial conditions for these changes to occur (Wu et al., 2010 ). Informal learning venues, such as museums, can offer authentic and reliable information resources (Ramey-Gassert et al., 1994 ). Students can deeply observe and experience these resources through direct engagement or role-playing exercises. This provides a conducive space for students to cultivate career awareness in a relatively realistic setting outside of school (Wang and Tu, 2017 ; Kaplan et al., 1993 ; Hilke, 1988 ).

However, the design of the museum environment and exhibits is only the foundation for learning; it does not guarantee learning effectiveness (Bao, 2013 ). In recent years, museums have explored various design strategies to enhance engagement and interest in their exhibits (Anderson, 2004 ). Some researchers have noted that the physical environment can be designed to promote learning experiences by using mobile technologies, such as multiple-choice visitor manipulation (Humphrey and Gutwill, 2005 ) and synchronized visitor manipulation (Gutwill, 2005 ). Other researchers have suggested that learning activities can be designed without altering the museum exhibits and environment (Bao et al., 2011 ). These activities serve as mediating tools to bring museum resources closer to visitors. Appropriate learning activities not only provide new ways for learners to construct meaning and emotional connections, but also offer crucial support and guarantees for learning to occur and for students’ overall development (Zhou et al., 2019 ; Zheng and Li, 2015 ; Xia and Zhang, 2015 ). Regarding the design of learning activities, some researchers have focused on worksheets. For example, Bao et al. ( 2011 ) designed sheets for home groups, where participants visited exhibits to complete the tasks on the worksheets. In addition, the design or planning of the tour routes and learning activities can be based on concept maps (Andritsou et al., 2018 ), electronic guides(Bieszk-Stolorz et al., 2021 ), etc. However, dull and monotonous worksheets can make learners feel bored, leading to counterproductive learning outcomes. Given that venue-based learning emphasizes active exploration by learners, it is essential to design learning activities that can maximize students’ interest to achieve better learning results.

So, what kind of learning activities can maximize students’ interest? Gamification may be one of the answers. “Motivation, participation, and achievement” are the three dimensions of learning in the museums, with motivation and participation being the key outputs (Perry, 2012 ). In recent years, gamification has been recognized as an effective way to promote motivation and engagement in student learning (Hu, 2020 ; Karagiorgas and Niemann, 2017 ; Manzano-León et al., 2021 ). It involves using game elements and mechanics in non-game environments to motivate desired behaviors (Werbach and Hunter, 2012 ). Gamification can make otherwise bland activities more engaging and motivating (Chou, 2015 ), and has unique educational advantages when integrated with museum learning (Chen and Chen, 2018 ). For example, Ha et al. ( 2021 ) found that users were significantly more likely to participate in group discussions when using gamified mobile question‑asking app compared to a non-gamified one. Bieszk-Stolorz et al. ( 2021 ) found that gamified e-guides could lead to positive attitudes and increased willingness to visit the museum. The gamification of museum learning activities to enhance learning outcomes and experiences has been a research focus since 2015 (Johnson et al., 2015 ), yet it has not been widely implemented until recently (Miluniec and Swacha, 2020 ). Additionally, existing research mainly focuses on optimizing knowledge acquisition. The practical processes for promoting the development of non-cognitive aspects, such as students’ career awareness, still require further exploration.

Therefore, in present study, we designed educational content for a Handicraft Museum, incorporating gamification elements to create gamified learning activities (GLA). To validate the effectiveness of it, we selected 66 students for a quasi-experiment at the Handicraft Museum. Recognizing that relying solely on quantitative or qualitative data would be insufficient (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998 ), this study adopted a mixed-methods approach with a convergent parallel design (Maxwell, 2016 ; Onwuegbuzie et al., 2007 ). This allowed for a comprehensive analysis by cross-verifying quantitative and qualitative data to address the research questions. The quantitative research component focused on assessing students’ knowledge acquisition through knowledge tests. The qualitative research involved two parts: first, using DAST (Draw-a-Scientist-Test) to examine changes in students’ perceptions of craftsmen; and second, conducting semi-structured interviews to gather students’ impressions of the visit. By this way, the expectation was to enhance students’ learning experiences during the museum visit and thereby promote their learning outcomes at both cognitive and non-cognitive levels.

Literature review

Gamification in museums learning.

Gamification is“the use of game design elements in non-game context” (Armstrong and Landers, 2017 ; Landers, 2014 ; Deterding et al., 2011 ). In education, this concept is known as gamified learning. There are 39 game elements that can be incorporated into gamified learning such as badges, leaderboards, story, goals, and rewards (Garris et al., 2002 ). These elements aim to increase student engagement(Werbach and Hunter, 2012 ). In museum learning, the contextual characteristics of the environment provide great possibilities for gamified learning. For example, Jeon et al. ( 2020 ) combine story elements with museum exhibits to enhance the comprehensibility and interest of the content. Learners could personalize their gamified learning experience by selecting different stories. Related research has demonstrated that the use of simple game elements and mechanics in museum visitor applications can have a strong positive impact on visitor engagement with museum content. For example, Nelson et al. ( 2020 ) found that learners in a gamified environment asked almost twice as many questions as those in a regular environment in their study on the impact of gamification on learner effectiveness in science venues. Additionally, studies by Annetta et al. ( 2009 ) and Clark et al. ( 2009 ) have also demonstrated similar positive results. It is evident that the integration of gamification with museum learning can enhance student engagement and optimize the learning process to a certain extent. However, the effectiveness of its application depends on the careful selection and appropriate use of game elements (Bellotti et al., 2013 ). In museum learning, context is a crucial characteristic, learners are the primary participants, and museum exhibits constitute the learning content. In this study, we selected three game elements based on the characteristics of the museums visited: stories, role-playing, and goals. Stories correspond to the museum’s learning environment, role-playing aligns with the visitors, and goals relate to the museum exhibits. These elements were integrated into the museum learning activities to design the GLA.

Worksheets, also known as an activity sheets or learning guide sheets, are commonly used in museums as learning mediators (Bao, 2013 ). The museum learning environment is an open, contextual setting where learners have significant autonomy. Worksheets are created to structure learners’ activities and minimize unnecessary wandering and distractions. Several studies have utilized worksheets to design learning activities that further exploit the educational value of museums, resulting in improved visitation outcomes (Burtnyk, 2004 ; Canizales de Andrare, 1990 ; Mortensen and Smart, 2007 ). These studies highlight the potential of well-designed worksheets to enhance the educational experience by providing structured learning pathways and clear objectives for students. However, other studies have not seen such improvements. Some researchers argue that worksheets may restrict students’ exploration and lead to a negative learning experience (Griffin, 1999 ; Lucas, 2000 ). Overly prescriptive worksheets may stifle curiosity and limit the organic discovery process that is central to museum learning. When students feel constrained by rigid tasks, their engagement and enjoyment can diminish, counteracting the intended educational benefits. In contrast, gamification has long been considered a effective way to enhance student engagement and immersion (Landers, 2014 ; Deterding et al., 2011 ). It promotes active exploration rather than passive reception. Therefore, integrating gamification into worksheet design holds the potential to improve their effectiveness and application (Karagiorgas and Niemann, 2017 ; Manzano-León et al., 2021 ). By making worksheets more interactive, gamified worksheets will guide visitors to actively learn, which has the potential to lead to better outcomes in museum learning.

Career awareness

Career awareness, career exploration, career interests, and career aspirations, which begin to develop during childhood, are core skills for future career building (Hartung, 2015 ; Watson and McMahon, 2005 ). Among these, “career awareness” can be developed through short-term interventions (Carvalho et al., 2018 ). For example, students’ impressions of individuals in certain professions and their understanding of the corresponding job responsibilities can be influenced by education (Wu et al., 2010 ). Some studies have embedded career education content in middle school science classes, positively impacting students’ science career awareness and aspirations (Kang et al., 2023 ). Other studies have incorporated courses in off-campus venues, where museum learning not only involves the exhibits but also allows students to observe the real working conditions of various professions. For example, Melber ( 2003 ) had elementary school students visit a natural history museum every two weeks to work with scientists and experience the life of a researcher firsthand. Similarly, Finson et al. ( 1995 ) had an experimental group of students collaborate with museum researchers during the summer, while the control group received regular school instruction. Both studies found that students who participated in museum learning significantly reduced their stereotypes about scientists. Engaging in such learning experiences more frequently can provide students with opportunities to develop their interests and abilities, as well as help them envision potential social roles for themselves.

In this study, we chose a Handicrafts Museum where learners could learn about traditional Chinese craftsmen and their handicrafts. They can develop career awareness by observing or role-playing the work of people engaged in different craft occupations. The researcher divided learners career awareness of craftsmen into two dimensions: comprehensive occupational perceptions and occupational stereotypes. And the differences between learners on these two dimensions were explored through experiments.

Research questions

Building upon the literature review presented above, the present study used a worksheet as a vehicle to integrate three game elements of role-play, story and goal, into the museums learning activities, and designed GLA. The role-play corresponds to the visitor; the story corresponds to the learning environment in the museum; and the objectives correspond to the museum exhibits. To investigate its impact on visitors’ learning outcomes, 66 participants were selected to conduct a quasi-experiment in a Handicraft Museum. And seek to answer the following research questions:

RQ1: Can the GLA have an impact on learners’ handicrafts knowledge learning compared to non-gamified learning activities(NGLA)?

RQ2: Can the GLA have an impact on learners’ occupational perception on craftsmen compared to NGLA?

RQ3: Can the GLA have an impact on learners’ occupational stereotypes about craftsmen compared to NGLA?

