As a preparation for this conference on the future city museum of Stuttgart I thought it would be a good idea to use my travels, if time allowed, visiting city museums. Off course, eclectic travel does not constitute an empirical base to speak off. But it provides anecdotic impressions or, in my case, at least it testified to the fact that the god of the city museums was not with me.
In Washington, I found, I came too late; the city museum had ceased to exist: lack of interest, lack of funds. Rome, on the contrary, certainly made me feel very special as a visitor: But then again, I was the only one. And it remains an eerie experience when visitor service walks ahead off you to turn on the light. In Vienna – (there was light; there were other visitors) – I remember two things: stumbling onto a neat replica model of Vienna anno 1420, complete with the Jewish quarter and synagogue (which, however, nobody mentioned on the story next to the replica, was completely annihilated with its inhabitants one year later) and my difficulty to find Vienna’s 20th century. Well, it took me a while to realize that there is no 20th century in the Vienna city museum.
I was a bit depressed after these visits. These institutions did not seem relevant. Neither to its topic, nor to its visitors. Which gives the easy answer to the first question: what do you ask a city museum in the 21st century to achieve? Relevance.
But when is a city museum relevant to its visitors? If visitors feel that a museum offers something to their life and that is develops, in dialogue with them, within the very same society of which we are all part off. Ideally, but that already is the high art of museum making, a museum becomes a natural point of reference or even authority in its area. A hub of connectivity, a docking station for people, ideas, discourse.
A city museum, like all museums, is a service institution that needs to find out how to best serve its public. Off course, a museum can’t be an institution of everything. It operates on a mission for which reason it is brought to life, and following its mission, it must claim a position of leadership in this field. Clearly we are not waiting for an institution that just wants to be there. While a museum, ideally, brings together expertise, knowledge, and objects to develop its mission, it needs to build bridges into the communities it wants to talk with.
As museums strive to determine their civic role and build partnerships with their constituents—often a “local” focus—they also are challenged to communicate with and serve national and international audiences—the “global” focus. Urban centers have become transnational areas that are no longer defined solely by their nations, but by the ever changing mix of permanent and temporary residents with widely diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Globalization is happening right in our own neighborhoods. Interaction with these diverse constituencies, both transnational and local, is challenging museums to develop new communication skills.
A museum exists by the grace of communication. In this sense, visitors are co-owners. It is their museum. Only then visitors will be willing to consider this place of learning as their place to turn to, to engage with, to fund, to take into account. Which issues should a city museum address and which questions should it put forward to its visitors?
A city museum is a reflection of an increasingly globalized urban hub. The more we come from all places, the more we struggle with the longing for home, our sense of identity, the possibility of human connections, and the art of peaceful dialogue. The old circle of questions: where do we come from, how did we become what we are, and where are we going from here has not become easier to respond to. But it might serve as a frame for our questions towards a city museum and for its audiences:
– How can we strengthen a sense of home and connection despite and with our diverse backgrounds and conflicting values?
– How do we support respect for identities in all their shapes while building an understanding that people change and have the right to do so, especially when they question the traditions they were brought up in?
– What are the connective tissues in our differences: family, friends, the pursuit of happiness, religion, work, sex, the place we inhabit?
– How can we strengthen a democratic dialogue?
With their collections as their core, and with their missions of civic responsibility and building community, museums, more than any other institution, have the potential to create real understanding between cultures. Museums at their best have the special ability to make us feel—wherever we come from—culturally “at home”.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE LECTURE
Klaus Mueller: Remarks. In: A City museum for the 21st century. Documentation of an international expert hearing for the planned city museum of Stuttgart, Sep 25-26, 2007.