Urban Places and Interior Spaces - Essay Example

Interior Spaces Museums are most broadly defined as a collection warehouse for a composite collection of objects which each have their own shapes, functions, designs, purposes, materials and other qualities. While these can often be appreciated simply for their own values based upon their aesthetics, their significance or the richness of their materials, it is becoming increasingly understood that a great deal of the importance of these objects rests upon their context within the greater fabric of the society in which they were produced. Kavanaugh (1990) indicates that social languages have essentially three component parts, one of which is the direct use of signs and symbols in the form of objects and space while the other two, non-verbal communication such as gestures and body language and verbal communication such as speech and writing, can also be preserved somewhat in the objects that are left behind and can help in determining the culture from which the object originated. Because objects share a role in the interrelated social communication modes of a particular society, the interpretation of these objects may differ from one society to the next or even one time period to the next. The way in which it is interpreted can not only provide significant contextual clues to the society from which it was produced, but can also reflect the understanding of the society attempting to place the object within its correct contextual space. (Boudjit, 2000). In addition, that exact same object, for example a specific vase, may take on different contextual meanings as it passes through time, originally used as a container for liquid, later taking on the ashes of a dearly departed relative and finally symbolizing perhaps a golden age in the progression of a nation. “[An object] can never convey one single message, uncorrected, unambiguous and unqualified. Different social perceptions, needs and changing attitudes will see to that” (Kavanaugh 111). In order to better understand the context in which a particular object was employed and thus reveal insight into the culture of the era, museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Geffrye Museum have worked to preserve examples of interior spaces and domesticity. In response to the rapid changes that were taking place during the nineteenth century, there was a general push to begin preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, both as a means of promoting pride in country as well as an attempt to encourage trade in domestic goods. However, attempting to define the term ‘cultural heritage’ spawns a great deal of conversation. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2008), the term ‘culture’ has at least six definitions. One defines culture as “enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training” (“Culture”, 2008). Each definition suggests culture is defined in terms of something that is learned as well as preserved, passed from generation to generation, but remains unclearly defined. To make things easier, culture is generally considered to be a community of people held together by generally shared conceptions politically, socially, economically and spiritually. The word ‘heritage’ is defined as “property that descends to an heir; something transmitted by or acquired from a predecessor; something possessed as a result of one’s natural situation or birth” (“Heritage”, 2008). Daniel Snowman (2004) defines the term as anything of significance that we have inherited from the past, which includes objects and material goods as well as ideas, knowledge and wisdom. Generally, then, we can define the term ‘cultural heritage’ as referring to the information, ideas, concepts and material objects that have passed down from generation to generation within a particular region or area. As applied to Britain, it refers to a predominantly Caucasian Christian patriarchal approach to life and the history of feudalism, urbanization, industrialization and modernization. “The stories and places of contemporary heritage are often the most overt examples of the contemporary politics of the past, but other historical forms, including the writing of … geography, need to consider the implications of the ways in which the past is retold. Much of the stimulus for this critical reflection … comes from challenges to local, national, or global historical narratives, which have excluded or marginalized women, the working class, minority ethnic groups, indigenous people or the histories and cultures of the non-western world” (Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000: 5). So cultural heritage is the preservation of a specific set of artefacts, knowledge, ideas and beliefs held by a particular group of people passed along from one generation to another taking on new meanings and understandings based upon the way in which they are presented and approached and the amount of information that is preserved. The way in which preservation was to take shape remained a matter of interpretation as well. The Victoria and Albert Museum began comprising its collection in response to a need for national identity in an increasingly expanding world (Heartney, 2001). Industrialization was changing the face of the nation and life at every level was changing as a result. The museum was developed as a means of providing England with some preservation of the values of the past even in the shifting atmosphere of the present. “It