Development of gamified learning activity

Based on activity theory (Nardi, 1996 ), this study divides the design of GLA into three parts: the selection of learning subjects, the selection of learning objects, and the design of learning mediating tools——worksheets.

Subjects and objects selection

The subject of the GLA in the museum include learners and learning guides. Learners were grade 3 students from W primary School, the learning environment for them is usually an indoor place with a podium and seats, which emphasizes a more rigid discipline, fixed roles and teaching patterns. “Moving” the classroom to an arena without podium and seats is a huge change for them. Learning guides include museum staff and school teachers. During the visit, they need to give a brief overview of the museum, such as relevant history, exhibit categories, exhibit distribution, etc., answer questions and solve problems for students who have doubts. In addition, they have to ensure the visit order and provide a good learning environment for learners.

Learning materials are the objects of learning activities. The object chosen for this study is Hangzhou Handicraft Museum (Fig. 1 ), which offers a variety of handicraft and creative handicraft experience programs for learners. Learners can experience the deep historical traditional crafts and intangible cultural heritage crafts with Chinese characteristics.

This shows the experimental site for this study, which contains a variety of handicraft exhibits and experience programs Source: Own elaboration.

Worksheets design

Worksheets are an effective tool to integrate museum education and student learning without compromising the exhibition design of the museum (Meng, 2004 ). Its high accessibility and scalability make it a choice of researchers. The present study designed a gamified worksheet and a non-gamified worksheet, which is the main vehicle for this museums learning.

Gamified worksheet

This study uses the worksheet as a vehicle to integrate the three game elements of role-play, story, and goals into the learning activities. Table 1 demonstrates the specific ways in which each element was integrated.

The first page of the gamified worksheet is the cover (Fig. 3 ), which contains the words “Who is the final heir”, “Challenger” and “Secrets of breaking through” to create a gamified situation for students. The other three pages contain four exhibits and six tasks, covering eight exhibits in the Handicraft Museum (Figs. 2 and 3 ). In each task, a non-game player (NPC) will appear in the exhibit and the challenger can only pass the level by observing the exhibits and thinking. For example, in the first level, the NPC greets the students and proposes the task - “Dear challenger, welcome to the first level, I am the gatekeeper of this level. Please find out the happiest and saddest people on this clay street”. During the process, the NPCs in each level will guide learners to carefully observe the exhibits and exhibition sign information.

This shows part of the gamified worksheets we designed. Source: Own elaboration.

This shows another part of the gamified worksheets we designed. Source: Own elaboration.

Non-gamified worksheet

The non-gamified worksheet are only used as a general tour guide for students (Figs. 4 , 5 ). It covers the same exhibits as the gamified worksheets, but differ in the design of each question. To fill the worksheet, learners have to observe the features of the exhibits in every section and the content of the display boards. Also, learning guides in each section will help learners when they need.

This shows part of the non-gamified worksheets we designed. Source: Own elaboration.

Participants

The researchers believe that the messages and values conveyed by the Handicraft Museum are consistent with the cognitive development of elementary school children. Therefore, we chose 66 third-grade students from W Primary School who were already able to read, write, draw and express their ideas clearly. And we confirmed through interviews that all the students had never visited the Handicraft Museum and divided them into the GLA group ( N  = 33) and the NGLA group ( N  = 33).

The study consisted of three stages. A preparation stage in the classroom, a learning stage in the Handicraft Museum and a assessment stage (Fig. 6 ). However, only the assessment was the same in the experimental and control conditions.

This shows each stage and content of the experiment. Source: Own elaboration.

In the first stage, teachers first introduced the activity to both groups of students. Then, they distributed a letter regarding the selection of the “final heir” to the experimental group. It reads “Hello kid,you have been selected as the reserve army of Chinese intangible cultural heritage heirs! However, in order to select the best heirs, we have designed many levels in the Handicraft Museum, which are incrementally more difficult. Next, you will compete for the final heir of this audition! Are you ready to accept the challenge? From: Association for Intangible Cultural Heritage”. From this moment, the visit to the Handicraft Museum is no longer simply a tour, but a competitive challenge that requires observation and reflection, and students are transformed from visitors to challengers. Subsequently, they distributed the gamified worksheets to the experimental group and the non-gamified worksheets to the control group.

In the second stage, the two groups of subjects participated in activities according to their own learning rules. The experimental group participated in museum learning with a gamified worksheet, while the control group with a non-gamified worksheet, and they were allowed to interact with each other. An experienced teacher and a researcher from each group observed the learners’ performance throughout the process.

In the third stage, researchers will collect data. All students will complete a knowledge test, which will serve as the source of quantitative data. Following this, drawing tests and interviews will be conducted to gather qualitative data. In the drawing test, students will be asked to draw an craftsmen within a specified time. The interviews will be conducted online, with students responding via voice. This ensures that students do not interfere with each other, and the delayed test also examines how well students retain the results of their learning. At last, the students with the highest scores were given the title of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor’ and received a final prize.

Instruments

The results were analyzed using a mixed method combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. We used a knowledge test paper to measure learners’ knowledge and a drawing test to measure learners’ stereotypes and overall level of awareness of craftsmen. In addition, semi-structured interviews were used to supplement the measurement of learning about handicrafts and craftsmen.

Knowledge test

The knowledge test was designed by a museum learning researcher and a primary school teacher to examine students’ knowledge of handicrafts. It consists of five main questions of 10 sub-tests, each of which carries 10 marks, for a total test score of 100. The questions covers knowledge of the handicraft exhibits mentioned in the worksheets and examines students’ mastery of the learning content. Test questions are shown in Appendix A .

Drawing test

The drawing test is used to test students’ general perceptions and stereotypes of craftsmen. The drawing test was first introduced by Chambers ( 1983 ), who argued that a drawing test is not just a ‘drawing of a person’ or ‘drawing a picture’, but a tool designed to reveal the subject’s intelligence, self-image or certain emotional states or conflict projections. Since then, Chambers’ drawing test has been used in a number of studies testing the image of scientists in the minds of students (Schibect and Sorensen, 1983 ; Maoldomhnaigh and Hunt, 1988 ; Fort and Varney, 1989 ; Mason et al., 1991 ). In present study, the participants were mostly 3rd grade students, who did not have the advantage of verbal expression and preferred to express themselves in a non-written form of drawing.

The interview questions will be designed to be more open-ended than the specific questions in the knowledge test. This open-ended question design can lead students to state their own reflections on the visit. Questions 1–4 ask open-ended questions about the exhibitions in the clay sculpture, wood, silk and bamboo weaving sections respectively, aiming to find out which other exhibits students looked at closely during their visit to determine how learners learned during the visit in both learning modes. Question 5 was a more general question designed to guide learners through the learning process to find out if learners also noticed exhibits in other galleries during their visit. Question 6 asked students to talk about how they felt about the learning on the visit. The same interview outline was used by both groups of students. Interview outline are shown in Appendix B .

Data analysis

Data analysis in this study consists of two parts: quantitative data analysis based on the knowledge test and qualitative data analysis based on the drawing test and interviews.

Quantitative data

Quantitative data refers to the knowledge test data collected after the visit. A total of 66 test papers were distributed, and 66 valid responses were received, with 33 from the experimental group and 33 from the control group. Researchers used SPSS software to conduct an independent samples t test to compare the differences in the levels of knowledge about handicrafts between the two groups of students.

Qualitative data

Drawing test data.

Based on the drawing test procedure proposed by Chambers ( 1983 ), two analytical methods, drawing evaluation and drawing classification, were used in this study. In addition, we drew on previous data analysis methods (Laubach et al., 2012 ) and developed indicators for evaluating and classifying craftsmen in the drawing test.

The purpose of the drawing evaluation was to determine the extent to which students knew about craftsmen. Student drawings were scored against five evaluation indicators, specifically characteristic clothing, working environment, tools, handicrafts and annotated descriptions, as shown in Table 2 . A painting was scored as “1” if it demonstrated one of these aspects, otherwise it was scored as “0”. Thus, the highest score for a painting is “5” and the lowest score is “0”. The higher the score, the more comprehensive the respondent’s perception of the craftsmen’s image.

The purpose of the drawing classification was to identify the categories of craftsmen in students’ minds, including five perspectives: identity, age, gender, emotion, and social dimensions of craftsmen, as shown in Table 3 . If a dimension is not represented in the drawing, it is recorded as “0”.

The five evaluation indicators of characteristic dress, working environment, tools, handicrafts, and annotated descriptions and the five dimensions of craftsmen’s identity, age, gender, emotion and social dimension together reflected the students’ stereotypes about craftsmen. After the test, the drawings of the students in the experimental and control groups were collected for coding and analysis according to the above coding rules, and the scores of the students in the two groups were compared.

Interview data

A total of 191 valid interview responses were received, including 83 for the experimental group and 108 for the control group. Thematic analysis was conducted on these interview data to serve as an important supplement to the knowledge test data and drawing test data. Researchers first annotate meaningful phrases in each interview transcript, generating initial labels such as “number of handicrafts” and “a great experience”. Next, they search for and identify themes within these recurring initial labels. After initially identifying themes, the researchers review and refine the themes and their subordinate labels. They then determine the theme names and their included sub-dimensions. Finally, the researchers compare the frequency of mentions of each theme and its sub-dimensions between the two groups of students in the interviews.

Handicrafts knowledge

To answer RQ1, an independent samples t-test was conducted to investigate the effect of museums GLA on the students’ handicrafts knowledge. As shown in Table 4 , the handicrafts knowledge scores of the experimental group ( M  = 61.21, SD = 13.86) was higher than that of the control group ( M  = 60, SD = 15.81). However, there was no significant difference between the GLA and NGLA groups on knowledge ( p  = 0.74 > 0.05). This indicates that the two groups of students had a similar level of knowledge acquisition related to handicrafts during the museum visit. However, since the knowledge tests consisted entirely of objective questions, the scores may not fully reflect the students’ understanding of handicrafts. Subsequent data will supplement these results.

