VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages
Abstract
Embedded stories of the place are a journey between past and present. House museums and their narratives can take visitors on a time travel; however, the vehicle this time is the house with its objects, the way of displays, the owner’s story, and architectural heritage. These unique places challenge the encounter between past and present as well as the experience shifting from private to public visit. The transformation of house museums does not occur only through physical change; it also happens in the context and experience of the place. This study investigates the storytelling methods in house museums through the reading practice of literary texts displayed or—as a challenge—not used in house museums. We focus on two exceptional cases. The first one is Hill House in Helensburgh, Scotland, which uses fabric print displays as a tool to tell the story of the house, and Kettle’s Yard, titled itself as a no-label house by giving a less-guided uninterrupted visitor experience. Both of the places were visited, and primary methods were applied to the study as well as secondary research methods. Because of the objects’ transposition and roles in these challenging spaces, it is found that there are various points in the house museums triggered not always by reading the literal messages but also by the physical and boundaries dynamic.
Hatice Sule Ozer is a PhD student in the Architecture, Culture, and Tectonics research group in the Department of Architecture at the University of Nottingham, which she joined in July 2019. Previously, she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Interior Architecture from Turkey (2011-15) and worked as an interior designer of hotel-museums. She also has an MA in Interior Design from the University of Portsmouth (2017-18). Her interest is in narrative, domestic interiors, and museums. Recently, she has been teaching at Nottingham Trent University.
Arif R Wahid is a PhD student in the Architecture, Culture and Tectonics research group at the University of Nottingham. His research revolves around inscriptions’ position in the authors-readers dynamic within the museum context. He is also a lecturer at Universitas Indonesia, where he received his bachelor degree from its Interior Architecture programme. He then graduated from the MA Narrative Environments in Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Arif’s topics of interest are narrative, exhibition, and everyday architecture./
Jonathan Hale is an architect and Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Nottingham. He holds a PhD from Nottingham and an MSc from the University of Pennsylvania. Publications include The Future of Museum and Gallery Design (Routledge 2018), Merleau-Ponty for Architects (Routledge 2017), and Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (Routledge 2007). He was founding Chair of the AHRA./
Laura Hanks is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Nottingham, where she teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Her research interests include contemporary museum design, the architectural expression of identities and issues of narrative place making. She has published chapters in Architecture and the Canadian Fabric (UBC Press, 2012), The Future of Museum and Gallery Design (Routledge, 2018) and Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions (Routledge, 2012), which she also co-edited.
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Thursday 29th June, 2023