was anticipated it would educate students, industrialists, and artisans in matters of taste and thus help to stem the flow of foreign design imports to Britain, a growing cause of economic concern in political circles” (“Victoria and Albert Museum”, 2004). While a great deal of its earlier efforts were geared toward acquisition of representative artifacts from various eras, the museum put the British Galleries in place in November 2001, designed to depict as much as possible the living spaces of the past while displaying the greatest variety of their large collection (Brod, 2002). Walking through the galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum gives the viewer an impression of those items that were important to expressions of culture and tradition, but this impression is often difficult to understand within the appropriate context. For example, Room 125 at the Victoria and Albert Museum is entitled the Morris, Dresser and Mackintosh Room and is focused on displaying the different types of art that were produced in the late 19th century. “These included aestheticism, a style based on the philosophy of ‘art for art’s sake’, the arts and crafts style as well as the strikingly modern style of the Scottish Designers, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Macdonald sisters” (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2006). Characteristics of these modern Scottish designers included a heavy influence from Oriental art, particularly Japanese, which focused on simplicity of line, concordance with nature and purity of form. This exhibit-wide emphasis on these attributes helps bring the viewer’s attention to these details as they exist within the objects displayed. “The museum serves as a frame commanding the viewer to act in a specific way, viewing the object with close attention, respect and expectation of pleasure” (Landow, 2001). However, this vision rarely has much to do with recreating a contemporary setting and much more to do with the literal display of objects in as tight a space as possible. Perhaps the closest the museum comes to attempting to convey a sense of domesticity within this room can be found in its representation of the Macintosh chair. The chair is given a special prominence by placing it in an almost homelike setting. By providing a suggestion of a fireplace to one side of chair through the clever display of a fireplace screen and with plenty of lighting to highlight it as a significant work, the chair is brought into a new context that helps it compete against other more attention grabbing objects in the room. Unlike the other walls in this room, the wall against which the chair stands is left clear and uncluttered, with only two pieces of artwork hanging above the pseudo-fireplace to reduce the stark quality of the corner. This isolation of the piece serves as a negative space that naturally draws the viewer’s attention in a more subtle but perhaps more effective way than many of the other displays in the room. In addition, lighting in this corner seems brighter somehow, further directing the viewer’s attention to this area of the room in a way that helps the chair hold its own against the more elaborate pieces present. The clear wall behind the chair assists the viewer in discerning the ability of the chair’s design to highlight the sense of space above it while remaining a solid, trustworthy piece of furniture down below. The white color of the wall behind the dark wood of the chair also helps to highlight the various ways in which the chair works to create a sense of space around it. The narrowness of the seat is most likely lost as an important aspect of the design in the modern world as more and more people become accustomed to squeezing into tiny spaces on the train or other transport, but even this is somehow emphasized in the display as the seat seems to draw in on itself within its allotted space. Despite the fact that the chair cannot possibly be shown in its intended context, as a specially designed series of chairs intended to furnish a busy and crowded tearoom (Glasgow School of Art, 2006), given the space of the museum and the impracticality of the use, this display still works in a way that attempts to highlight those aspects of the design that would have been important to understand within the correct context. Similarly, the return to Gothic artwork as illustrated in the William Burges decanter is seen not on a table next to its matching glass as might be expected had the museum taken an approach to try to illustrate the ‘living history’ of the object, but is instead found within a locked glass cabinet in a grouping that has little to do with its original intent. The decanter is housed in the sacred glass room at the Victoria and Albert Museum alongside a sliver platter and another example of a decanter and its matching goblet. The matching tumbler that was designed for use with the Burges decanter has been separated from it and is now housed in the Silver room at the V&A. This removes from it its intended doubled effect as the decanter was put to use in the home of James Nicholson who probably originally commissioned the piece (“Decanter”, 2006). However, in its present display, the green glass of the decanter is able to contrast strongly against the pale silver of the platter behind it while the heavily worked areas contrast against the platter’s smooth surface, showing off the technology and artistry involved in the period. Seen next to the other