Occupational perception on craftsmen

In order to answer RQ2, participants’ 66 paintings were first coded and analyzed according to the coding rules of the drawing test. The Cronbach’s alpha for the two sets of coded data is 0.922. This indicates that Cronbach’s alpha condition for reliability of the coding data is satisfied. Then, the difference of students’ perception on craftsmen in two groups was compared through an independent samples t-test. As shown in Table 5 , there were significant differences between the two groups in both the working environment ( p  = 0.02 < 0.05) and handicrafts ( p  = 0.01 < 0.05) dimensions. And the drawings of students in control group were more involved in the working environment and handicrafts compared to the experimental group. In addition, there were no significant differences between the two groups on the dimensions of characteristic costumes ( p  = 0.81 > 0.05), tools ( p  = 0.36 > 0.05) and annotation ( p  = 0.33 > 0.05). The drawings of students in experimental group were less presented than the drawings in control group on characteristic costumes and tools, but more so than the control group on the dimension of annotation. It is evident that, overall, the control group students have a higher level of comprehensive understanding of craftsmen compared to the experimental group students. Specifically, the experimental group students’ understanding of the work environment and handicrafts is not as thorough as that of the control group students. In the discussion, we will interpret these results and supplement the findings with interview data for further validation.

Occupational stereotype about craftsmen

The five indicators of characteristic costumes, working environment, tools, handicrafts and annotation and the five dimensions of craftsmen identity, age, gender, mood and social characteristics together reflect the learners’ stereotypes about craftsmen. For RQ3, to examine the effect of GLA in museums on learners’ stereotypes about craftsmen, independent samples t-test was adopted to compare of both groups. The results of the t-tests for the first five indicators have been described above, and this part focuses on the last five dimensions.

As shown in Table 6 , the students in GLA group did not differ significantly from the students in NGLA group on the three dimensions regarding the identity ( p  = 0.41 > 0.05), gender ( p  = 0.35 > 0.05) and mood ( p  = 0.71 > 0.05) of the craftsmen. And the majority of the drawings showed positive emotions of the craftsmen. There were significant differences between the two groups in both the age ( p  = 0.04 < 0.05) and social characteristics ( p  = 0.01 < 0.05). It is worth noting that the craftsmen painted by students in the experimental group was significantly younger than that in the control group. Moreover, the craftsmen in the drawings of the GLA were mostly alone, while in the drawings of the NGLA were mostly found in groups. This to some extent reflects the social image of craftsmen in the minds of the two groups of students.

After conducting thematic analysis of the interview data, the content can be categorized into three themes, including handicrafts knowledge, learning experiences, and attitudes, as shown in Table 7 . The first theme reveals differences in students’ acquisition of handicraft knowledge, including their recollections of the number of handicrafts, the handicrafts production process, handicrafts details, and their imagination. The second theme highlights differences in students’ learning experience, such as finding the experience enjoyable, feeling that it’s a rewarding visit, looking forward to future visits, and hoping they could try handicraft making. The third theme reveals students’ attitudes towards handicrafts and craftsmen. By observing the frequency of mentions within each sub-dimension, we can identify differences between the GLA and NGLA groups.

In the first theme, students recalled the number of handicrafts (GLA: 103 times; NGLA: 115 times), mentioned the production process (GLA: 23 times; NGLA: 13 times), detailed the intricacies of the handicrafts (GLA: 30 times; NGLA: 24 times), and expressed their imaginations about handicrafts (GLA: 17 times; NGLA: 20 times).Overall, the NGLA group showed more interest in the quantity and imagination of handicrafts, whereas the GLA group focused more on the crafting process and details of the handicrafts. Through similar comparisons, it is observed that in the second theme, the GLA group reported a more satisfying learning experience than the NGLA group. In the third theme, the NGLA group expressed a greater appreciation for handicrafts, while the GLA group showed more admiration and fondness towards the craftsmen themselves.

This study integrated three game elements—stories, role-playing, and goals—into museum learning to design GLA. To validate its effectiveness, a quasi-experiment was conducted with 66 elementary school students at the Handicrafts Museum. The study primarily utilized a parallel mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the differences between the GLA and NGLA groups in terms of their knowledge of handicrafts and their career awareness of craftsmen. The results indicated that learners in the GLA group observed the details of handicrafts more closely than those in the NGLA group. Additionally, the GLA participants expressed greater admiration for craftsmen and showed reduced stereotypes towards them. This finding indicated that GLA in museums help to enhance the learning outcomes at the non-cognitive level of learners.

The GLA group paid more attention to the details of the handicrafts due to their deep engagement in play

Regarding handicraft knowledge, although there was no significant difference between the GLA group and NGLA group in terms of the knowledge test. This indicates that both groups of students were able to identify and acquire key knowledge about handicrafts during the museum visit. However, since the knowledge tests consisted entirely of objective questions, they did not provide an opportunity for students to express their subjective understanding. As a result, the tests may not fully reflect the learners’ comprehensive knowledge of the handicrafts.

From the interview responses, we found that while the NGLA group mentioned the handicrafts more frequently, the GLA group provided more detailed descriptions and made more references to the crafting process and complexity of the handicrafts. For example, when describing the West Lake silk umbrella, one student noted, “The maker made the umbrella out of bamboo, which is unique to the suburbs of Hangzhou, and Hangzhou silk, with a design of the West Lake”. He not only highlighted the materials used to make the West Lake silk umbrellas, but also described their structure. When answering the question of why the miniature kite is so small, one student said, “The upper half and the tail are made separately and then pasted together, so when it is flown, the miniature kite dances in the air like a real butterfly”. This shows that he has carefully observed and thought about the kite-making process. These findings indicate that the GLA group paid more attention to the details of the handicrafts than NGLA. The results are consistent with a study showing that museum visitors who used a gamified mobile questioning app slowed down in galleries and spent more time closely examining the exhibits (Ha et al., 2021 ). The possible reason for this phenomenon is that students in the GLA group were able to immerse themselves in the story context and their roles during the visit, leading to more active learning. This immersion heightened their desire for self-exploration, allowing them to observe more details that were not included on the worksheets. In contrast, students in the NGLA group lacked the engaging context of “competing for cultural heritage heirs” and relied more on the relatively dull worksheets or explanations, which did not motivate them to explore additional details. Therefore, the story contexts we create in the museum environment allow visitors to engage deeply in the learning activities. At the same time, these context allows them to reach a state of self-regulation while playing their corresponding role (Vygotsky, 1978 ; Barab et al., 2012 ).

The GLA group had a less comprehensive perception on craftsmen than NGLA group, but they showed more admiration for craftsmen

The analysis indicates that students in the NGLA group addressed four key aspects—characteristic costumes, work environment, tools, and handicrafts—more frequently in their drawings. Although students in the GLA group also addressed these aspects, they did so less often compared to the NGLA group. However, the drawings from the GLA group included more annotations, which suggests that to some extent, the students in GLA did not have as comprehensive a perception of the craftsman as the NGLA. This finding is inconsistent with previous studies (Liu and Idris, 2019 ; Nofal et al., 2020 ). There are two possible explanations for it. First, in terms of drawing requirements, some students may misunderstood the drawing test, believing that they only needed to draw the mental image of the individual scientist and ignored elements such as the working environment. It is worth noting that GLA students added more annotations to their drawings, using text to supplement what the drawings lacked. Since the pre-test of drawing skills was not conducted, the possibility of differences in drawing skills between two groups cannot be excluded.

Additionally, GLA students mentioned various aspects of craftsmen multiple times in the interviews. Particularly in the “Admiration and Recognition of Craftsmen” dimension, GLA participants mentioned this aspect 11 times, while NGLA participants only mentioned it 2 times. This indicates that GLA students expressed more admiration and praise for craftsmen. For example, one student remarked, “I think the craftsmen are very skilled and great; their carved works are exquisite,” and another said, “They have created culture and wealth for society, which is truly admirable. They are my role models. “ This shows that the role-playing allowed learners to develop a deeper understanding of the hard work involved in handicraft making. Such admiration and recognition of craftsmen are crucial for the career development of learners and the transmission of traditional handicrafts.

The GLA group removed stereotypes about the age of craftsmen because of their immersion in role

The images of craftsmen in the minds of students reflect their stereotypes about craftsmen (Chambers, 1983 ; Steele, 2003 ). In our analysis of the paintings, we found significant differences between the two groups of students in terms of age and social dimensions of craftsmen. In the drawings by students in NGLA, craftsmen were predominantly portrayed as middle-aged or elderly individuals. In contrast, the craftsmen depicted by GLA students were mostly independent young adults. In studies on the image of scientists, students often hold stereotypes, with most having a positive “impersonal” image of scientists and a negative “personal” one (Mead and Metraux, 1957 ). The participants in this study were all elementary school students. Students in the NGLA group tended to view craftsmen as traditional older craftsmen who seemed more distant from them. In contrast, GLA group students had a more personal and relatable view of craftsmen. This suggests that the GLA approach helped to dispel the stereotype that craftsmen belong predominantly to the “middle-aged and elderly” demographic. Instead, GLA group students saw craftsmen as primarily young people, reflecting a positive “personal” professional image, which is an important external factor influencing students’ attitudes towards craft professions (Wu et al., 2010 ).

