Engaging displays of architecture and design history : approaches to museum exhibition practice

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Date

2018-06-26

Authors

Ground, Bridget Gayle

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Abstract

In spring 2019 the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, will present the exhibition tentatively titled Toward Everyday Design: Making and Selling the Arts and Crafts Idea, co-curated by university faculty members and historians of architecture and design Christopher Long and Monica Penick. Using this planned exhibition as a case study, this thesis investigates the capacity of the museum exhibition as a medium for conveying histories of architecture and design to broad, public audiences in an accessible, meaningful, and engaging way. To situate Toward Everyday Design in the broader context of exhibition practice, I consider the traditional and contemporary approaches to museum exhibitions, particularly of architecture and design. I argue that opportunities for engagement with the exhibition can be enhanced through a thoughtful balance of these approaches, as well as through approaches related to the exhibition’s authorship, the objects it features, their spatial arrangement and display, and the exhibition’s accompanying interpretive texts and programs. The resulting discussion offers specific strategies for presenting architecture and design histories in public museum exhibitions, while illuminating the value that such projects have for local and scholarly communities.

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