decanter, William Burges’ work is able to grab the viewer’s attention and hold it as the eye traces over and over again the various lines and structures involved on its intricate surface. In contrast to the Victoria and Albert museum spaces, the Geffrye Museum focuses more upon presenting a ‘real-world’ context to its pieces, displaying each room in its gallery as if it were a room in the living spaces of the people who originally used to the objects displayed. A great deal of the importance of a cultural heritage is its ability to connect the past to the future, tracing the various stages that have been reached in between and informing new generations of what has been tried and failed or tried and succeeded in the past (Munshi, 2001). The idea of how we got to where we are as a society is embedded in where we’ve been and what our goals and aspirations have attempted. A predominant portion of the nation’s history is filled with the rural lifestyle with only the occasional elite element of the country manor and the defensive and opulent castles of the royalty. Stories existing out of the middle ages are full of epic battles, travels through sparsely populated country, images of vast forests and romantic tales of knights and ladies. This is contrasted sharply against further images of Victorian Industrialization with its smokestacks, grimy streets and the massive in-pouring of country citizens all seeking a new means of making their fortunes and escaping their sometimes generations old family position in the social hierarchy. The Victorian period has a great deal of significance in the development of Britain’s Industrial heritage and the development of the concept of the museum as a means of preserving the past for the future not only in the significant shift that took place during this period in time in social, economic and national terms. The growing urge to preserve concepts and lifestyles of the past through the use of art and museums combined in this era with the concepts of colonization (Williams, 1985). Colonization introduced a crisis of identity into the English heritage to a degree never previously encountered, instigating a need for a new definition of what it meant to be English, introducing or greatly expanding a specific culture. By preserving the living spaces, as they were experienced in these different time periods, the Geffrye Museum attempts to provide a better understanding of what people living in these periods considered comfortable, inspirational, impressive or necessary. Room 1 of the Geffrye Museum is an excellent example of this sort of display. Within a heavily panelled corner and the representation of diamond-leaded frosted glass windows, several representative pieces of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century are displayed in appropriate context with each other. One can imagine people living within this context as the ‘hall’ is presented, using the table to play games and to eat and stools to sit. This is important because, as Matthew Johnson suggests, “the structure and layout of domestic architecture relate not only to functional and economic considerations, but also to the cultural and mental life of its users” (1993). The stable horizontal and vertical lines of the hall bring the viewer into harmony with a more stable and less hurried pace to life during this time period. The omnipresent fireplace highlights the room as the family gathering place while the presence of the single armchair suggests the honored seat of the house as well as the relative social position of the room. The room is further warmed by a woven rush mat spread across the wood floors. While this room may seem cold and harsh to modern viewers more accustomed to cushioned recliners and ergonomically designed curves (Duskmaiden, 2006), the combined usability and display potential of the room is immediately evident, causing one to feel as if a step in time has been taken. Like the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Geffrye has a collection of objects as well as furnishings to depict various cultural eras but, unlike the V&A, the Geffrye allows these objects to appear in the room as they might naturally. A candlestick holder placed on the table seems available to provide light to those wishing to read after dark in the ages before electricity. A period representative bottle is also on hand, seemingly ready to provide refreshment to an individual who had recently left the room. Any duplication in objects is intentional while objects are selected to both illustrate the taste and techniques of the times while focusing on representing a single family room. Perhaps the most striking element of wandering through the progressive rooms of the Geffrye is the realization of the progression of culture and taste through the ages. Moving through the later rooms of the museum illustrates the types of vast changes and upheaval introduced during the Industrial Revolution, roughly taking place from the middle of the 1700s into the late 1800s (“Introduction”, 2001). Mass production and significant changes in economic base introduced a new world view that challenged traditional social structures and provided opportunity for the enterprising common man. Life began its transition from being primarily dictated by the land one owned to an economic structure based on commerce and manufacturing (Greenblatt, 2005). Social class structures were beginning to break down as common men were able to make fortunes in