Researchers have noted that an individual’s perception of things can change their cognition (Brown et al., 1989 ; Lave and Wenger, 1991 ). By introducing gamification into museum visits and allowing students to engage in role-playing and compete for the title of “ultimate heir,” this approach helped them connect more closely with the craftsmen. Students were able to think from the craftsmen’s perspective, developing a stronger sense of self-identification. This is potential to foster a positive development in their career awareness related to craftsmanship.

Conclusion and limitation

In this study, 66 elementary school students participated in a quasi-experiment at a handicraft museum to validate the effectiveness of GLA. We employed a mixed-methods approach with a parallel design, collecting knowledge tests as quantitative data and drawing tests and interviews as qualitative data. Through comprehensive analysis, we compared the differences between the GLA and NGLA groups in terms of handicraft knowledge and career awareness related to craftsmanship. The results showed that in terms of handicraft knowledge, there were no significant differences between the two groups on the objective knowledge test. However, interview data revealed that the GLA group paid significantly more attention to the details of the handicrafts. Regarding career awareness of craftsmanship, both groups had a relatively comprehensive understanding of craftsmen. The NGLA group provided more detailed depictions of craftsmen in the drawing test, while the GLA group supplemented their drawings with annotations. During the interviews, the GLA group expressed more admiration for the craftsmen compared to the NGLA group. Additionally, students in the GLA group demonstrated a reduced stereotype about craftsmen, viewing them as younger individuals closer to their own age. This reflects a positive “personal” professional image and has the potential to foster their positive development in their career awareness related to craftsmanship.

However, the results of this study should be viewed within its limitations. First, the experimental site chosen for this study is the Handicrafts Museum, so the results are certainly influenced by the particular site. Considering this effect, these results should be generalized with caution. More research is needed to investigate the impact of the intervention in other populations and contexts. Furthermore, this study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect experimental data, but the experimental conditions did not allow for the collection of enough learning data. So, we can not examine the impact and effect of GLA on learning outcomes at more non-cognitive levels. Therefore, in the future, more diverse evaluation approaches are needed to verify the impact of the GLA on affective aspects of learning. Finally, we included only three game elements in the design of the GLAs: role play, story, and objectives. Therefore, the conclusions drawn are far from sufficient to summarize the overall effect of gamified learning. In future research, we should focus on the inclusion of other game elements and mechanisms and explore the effects of different elements and combinations of elements on student learning outcomes in order to guide practice more comprehensively.

Data availability

Personal data was collected and analyzed in this study. The consent form states that all participants agreed to data confidentiality. The datasets are therefore private to protect participant privacy. The data generated or analyzed during this study is available upon request to the corresponding author for academic research purposes only.

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This work was supported the financial supports by the Youth Project of Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science Planning in 2024, Grant/Award Number: 24NDQN163YBM; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Provincial Universities of Zhejiang, Grant/Award Number: GB202302007; and National Science Foundation Youth Foundation of China, Grant/Award Number: 62207026.

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Xu, W., Xing, QW., Yu, Y. et al. Exploring the influence of gamified learning on museum visitors’ knowledge and career awareness with a mixed research approach. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1055 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03583-4

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Philosophy and Museums: Essays on the Philosophy of Museums

Victoria S. Harrison, Anna Bergqvist and Gary Kemp (eds.), Philosophy and Museums: Essays on the Philosophy of Museums , Cambridge University Press, 2016, 385pp., $39.00, ISBN 9781107545670.

Reviewed by Elisa Caldarola, Università di Padova

This volume collects fifteen essays debating the value of museums, the ontology and epistemology of exhibited objects, and museum ethics. The essays stem from talks originally given at a conference at the University of Glasgow in 2013 by philosophers working both within and outside the analytic tradition, museum scholars, and museum practitioners. The collection succeeds in showing that we need a philosophy of museums to improve our understanding of such institutions.

In the opening essay, Mark O'Neill describes a number of questions calling for the engagement of philosophers with museums: What types of value do museums have? What is the ethically correct stance for a museum to take towards its public? And towards the objects constituting its collection? Should museum exhibits seek to make a claim to objectivity? Garry L. Hagberg and Anna Bergqvist each discuss the objectivity of museum exhibits. In a Wittgensteinian fashion, Hagberg criticizes the conception of the meaning/content of exhibited art objects as a determinate "ingredient" (274) of such objects that visitors can identify, claiming that "articulating meaning-content  . . .  is more a matter of discerning implication, of drawing out lines of significance, of throwing light by comparison" (276) and that "we have criteria for separating (a) meaning-revealing  . . .  and connection-making sets of comparative objects from (b) false, thin, misleading, implausible, and unworkable groupings of objects that  . . .  do not 'speak' to each other" (288). A good curator, then, should master the art of putting together objects in a way that allows for fruitful comparisons among them and emergence of their relevant aspects, as various examples of exhibited art objects discussed by the author show.

Engaging with debates on the role of authorial intentions in art interpretation and on semantic particularism, Bergqvist argues, on a similar note, that "The meaning [of exhibited objects] is not to be found in the narrative [of a certain museum exhibition], whether in terms of some 'authoritative' curator's construction or the individual viewer's perspective. The narrative can reveal (or conceal) the object's meaning -- but it does not determine the object's meaning" (311). Furthermore, Bergqvist observes that, although the meaning of exhibited objects does not change depending on who is looking at them, such objects "cannot be accessed except through a perspective" (316). She then argues that the development of different and incompatible perspectives on exhibited objects should be encouraged, in order to maximize the chances for different kinds of viewers to access the meanings of such objects. The arguments put forward by Hagberg and Bergqvist mark a turning point in the debate on the accessibility of the meaning of exhibited objects, mobilizing some resources of analytic philosophy to show that we should refrain from organizing such debate purely in terms of subjectivist or objectivist approaches to the meaning of art objects and other exhibited objects.

Various contributors discuss the value of museums. Charles Taliaferro develops Popper's view of "philosophy as a practice of independent, critical reflection not bound by the tyranny of either government or group  . . .  identity" (39).  He goes on to argue that a good role for museums would be that of fostering a culture informed by philosophy by, for instance, helping define the identity of a philosophical culture through their exhibits, exposing and criticizing "exploitive and unjust events of the past" (45), guaranteeing non-wealth-dependent access to a site where philosophical culture is practiced, and offering a site for public debate. On a different note, Ivan Gaskell argues that the key value of museums is cognitive: it lies in their being "site[s] of scholarship", which "produce ideas", often in the form of displays and accompanying catalogues (58). An apt example is the model for Holocaust museums described in Paul Morrow's essay, which puts research on the relevance of exhibited objects at the core of such museums. Referring to Steve Conn's analyses, Gaskell explains that museums used to be focused on scientific inquiry, at the time the latter was based on "observation, collection, taxonomic investigation and comparison" (66), and that they lost this character because of the shift of scientific practices towards experimentation at the end of the XIX century. Gaskell observes, however, that now we are experiencing "a reinvigoration of the possibility of making knowledge claims from tangible things" (60) and that this could help museums regain centrality as producers of ideas. Among the examples of this "Tangible Turn" (60), there are collaborations between anthropologists and indigenous communities in devising exhibits of artifacts that are of interest to both, as well as new research conducted in natural history museums by biochemists and computer scientists and in art museums by conservation scientists. Gaskell concludes that a main challenge for contemporary museums consists in lowering barriers among different kinds of museums, different collections, or even different divisions within the same museum, in order to enhance innovative thinking.

According to Michael P. Levine and Beth Lord, the affective value of exhibited objects is also relevant to museums. Levine claims that, from a psychoanalytic perspective, it can be argued that "art, but also other objects, exhibitions, and performances as well, elicit emotional, wishful, as well as cognitive responses best characterized as nostalgic" (87). Lord analyses the connection between museums and wonder, based on Descartes' and Spinoza's views of wonder. According to Descartes, wondering at unknown objects is good only if it leads to attempts to understand them intellectually. According to Spinoza, wonder is a threat to imagination: imagining an object is naturally linked with imagining other objects that we have experienced it with or that share features with it -- activities which, he claims, are at the basis of reasoning. When we see an unusual object which we cannot associate to any other object, however, all we can do is wonder at it, our imagination cannot progress and there is no chance that we get from an experience of wonder to the acquisition of rational knowledge. Inspired by Descartes and Spinoza, Lord cautions against the dangers of wonder in museums: "in reorienting displays away from heavily interpretative and contextual approaches and towards wonder, museums do not necessarily encourage visitors to construct meaning from objects, and they risk obstructing meaning making entirely" (112). Moreover, she finds in Spinoza remarks on a different feeling that, she claims, museums should promote: that of "active joy" (113), which is not a passion determined by external causes, but what we feel when we are aware of the activity of our mind. A museum of natural history, for instance, could promote active joy by arranging "things into concentric circles of similarity to human being" (114) and prompting visitors to reflect on the relationship between human beings and nature, so that visitors could feel active joy while gaining knowledge.

Sarah Hegenbart explains how a good participatory art museum would work, basing this explanation on her virtue-theory inspired account of the evaluation of participatory art -- "art that requires the active collaboration of the audience in order to realize its aesthetic value" (321) and which is usually encountered "within the realm of the everyday reality of the audience" (322). According to Hegenbart, participatory artworks do not "possess content prior to the participation of the audience" (238) and have not only aesthetic but also ethical aspects, in that they have an impact on the participants' lives. She claims that the participants who successfully construct the content of the artworks are those who are capable of responding creatively to challenges -- which, according to Julia Annas, means that they are virtuous . A good participatory art museum, then, should "provide a space in which the visitor can exercise and cultivate their virtues in order to bestow the participatory artwork with value" (336). Although the collected essays discuss a variety of values attributable to museums, it seems to me that they all share a general, unitary view of museums as institutions devoted, essentially, to education (be it political, scientific, moral, or sentimental), challenging the possibly more widespread view of museums as repositories of (valuable) objects and places for leisure.

