VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages

Abstract

The Museum of Making, located in Derby, is an exploratory case study and thus different from the Gladstone Pottery Museum, which, like most industrial museums in the UK, can be seen as a descriptive case. From the perspective of industrial heritage restoration, the former seems to be more concerned with the activated space, whereas the latter has a definite awareness of restoring the authenticity of industrial history. The Gladstone Pottery Museum was restored to explain different storylines of spatial continuity, which connect with nostalgic emotion, including workers’ lives and living conditions, and the prosperity brought by the pottery industry. In contrast, the Museum of Making presents no progress narrative connected with workers’ daily life, but rather the industrial spirit – ‘making’ as an intangible industrial heritage. This spirit appears in exhibits in different places, such as the old shop, the Italian Mill, the workshop, etc. As a non-material representation, ‘making’ as heritage is embodied in different human activities. Based on the argument in terms of different stages of restoration, it is crucial to define the purpose of restoration in the industrial heritage context. In 1963, Cesare Brandi (1906-1988) introduced a complex method of restoration in which the meaning of the restoration considers the way a work of art enters into the world, into each individual’s particular way of being in the world. He states that the restoration is recognised in its physical being as possessing a dual aesthetic and historical nature and is transmitted to the future.