industry and landowners found it more and more difficult to keep the idyllic life they’d constructed alive. Progressing through the rooms into the 1800s and 1900s illustrates these changes both in the types and numbers of objects used to decorate each room. They become increasingly varied in terms of texture and color, walls become more heavily decorated and surfaces become more cluttered. While early rooms such as the 1630 room depict a quiet lifestyle with a low emphasis on cultural entertainments, later rooms display more and more conformity with cultural traditions such as the ubiquitous tea set, the portrait miniature and the drawing room instruments that remained an important element of entertainment until the advent of mass media. After wandering through the entire collection, one has a sense of having ‘grown up’ along with the culture and design of the previous four centuries. The insight gained from the journey helps to inform the direction of the future and inspirations of the past. Although both of these museums saw their inceptions in what is collectively referred to as the Victorian era, their approaches as to how best to preserve the heritage of the past can be seen to be widely different. With the increase in colonization and travel among the elite classes, private collections began to be compiled of foreign oddities, local talent and treasures of the past. In this scenario, the only individuals capable of viewing such collections were typically other members of the elite class as “the social stratification of this period, where class, speech and manners marked one class off from another … would have precluded the lower classes and uneducated from mingling in the same rooms as the middle and upper classes and the educated” (Hudson, 1975). The Great Exhibition held in London in 1851 introduced the concept of making this art and technology more accessible to the masses. “These exhibitions attracted vast numbers of people, who were able to visit them with the advent of the railway age. These trade fairs persuaded governments that museums could be used as a means of social utility and social control; the population could utilize their spare time constructively by visiting museums and educating themselves, becoming more civilized in the process. These world fairs also persuaded governments that museums had the power to imbue a sense of national pride in the population” (Bazin, 1967). Thus, the museum emerged as the repository of the heritage of the past, the preserver of the people as it became the means by which heritage was identified and defined. In attempting to illustrate this cultural heritage, museums such as the V&A can be seen to have focused largely upon collecting as many representative pieces as possible for the various periods and regions of the realm and displaying them in conjunction with pieces from home and abroad created in the same time period that might have provided inspiration. In contrast, museums such as the Geffrye focus on illustrating more completely how these objects functioned within the living spaces of real people during the various time periods and is thus able to convey a more complete sense of the culture and design changes as they occurred within a real-life context. Works Cited Bazin, Germain. The Museum Age. New York: Universe Books, 1967. Boudjit, Souad. “The Role of Objects in Design Co-operation: Communication through Physical or Virtual Objects.” COOP2000. France: 2000. August 22, 2008 Brod, Nick. “Diving in at the Deep End – The British Galleries at the V&A.” Museums and the Web 2002. Pittsburgh, PA: Archives and Museum Informatics, 2002. “Culture.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 2008. August 22, 2008 “Decanter.” Collections. Victoria and Albert Museum, 2006. Duskmaiden, Sarah. “Who Lived in a House Like This? (Geffrye Museum, London).” Dooyoo. (17 December, 2006). Glasgow School of Art. “Macintosh Chair.” Scran, 2006. Graham, B; Ashworth, G.J. & Tunbridge, J.E. A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture and Economy. London: Arnold, 2000. Greenblatt, Stephen (Ed.). “Introduction: The Victorian Age.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 8. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Heartney, Eleanor. “Fracturing the Imperial Mind – Victoria and Albert Museum and Serpentine Gallery Collaborate on Exhibition in London.” Art in America. (July 2001). “Heritage.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 2008. August 22, 2008 Hudson, Kenneth. A Social History of Museums. New York: Macmillan, 1975. “Introduction to Romanticism.” A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature. New York: Brooklyn College, 2001. Johnson, Matthew. Housing Culture: Traditional Architecture in an English Landscape. London: UCL Press Limited, 1993. Kavanaugh, Gaynor. “Objects as Evidence.” History Curatorship. Leichester: Leichester University Press, 1990. “Morris, Dresser and Mackintosh, Room 125.” British Galleries. Victoria and Albert Museum, 2006. Retrieved 21 August 2008 from Munshi, Surendra. “On the Importance of Cultural Heritage.” Vitasta. 2001. Snowman, Daniel. “On the Heritage Trail: Daniel Snowman has been tracking down what Britain’s ‘Historic Heritage’ means to some of those in charge of it.” History Today. September, 2004. “Victoria and Albert Museum.” Modern Design Dictionary: A Dictionary of Modern Design. Oxford University Press, 2004. Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Read More