Graham Oddie and Constantine Sandis discuss ontological issues about exhibited objects. Observing that, for example, Tutankhamun's death mask is not identical to any material particular, because it has features (such as the property of being destroyed when heated to 1000 C) that the material particular it would most likely be identical with (i.e. a certain lump of gold) does not possess, Oddie argues that "the objects we experience in a museum are neither particulars nor properties. Rather  . . . they are offices or roles . Like properties, roles are abstracta rather than concreta. But, like concreta, offices involve a singularity that properties lack" (222). According to this view, then, "Tutankhamun's death mask is  . . .  an office that a particular [possessing certain properties] can occupy" (225-226) and "To see Tutankhamun's death mask is to bear an intentional relation to that role" (239). One advantage of this view is that it allows for explaining how exhibited objects can easily go out of existence: it suffices that a single requisite for their role is destroyed, e.g., for Tutankhamun's death mask, possessing the shape of a death mask. Another advantage is that, by understanding restoration as "the process by which occupancy is restored to an empty role" (233), the view allows for understanding what are the salient properties of a particular that need be restored in order not to leave the office it occupies vacant (i.e. lose the exhibited object).

Sandis considers perfect replicas of artifacts, arguing that they are not necessarily aesthetically inferior to original objects and that, depending on the purpose of a museum, a replica might work for it just like the original, or even better -- "Would you rather see the original Mona Lisa behind a barrier and glass screen amidst a crowd of tourists in the Louvre or a perfect replica sat between pillars as Leonardo had conceived it?" (254). Oddie and Sandis challenge intuitive views about what exhibited objects are and what they can do for the public, showing that philosophical arguments can help improve the ways we approach exhibited objects.

Some essays address issues in museum ethics. David Brown defends the view that museums exhibiting religious art and sacred objects should present exhibits focusing not only on the aesthetic or documentary qualities of such objects, but also on their religious/spiritual ones, in order to allow visitors to engage with such objects at a religious/spiritual level. This would be respectful towards those visitors interested in religious and sacred objects because of their religious/spiritual views and, moreover, it would give all visitors a chance to experience such objects in a way that approximates more to their original way of existence. Brown, then, judges positively, for instance, exhibits of altarpieces in rooms that recall their original setting, of Muslim rugs facing the direction of the Mecca, and of Buddha statues whose gestures' theological significance is carefully explained in some accompanying text.

Andreas Pantazatos focuses on the ethics of trusteeship, offering an insightful account of how museums should perform the duty of care they have to the objects in their collections, i.e. "the duty to negotiate the transit from past to future of the objects in their care in such a way as to secure their significance" (182). He explains that museums are entrusted not only with the custody of objects with a certain history but also with the task of negotiating between different views of such objects, held by the various individuals and groups who have a stake in them. For instance, the National September 11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero is right in its choice not only to preserve the remains of the Twin Towers, but also to take care of the memories of people involved with the September 11 tragedy at some level (for instance, by telling stories those people told about such events).

On a similar note, Philip Tonner argues that "a museum's function is, to many collectors, benefactors and visitors, to act as a material custodian of our memories and as such its ethical burden is responsibility not only to collect, conserve and to communicate, but to do so truthfully " (170). Museums, then, face the issue of whose testimonies about exhibited objects should be trusted. This is particularly relevant in cases such as that of Holocaust museums, as Tonner stresses in his discussion of the United States Holocaust Museum.

Alda Rodrigues asks whether museums are ethical at all, examining two apparently contrasting views held by the archaeologist Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849): (1) the now widespread view that museums are detrimental to our experience of the art objects they exhibit, because they take such objects out of their context, thereby preventing us from experiencing them under appropriate conditions; (2) the view that the Parthenon Marbles had to remain in the British Museum because there they had more chances to be integrated in European cultural life than in Athens. Rodrigues sees an affinity between Quatremère's latter view and Heidegger's claim in The Origin of the Work of Art that, in order not to lose significance and value, works of art should be able to open up a world -- i.e., in Rodrigues' interpretation, to be enjoyed in a way such that they become central to the lives of their public. Rodrigues reconciles Quatremère's apparently contrasting views, claiming that the objection raised by (1) "persists if  . . .  the work of art is treated [merely] as an object, and not as the focal point of its own world" (211). She concludes that, in assessing the ethical standing of contemporary museums, we should take inspiration from Quatremère, realizing that:

By exhibiting objects in contexts that are different from their original site, museums call people's attention to one of the most interesting features of the existence of objects in time: the possibility of their survival both beyond the cultural world within which they came into existence, and beyond the intentions of their maker. (213)

The essays on museum ethics show that the roles of different publics are key to understanding museums. In particular, they depict the publics of museums not just as recipients of narratives developed by museum professionals, but also as subjects that may come equipped with specific relationships to exhibited objects -- relationships that museum professionals should take into account in order to perform their role of custodians of exhibited objects appropriately.

The volume ends with an appendix presenting three contributions on museums and philosophy by students from the Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow: Scott Adams, Lucy McCracken, Glen Melville, Jessica Palmer, and Claire Richmond. The essays are the result of a project undertaken by the students under the guidance of their professor, Philip Tonner -- also a contributor to the volume. They show how meditation on philosophical texts can offer a valuable means for thinking about exhibited objects and the experience of visiting a museum, not only to professional academics but also to a much younger, non-professional public.

This book addresses a vast range of issues, from different methodological perspectives, on topics rarely discussed in philosophical literature. The main merit is to show that there is an ample territory open to philosophical debate and that philosophers can usefully contribute to address problems faced by museum professionals. The main limitation of the volume is that it packs such abundant material in the limited space of a collection of essays. The reader would have benefited from a presentation of the collected essays within a handbook offering more introductory information on the topics under discussion. In the same spirit, the reader would have profited from a more thorough discussion of topics that are merely touched upon, such as how narratives are constructed through museum exhibits, what is the appropriate ontology of museums qua institutions, and how the educational mission of museums should be negotiated with the economic, managerial, and political issues faced by such institutions.

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	Present on Site: Transforming Exhibitions and Museums       Chapter 22: Ten theses on the museum in society The foundation for this chapter was laid in 2000, a year significant not because of its symbolic value but because this is the year I was part of a museological network that discussed the relationship between authentic objects, society and communication. I contributed to a clarification of the topic by introducing the idea of focusing more on visitors and users, pointing out how essential establishing communication with and between them is for museums to play a role in society. The following list summarises the concepts introduced: The ten theses on this list are central. Collecting, documenting, preserving, disseminating etc. are important activities for museums to engage in, but it is also important to look at the museum’s role in society from a dissemination perspective. For casual visitors, this means the museum must consider them not only as a consumer to be satisfied, but particularly as a partner in dialogue. And even more so as partner to be respected and taken seriously. Below, I will briefly expand on each of the ten theses statements to further clarify the museum’s role in society. I have chosen to focus on history museums, which covers everything from small local ones and the National Museum of Denmark to ‘non-museums’ such as the Land of Legends Lejre, where archaeological experiments are conducted. The term is tricky. On the one hand, it is used to describe unique objects, their correct provenience and age; for example the highly valuable Nordic Bronze Age Trundholm sun chariot. Danish museum inspector Annette Vasström (1999) extends the notion of focusing on objects alone to cover what she calls an . Defining ‘authentic’ as value-free is problematic as it is often bound to a material culture, which means that other cultures may have a completely different idea of what matters. It is not the objects themselves that are authentic, but that which can be repeated. Shinto temples in Japan are razed every 20 years only to be rebuilt and the new buildings are as authentic as the old ones. Their authenticity lies in using traditional building techniques and maintaining ancient skills. The Danish scenographer and exhibition designer Anne Sofie Becker (1990) makes a distinction between presentative and discursive exhibitions. objects are exhibited as they are with many ‘empty spaces’ that need to be completed by the visitor. The type establishes “… homogeneous orders, coherent closed systems, which individual parts must always obey and comply with the whole ...” (1990:81). The concept of the presentative/discursive dichotomy creates both clarity and confusion. Discursive exhibitions are not solely limited to one order or system, but can possibly contain narratives told in many different ways and with a variety of intentions. Although objects are what make museums unique, it is also crucial that they can tell stories. Objects are the crown jewel of museums. Even if visitors put emphasis on tests and images, they still primarily expect to see objects. Just the fact that the objects there is a gesture of kindness (Gjedde & Ingemann 2008). Regardless of whether it is a utilitarian or cult object, a cultural object has a life of its own. It can be used differently than was originally intended and be placed in a new time and in a new setting and also be given a new function. Michael Baxendall (1991:34) describes how three cultures come together in an exhibition. First there are the ideas, values and intentions inherent in the culture in which the artefact was created. Second there is the combination of ideas, values and intentions inherent in the culture and the curator who organised the exhibition. Finally there is the beholder, who possesses distinct cultural baggage comprising a set of unsystematic ideas, values and intentions. Baxendall presents an example in which a Mbulu Ngulu mask presumably inspired Picasso’s 1907 painting . He stresses that, “… the effect of visual similarity is to accent difference” (Braxendall 1991:40). Susan Vogel underlines that, “Almost nothing displayed in museums was made to be seen in them. Museums provide an experience of most of the world’s art and artefacts that does not bear even the remotest resemblance to what their makers intended” (1991:191). She believes that most museum visitors are totally unaware of this fact but that this is an issue museum professionals should focus on. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp tried to exhibit his now famous , a mass-produced urinal signed ‘R. Mutt ‘, in a gallery. This subversive action initiated a discussion of whether the work was original and authentic or whether it was the context that determined whether what was being exhibited was to be seen as authentic art. Of particular interest is the fact that he did not get the idea by looking at a urinal in use, but from a J. L. Mott Ironworks display window on Fifth Avenue in New York. The issue here is the change in context for the item exhibited. Even in the Mott’s display window the urinal had been lifted out of the context it was designed to be used in. The initial processing of any exhibition takes place on a purely aesthetic level. This means that the exhibition paves the way for an aesthetic gaze and not just the object as it does not necessarily possesses the power to be read aesthetically. How the object is staged determines the level at which the aesthetic gaze comes into play. The aesthetic gaze is a quest to see e.g. what is beautiful, pleasing, peculiar, picturesque, tasteful and flattering – as well as a to experience a sense of recognition – in the manner described by Danish sculptor and theoretician Willy Ørskov (1966:67). The Swedish art historian Peter Cornell writes in his book, [ ], that the museum is the laboratory of visibility. As a zone of visibility, the museum encourages ferocious yet affectionate contemplation. In the encounter with the object in the museum, rich, detailed languages are provided. While the visitor stands outside, the museum is curiously silent towards the lifeworld of everyday things as if their form and presence are irrelevant and meaningless. Cornell believes that it is through the eyes of the philosopher, poet and artist, or through the eyes of a child, that things become visible again. They get the objects to speak and they get us to talk about things, e.g. wax tablecloths, kitchen utensils, laundry, clocks, stairs or a glass of water (1993:10). I think however that Peter Cornell is overly friendly; even objects in a museum can be experienced as irrelevant and meaningless and require an open gaze to make them visible again - or visible for the first time. The authentic object is seen as a contrast to imitations, copies, fakes. Authentic objects are inextricably tied to their physicality, production, materials and use. Sociologist Dean MacCannell believes that non-authentic objects create a unifying consciousness that defines the modern spirit. The quest for authenticity consequently depends on the sense of instability and non-authenticity which characterises the modern consciousness. MacCannell has changed the criterion of authenticity away from the object itself to the way it is experienced! In other words, having an authentic experience is as equally important as the artefacts being properly presented and having the correct provenience. From this perspective, no distinction should be made between imitation and reality. The truth lies somewhere in between in what can be called simulation. The American museologist Lisa C. Roberts asks the question, “… if the experience is properly simulated - in other words, if the correct effect is reproduced in the lived body - does it matter that the props are ‘faked’?” (1997:99). Roberts’ deliberations touch on the semiotic landscape and narrative. The significance lies not in the object itself, but in what the external signs add to the object, a stance that further supports MacCannell’s view of authenticity and objects. The viewer can experience the object, but what determines authenticity is not solely the object or even the viewer, but also the setting in which the viewer experiences the object. An aesthetic experience is however something far more comprehensive than just the concept of beauty and comprises four fields of experience: values, emotions, knowledge and action. In order for something to support the aesthetic experience of visitors it must affirm the insights these four fields of experience offer, as well as something that challenges visitors and then adds something new and surprising (Gjedde & Ingemann 2008:115-120). The four fields of experience can be activated but how they are activated is also highly dependent on the visitors’ goals, i.e. are they seeking pure entertainment, to pass the time or informal learning. The museum has responsibility for planning and activating one or more of the fields of experience. Stanley Fish (1980) believes ‘texts’ (i.e., objects, spaces, images, written texts) simply do not exist, while Edwina Taborsky (1990) believes that ‘text’ is constructed in a social context. When the visitor meets the exhibition as text meaning is created. 5. Objects represent artistic expression, a narrative Aesthetics is perhaps a simple, easy bridge between objects and the visitor, but it is also a fairly small bridge if the museum wants to convey something that can access the unconscious of visitors and encourage them to talk about their insights. For objects to be talked about the museum must contextualise them in a way that makes reading the objects, space, course, and texts as a conscious narrative possible. A story must contain six elements and answer certain questions: a summary: What is it all about?; an introduction: Who, What, Where and When?; development: What happened next?; an evaluation: What is the value?; and a solution: What happened in the end? A narrative structure is involved, but there is also the use of images and emotive language (Gjedde & Ingemann 2008:36). A narrative is more than just part of the ‘text’; people intrinsically translate experiences and understand them as internal narratives. This means that even when a text lacks a narrative structure we have a tendency to talk about our personal experience in a narrative structure (Gjedde & Ingemann 2008:36). The Museum of Copenhagen has a showcase displaying a roadkill hedgehog, a cell phone, a credit card and a set of car keys. This somewhat absurd combination of objects from daily life on the highway is accompanied by a dry, laconic text that declares, “Nature must give way to roads. The distance between work and home is becoming bigger”. The designer has attempted to create a narrative that contains ‘empty spaces’ to be filled in by the visitor while simultaneously bringing into play values, emotions and knowledge that the visitor will recognise and agree or disagree with, thus representing a significant creative activity. Objects and texts create mental images as internal images for the visitor. The aforementioned display at the Museum of Copenhagen is one way of creating mental images. The individual parts function as a metonym for something bigger, and the ironic distance in the text combined with the objects creates a complex mental image. All of the elements are concurrently used symbolically to tell a certain story. The precondition for creating mental images is an emphasis on narrative and applying language techniques drawn from fiction. A collision must occur between objects and texts to create a total mental image. The Worker’s Museum in Copenhagen has an exhibition on the 1950s depicting the living conditions of a working class family in the years after World War II. There are authentic material objects from a specific time and culture. Although genuine, the objects are also used to create a myth about progress and prosperity. The French semiotician Roland Barthes likens the shift between seeing things in themselves and seeing the myth to looking out the window at the landscape while driving a car. One’s eyes can look at the landscape or they can rest on the window. The glass can be the focus of one’s attention, causing the landscape to recede into the distance or the glass can be transparent, causing the landscape to tread into the foreground. Altering one’s gaze between the two is constant. The glass is at once present and then suddenly empty and meaningless, while the landscape takes on depth only to suddenly become unreal (Barthes 1957/1972:124). Myths are stories a culture uses to explain and understand aspects of reality or nature. Primitive myths are often about life and death, gods and good and evil. Modern sophisticated myths are about e.g. masculinity and femininity, family, success, time and science. 7.3) The Museum of Copenhagen’s 1950s exhibition expresses a myth telling a story about speed and time and is a symbolic expression of self-centred values and the desire to have vs. to be (Fromm 1976/1981). No culture has universal myths, though some myths are dominant. Contra-myths and the transformation of myths undergo an evolutionary process in which related parts or concepts are displaced and others are added. Jung sees traditional myths (e.g. Oedipus, Orpheus and Eurydice) as mythological motifs, finding myths with many corresponding features in various cultures. Jung discusses the importance of myths as analogies and in his theory of the collective unconscious and archetypes explains that, “They are without known origin; and they can reproduce themselves in any time and any place of the world” (Jung 1994:69). Society’s stories are highly complexity, which means multiple narratives are possible. Small local history museums can have a close relationship with visitors, thus allowing them to disseminate information and construct history in a manner that is exceedingly visitor-focused. At major museums, which are in principle meant for everyone, this strategy is perhaps not possible. They can however be authoritative and sender-focused, which means they must create community narratives. Society’s stories are created in a complicated dance between writers, the mass media and researchers. Since museum professionals, of which there are 600 in Denmark, cannot create or construct the right stories alone, they must find and recruit zealous yet sensitive people to point out the main aspects of the history of society that looks at the new and the familiar and especially the balance between them. The introduction to this chapter states that the ten theses statements cannot cover all museums, for example art museums. After reconsideration, the ten statements are relevant to art museums but would require some rewriting and additional discussion as they are not as innocent or neutral as they may appear. The American museologist Elaine Heumann Gurian believes that in the future museums will not be defined by their objects, but by the setting and “... storytelling in tangible sensory form, ... where citizenry can congregate in a spirit of cross-generational inclusivity and inquiry into memory of our past, a forum for our present, and aspirations for our future” (1999:65). 9.3) The British museologist Davis Anderson believes the museum’s role is to teach visitors how to tap into their ability to feel and think. To support his argument, he quotes the 1994 Swedish parliamentary commission for museums: The American museologist John Falk sees the museum in the highly individualised world of lifelong learning, stating that “... as free-choice learning comes to represent an ever greater percentage of the total learning an individual does in his or her lifetime, museums promise to become ever more important and ever more accepted as vital links within the educational infrastructure of the community” (1999:273). Whether this happens will depend on how the museum chooses to play this role. A central goal for example at the Worker’s Museum is to create . The visitor must be able to recognise objects and settings as their own. Thus and are part of the central museum’s objectives (Floris & Vasström 1999). The American philosopher Albert William Levi (1995:344) lists the different institutional roles of the museum as: Can the community find aspects of its reality represented in the museum? This is the case in a direct way at e.g. the Worker’s Museum. Is this also possible at the National Museum of Denmark, where the distance between the visitor’s personal reality and the museum’s presentation of reality is perhaps so great that nostalgia and recognition should not be a driving force? Because the goals and purpose of museums can vary, it is important that the personal reality of visitors can be connected to something greater than just recognising objects and spaces. It is essential that visitors relate to relevant, understandable symbols and myths. When society is defocused and individualised and values are relative, it directly affects the culture and subsequently the museum. Perhaps telling one universal story is not possible, but telling many minor stories is a valid alternative. A discursive approach means following more than just one coherent narrative. Like the postmodern media, the museum can also create personalised, interactive narratives. One prerequisite for doing so is to activate the whole field of experience and incorporate minor narratives that generate recognition and comprise emotive language and mental pictures that draw on powerful symbols and myths. Chapter from the book: Ingemann, Bruno (2012): Present on Site. Transforming Exhibitions and Museums , Lejre: Visual Memory Press. 396 pages, 147 illustration, printed in colour. Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion? You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays Saint petersburg. Ewer and basin (lavabo set) Probably made at Chisinau Court Workshop Andrei Nikiforovich Voronikhin Alexander Danilovich Menshikov (1673–1729) Unknown Artist, Swiss, Austrian, or German, active Russia ca. 1703–4 Samuel Margas Jr. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia (1709–1762) on Horseback, Attended by a Page Attributed to Georg Christoph Grooth Table snuffbox Niello scenes after a print entitled Naufrage (Shipwreck) by Jacques de Lajoüe , published in Paris 1736 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) (1694–1778) Jean Antoine Houdon Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, St. Petersburg Cup with cover and saucer Two bottle coolers Zacharias Deichman the Elder Catherine II The Great, Empress of Russia Jean-Baptiste Nini Coffee service Johan Henrik Blom Tureen with cover Tureen with cover and stand Jacques-Nicolas Roettiers Possibly by Pierre-François-Mathis de Beaulieu (for Jean Georges) Pair of scallop-shell dishes Sugar bowl (from a tea service) Workshop of David Roentgen Beaker and saucer David Roentgen and Company in Saint Petersburg Johann Friedrich Anthing Drop-front desk (secrétaire à abattant or secrétaire en cabinet) Attributed to Martin Carlin Pair of Flintlock Pistols of Empress Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Johan Adolph Grecke Gardner Manufactory Center table Imperial Armory, Tula (south of Moscow), Russia Female Shaman Pair of vases Nikolai Stepanovich Vereshchagin Jugate busts of Czarevitch Paul and Maria Feodorovna of Russia James Tassie Wolfram Koeppe Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art October 2003 The Birth of Saint Petersburg Russia, or “Muscovy” as it was often called, had rarely been considered a part of Europe before the reign of Czar Peter I (Piotr Alexeievich), known as Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725). His supremacy marked the beginning of the country’s “Westernization,” whereby the political, economic, and cultural norms of the western European monarchies would become the basis for “civilizing” Russia. A radical transformation was needed to launch Russia into the modern world, a transformation later called the Petrine Revolution. The young czar, feeling oppressed by the medieval traditions and ecclesiastical patriarchy of seventeenth-century Moscow, wanted to Westernize Russia in a hurry, defying the sluggish pace of history. Saint Petersburg was born on May 16, 1703 (May 5 by the old Julian Russian calendar). On that day, on a small island on the north bank of the Neva River, Peter cut two pieces of turf and placed them cross-wise. The setting was inauspicious. The area was a swamp that remained frozen from early November to March, with an annual average of 104 days of rain and 74 days of snow. The army, under the command of Alexander Menshikov ( 1996.7 ), had conquered the region shortly before. To show his gratitude, the czar later appointed Menshikov the first governor-general of Saint Petersburg. The fortification of the territory kept the Swedish enemy at bay and secured for Russia permanent access to the Baltic Sea. The partially ice-free harbor would be crucial to further economic development. All buildings on the site were erected on wooden poles driven into the marshy, unstable ground. Stones were a rare commodity in Russia, and about as valuable as precious metals. The Dutch name “Piterburkh” (later changed to the German version, “Petersburg”) embodied the czar’s fascination with Holland and its small-scale urban architecture. He disliked patriarchal court ceremony and felt at ease in the bourgeois domestic life that he experienced during his travels throughout Europe on “the Great Embassy” (1697–98). However, the primary purpose of this voyage was to acquire firsthand knowledge of shipbuilding—his personal passion—and to learn about progressive techniques and Western ideas. The victory over the Swedish army at Poltava in June 1709 elevated Russia to the rank of a European power, no longer to be ignored. Peter triumphed: “Now with God’s help the final stone in the foundation of Saint Petersburg has been laid.” By 1717, the city’s population of about 8,000 had tripled, and grew to around 40,000 by the time of Peter’s death in 1725. Saint Petersburg had become the commercial, industrial, administrative, and residential “metropolis” of Russia. By the 1790s, it had surpassed Moscow as the empire’s largest urban vicinity and was hailed as the “Venice of the North,” an allusion to the waterway system around the local “Grand Canal,” the Neva River. Peter the Great’s Successors The short reign of Peter’s second wife, Empress Catherine I (r. 1725–27), who depended on her long-time favorite Menshikov, saw the reinstatement of the luxurious habits of the former imperial household. The archaic and ostentatious court display in the Byzantine tradition  that Peter had so despised was now to be restored under the pretext of glorifying his legacy. Enormous sums of money were lavished on foreign luxury items, demonstrating the court’s new international status and its observance of western European manners ( 68.141.133 ). During the reigns of Empress Anna Ioannovna (r. 1730–40), niece of Peter I ( 1982.60.330a,b ), and her successor Elizabeth (Elizaveta Petrovna, r. 1741–62; 1978.554.2 ), Peter’s daughter, Saint Petersburg was transformed into a Baroque extravaganza through the talents of architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1700–1771) and other Western and Russian artisans. Foreign powers began to recognize Russia’s importance and competed for closer diplomatic relations. Foreign immigrants increased much faster than the local population, as scholars, craftsmen, artisans, and specialists of all kinds flocked to the country, and especially to Saint Petersburg ( 65.47 ; 1982.60.172,.173 ; 1995.327 ). Catherine the Great (r. 1762–96) In a coup d’état assisted by the five Orloff brothers ( 33.165.2a–c ; 48.187.386,.387 ), Catherine II overthrew her husband, the ill-fated Peter III (r. 1762) and became empress. Catherine saw herself as the political heir of Peter the Great. A German-born princess of Anhalt-Zerbst who, after her marriage, became more Russian than any native, Catherine aimed at completing Peter’s legacy ( 52.189.11 ; 48.73.1 ). Having lived in isolation in the shadow of Elizabeth I since her marriage to the grand duke in 1745, the time had come to satisfy her thirst for life and her insatiable quest for culture and international recognition. An admirer of the Enlightenment and devoted aficionada of Voltaire’s writings, Catherine stimulated his cult in Russia ( 1972.61 ). In response, the French philosopher dedicated a poem to the czarina; her reply, dated October 15, 1763, initiated a correspondence that influenced the empress on many matters until Voltaire’s death in 1778. The hothouse cultural climate of Saint Petersburg during Catherine’s reign can be compared to the artistic and intellectual ferment in New York City in the second half of the twentieth century. Catherine’s desire to enhance her fame and her claim to the throne was immortalized by her own witty play on words in Latin: “Petro Primo / Catharina Secunda” (To Peter the First / from Catherine the Second). This she had inscribed on the vast lump of granite in the form of a wave supporting the Bronze Horseman on the banks of the Neva in front of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. This triple-lifesize equestrian figure of Peter the Great took the French sculptor Falconet twelve years to complete, until it was finally cast—after three attempts—in 1782. Catherine had military expansion plans for Russia and a cultural vision for its capital Saint Petersburg. Above all, she knew how to attract devoted supporters. Only nine days after the overthrow of her husband, Catherine wrote to Denis Diderot, offering to print his famous Encyclopédie , which had been banned in France. Catherine recognized the power of art to demonstrate political and social maturity. She acquired entire collections of painting ( Watteau , for example), sculpture, and objects. The empress avoided anything that could be called mediocre or small. With the help of sophisticated advisors, such as Prince Dmitrii Golitsyn, her ambassador in Paris, Denis Diderot, Falconet, and the illustrious Baron Friedrich Melchior von Grimm, the empress assembled the core of today’s State Hermitage Museum. Catherine favored luxury goods from all over Europe ( 33.165.2a–c ; 48.187.386,.387 ; 17.190.1158 ). She commissioned Sèvres porcelain and Wedgwood pottery as well as hundreds of pieces of ingeniously conceived furniture from the German manufactory of David Roentgen in Neuwied ( 48.73.1 ). Furthermore, she encouraged and supported Russian enterprises and craftsmen, like local silversmiths ( 47.51.1–.5 ; 1981.367.1,.2 ) and the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory ( 1982.60.171 ; 1982.60.177,.178 ; 1982.60.175 ), as well as privately owned manufactories ( 1982.60.158 ). Catherine especially liked the sparkling decorative products of the Tula armory steel workshop ( 2002.115 ), genuine Russian art forms with a fairy-tale-like appearance, and in 1775 merged her large collection of Tula objects with the imperial crown jewels in a newly constructed gallery at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Catherine’s son and successor Paul I (Pavel Petrovich, r. 1796–1801) disliked his mother and her aesthetic sensibility ( 1998.13.1,.2 ). As grand duke, he had spent most of his time with his second wife Maria Feodorovna ( 1999.525 ) outside of Saint Petersburg, in Gatchina Palace and Pavlovsk Palace. These they transformed into the finest Neoclassical architectural gems in Europe ( 1976.155.110 ; 2002.115 ). Koeppe, Wolfram. “Saint Petersburg.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stpt/hd_stpt.htm (October 2003) Further Reading Cracraft, James. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Koeppe, Wolfram, and Marina Nudel. "An Unsuspected Bust of Alexander Menshikov." Metropolitan Museum Journal 35 (2000), pp. 161–77. Shvidkovsky, Dmitri, and Alexander Orloff. St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars . New York: Abbeville, 1995. Additional Essays by Wolfram Koeppe Koeppe, Wolfram. “ Abraham and David Roentgen .” (June 2013) Koeppe, Wolfram. “ Hungarian Silver .” (February 2016) Koeppe, Wolfram. “ Collecting for the Kunstkammer .” (October 2002) Related Essays Byzantium (ca. 330–1453) Sèvres Porcelain in the Nineteenth Century Abraham and David Roentgen Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) The Decoration of Arms and Armor East and West: Chinese Export Porcelain Edward Lycett (1833–1910) Empire Style, 1800–1815 European Tapestry Production and Patronage, 1600–1800 French Porcelain in the Eighteenth Century French Silver in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries From Italy to France: Gardens in the Court of Louis XIV and After German and Austrian Porcelain in the Eighteenth Century James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) as Etcher The Neoclassical Temple Neoclassicism Northwest Coast Indians Musical Instruments Venice in the Eighteenth Century List of Rulers List of Rulers of Europe Central Europe (including Germany), 1600–1800 A.D. Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, 1600–1800 A.D. France, 1600–1800 A.D. Iran, 1600–1800 A.D. Low Countries, 1600–1800 A.D. 17th Century A.D. 18th Century A.D. Architecture Baroque Art Eastern Europe French Literature / Poetry Gilt Silver Scandinavia Artist or Maker Anthing, Johann Friedrich Beaulieu, Pierre-François-Mathis de Blom, Johan Henrik Bouillat, Edme François, I Carlin, Martin Chisinau Court Workshop Deichman, Zacharias, the Elder Feodorovna, Maria Gardner Factory Grecke, Johan Adolph Grooth, Georg Christoph Houdon, Jean Antoine Imperial Armory, Tula Imperial Porcelain Manufactory Lajoüe, Jacques de Margas, Samuel, Jr. Nini, Jean-Baptiste Prudhomme, Elie Roentgen, David Roettiers, Jacques-Nicolas Rotari, Pietro Sèvres Manufactory Tassie, James Vereshchagin, Nikolai Stepanovich Voronikhin, Andrei N. Watteau, Antoine Online Features 82nd & Fifth: “Curls” by Wolfram Koeppe Quick Facts Sights & Attractions Tsarskoe Selo Oranienbaum Foreign St. Petersburg Restaurants & Bars Accommodation Guide St. Petersburg Hotels Serviced Apartments Bed and Breakfasts Private & Group Transfers Airport Transfers Concierge Service Russian Visa Guide Request Visa Support Walking Tours River Entertainment Public Transportation Travel Cards Essential Shopping Selection Business Directory Photo Gallery Video Gallery 360° Panoramas Moscow Hotels Moscow.Info Museums of History and Politics Peter and Paul Fortress Museums and exhibitions at the Peter and Paul Fortress As well as being one of St. Petersburg's most striking historic landmarks, the Peter and Paul Fortress is the main site of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. This large umbrella organization manages several historic buildings and monuments in St. Petersburg and the surrounding region, and uses various premises in the Peter and Paul Fortress to house permanent exhibitions chronicling different aspects of the history of the city and of the fortress itself. Visitors can currently buy a single ticket valid for all exhibitions over a two-day period, or separate tickets for individual exhibitions. Ticket offices are located in the Boathouse and Ioannovskiy Ravelin. All exhibitions are open daily from 10am to 6pm (to 5pm on Tuesdays). Closed on Wednesdays. We can help you make the right choice from hundreds of St. Petersburg hotels and hostels. Live like a local in self-catering apartments at convenient locations in St. Petersburg. Comprehensive solutions for those who relocate to St. Petersburg to live, work or study. Maximize your time in St. Petersburg with tours expertly tailored to your interests. 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Get translations for all purposes from recommended professional translators. 267 IMAGES Architectural Heritage Museum (Thesis B.Arch Thesis: National Museum of Architecture, New Delhi, by Niranjan Museum and Theatre (PDF) A Thesis Report on Designing Nepalese History Museum Thesis On Museum Object Label ⇉Visit To Art Museum Research Paper Essay Example COMMENTS PDF case study and design development of museum architecture master's report sity of Arizona Museum of Art is prepared for the University of Arizona. This program has been chosen to be part of the research of A. chitectural Expressions in Museum Architecture as the Master's Report.The research begins with the literature study and ends with the special design case: Museum of Art Building University of Arizona Museum of ... HeljaFranssila_Thesis_06122021 90 Pages. In this thesis, the digital museum experience is researched in the context of a development project for EMMA — Espoo Museum of Modern Art. The purpose of the case project was to design a concept for a digital museum service, which operates as an online platform that publishes content about contemporary art. PDF The Analysis of the Effects of Virtual Museums on Museum Experience Museum Experience Erhan İlhan Eastern Mediterranean University July 2021 Gazimağusa, North Cyprus. ... Supervisor I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science in Interior Architecture. We certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate in Thesis English Because it is chiefly a "place of meeting" of architecture with the other forms of art, the museum participates necessarily in the elaboration of an architecture that goes beyond the usual concern for "habitable" space--a functionalism derived from western civilization's pragmatism. The concept of the museum has provoked profound changes in the cultural significance of what it ... The Interplay between Spatial Layout and Visitor Paths in Modern Museum This study investigates the transformative potential of contemporary museum architecture, emphasizing the intricate relationship between management requirements and spatial design. Contemporary museum practice must adapt to diverse visitor preferences and secure operational funding beyond public sources by increasing ticket sales through personalized visitor pathways. This necessity has led to ... (PDF) Modern and contemporary art museums imagining better futures This thesis explores the potential of modern and contemporary art museums to work through critical curatorial practices for the benefit of the communities they exist for by inciting social change ... Toward a new vision to design a museum in historical places This paper attempts to be a new vision to design an important building in such sensitive places, for example, designing a museum in a historical context. The methodology of the study is a qualitative method based on a theoretical foundation. PDF NTRODUCTION TO GRADUATE RESEARCH in Museum Studies Develop editing skills. Develop skills in writing analytical essays. Develop skills in conceptualizing and organizing the research and writing of a scholarly research paper on a museum studies topic. Get to know and work with peers who are interested in the museum field and Harvard's Museum Studies Program! Accessibility in museums : where are we and where are we headed This study examines the experience of blind people in science and art museums. It is important for two reasons. First, museums have the potential to become hotbeds for the development of inclusive technology and practices. Second, improving the experience for a small section of society with special needs, blind visitors in this case, can lead ... (PDF) Olfactory Experiences in Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art This thesis examines the notion of productive multisensory experiences in museums of modern and contemporary art, as well as the pedagogy of current olfactory curatorial strategies and fruitful conceptual tools for such future strategies in art museums. It sets out to develop a theoretical framework for understanding immersive, multisensory art museum experiences as meaningful and educative ... What Are Museum Directors' Ph.D. Dissertations and Masters Theses? Museum directors— Max Hollein, Melissa Chiu, Rebecca Rabinow, more—discuss their doctoral research and how it informs their thinking today. City as a Museum: Issues & Challenges of Cultural Tourism in Saint Abstract Cultural tourism has been approached from both positive and negative perspectives. In a city with the rich cultural background, the city's growth is mainly considered as a result of the ... Exploring the influence of gamified learning on museum visitors This study integrates three main game elements—goals, stories, and role-playing—into museum visits to design a Gamified Learning Activity (GLA). To verify the effectiveness of the GLA, we ... Philosophy and Museums: Essays on the Philosophy of Museums This volume collects fifteen essays debating the value of museums, the ontology and epistemology of exhibited objects, and museum ethics. The essays stem from talks originally given at a conference at the University of Glasgow in 2013 by philosophers working both within and outside the analytic tradition, museum scholars, and museum practitioners. Museum of Seven Arts The unfolding of 21st century museum architecture stands within the nexus of art appreciation, cultural experience and environmental occurrence. Visual and spa… Dissertations / Theses: 'Museum architecture' List of dissertations / theses on the topic 'Museum architecture'. Scholarly publications with full text pdf download. Related research topic ideas. Archaeological Museum Design in Re-Used Historical Buildings This research takes these into consideration and investigates the design approaches of archaeological museums, within adaptive re-use of historical buildings, with an effective focus on contemporary display and the approaches towards achieving this goal. In the first chapter the problem definition, aim, methodology, and limitations of study are ... Thesis Report On National Museum of Architecture This document is a thesis report that proposes the design of a National Museum of Architecture. It discusses the need for such a museum to showcase India's architectural heritage and promote public understanding of the subject. The report covers various aspects of planning the museum, including proposed building location, architectural style, exhibition galleries, outdoor spaces and ... Ten theses on the museum in society Ten theses on the museum in society The foundation for this chapter was laid in 2000, a year significant not because of its symbolic value but because this is the year I was part of a museological network that discussed the relationship between authentic objects, society and communication. I contributed to a clarification of the topic by introducing the idea of focusing more on visitors and ... Saint Petersburg The young czar, feeling oppressed by the medieval traditions and ecclesiastical patriarchy of seventeenth-century Moscow, wanted to Westernize Russia in a hurry, defying the sluggish pace of history. List All Museums, Saint Petersburg, Russia List All Museums. Essential information on the twenty most popular and celebrated museums in and near St. Petersburg. Full list of museums in the centre of St. Petersburg, with essential information including opening hours, accessibility, contact details and links to further information. Museums and exhibitions at the Peter and Paul Fortress Museums and exhibitions at the Peter and Paul Fortress As well as being one of St. Petersburg's most striking historic landmarks, the Peter and Paul Fortress is the main site of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. This large umbrella organization manages several historic buildings and monuments in St. Petersburg and the surrounding region, and uses various premises in the Peter ... essay homework paper phd project resume review speech study