The subject of this thesis is the history of the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The aim of the thesis is to depict and analyze the emergence and the expansion of the library’s holdings until 1939. To fulfill the aim, two questions are asked. The first question is: Is it possible to argue that the library’s holdings were collected to document the entire world of art? The question is formulated in relation to a comment by Susan Wyngaard. According to Wyngaard, art libraries tries to document the entire world of art. The second question is: What was the point of having a library at The Göteborg Museum of Art and did the library’s holdings support the museum’s educating, aesthetic or ritual function? The question is inspired by some remarks in Carol Duncan’s book Civilizing rituals: Inside public art museums.The source material which is examined to answer the two questions consists mainly of the annual reports that the museum curator Axel Romdahl published in Göteborgs museum’s yearbook and also of two library ledgers found in The Göteborg Museum of Art. The results of the thesis are based on my observations and interpretations of the data in the annual reports and in the library ledgers. Michael Baxandall’s remark that historical objects can be explained by being treated as solutions to problems in situtations has assisted the analysis of the source material. Three conclusions are drawn in the thesis. The first conclusion is drawn in relation to Michael Baxandall’s remark that historical objects can be explained by being treated as solutions to problems in situations. The conclusion is that the visual documents that were collected in the library helped to expand the opportunities to see art at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The textual documents that were collected in the library helped solving another problem, which dealt with gathering written knowledge of art. The second conclusion is that a few specialized areas were particularly prominent during certain periods of time. In the 1910’s and in the 1920’s, the library’s holdings were focused on reproductions of graphic art and drawings made by artists from the european continent. During a few years in the beginning of the 1930’s, a large number of monographs on Swedish artists were aquired. The conclusion shows that it is not completely safe to argue that art libraries tries to document the entire world of art. The third conclusion is that the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art supported the museum’s educating function, and that the library at least had the potential to support the museum’s aesthetic and ritual function. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Avsikten med denna C-uppsats är att undersöka hur samtalet kring svensk konstmuseiarkitektur förts i inhemsk dagspress och fackpress. Detta för att kunna identifiera vilka de rådande diskurserna varit under ett sekel av svensk konstmuseiarkitektur. Två underliggande frågeställningar som också varit relevanta är huruvida dessa diskurser förändrats avseende konstmuseets form, arkitektoniska symbolvärde eller placering i stadsbilden samt huruvida dessa diskurser kan avslöja något om samhällets syn på t.ex. bildning, demokrati och kultur under drygt hundra år. För att kunna göra utföra denna undersökning valdes fyra svenska konstmuseum som objekt för analysen: Göteborgs konstmuseum; Kalmar konstmuseum; Jönköpings läns museum samt Bildmuseet i Umeå. Med hjälp av analysen har jag kunnat identifiera fem tydliga diskurser rörande konstmuseiarkitektur i Sverige. En diskurs som varit rådande under hela seklet är den om modernitet som något positivt; att museet ska framstå som modernt, samtida eller nytt, rent arkitektoniskt sett. Bland de övriga diskurserna finns "stilbrott", där museibyggnadens arkitektoniska kontrast till sin omgivning uppfattas negativt om den är allt för stor, samt en diskurs där "transparens" - med ett fokus på luft, ljus och rymd - ses som en essentiell del av konstmuseiarkitekturen. Denna undersökning pekar att de flesta diskurserna kring arkitektur är allt annat än statiska utan förändras i takt med andra sociala förändringar som påverkar konstmuseets roll i stort. / The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the discourse regarding art museum architecture in Swedish print media, with a focus on trade press magazines and daily newspapers, in order to identify the prevailing discourse(s) over the course of roughly a century. By using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis several articles in print media have been analysed, regarding the architecture of four museums built over a period of almost one hundred years: Gothenburg Museum of Art; Kalmar konstmuseum (Kalmar Art Museum); Jönköping County Museum and Bildmuseet in Umeå (Museum of Visual Arts). Five main discourses have been identified, with one predominantly present during the entire century: the importance of the museum architecture being ”modern”, ”new” or ”contemporary”. Other discourses include one that appeared after the emergence of modernism where parts of the general public associate obvious contrast between the building and its surroundings as a negative trait, and another one with an emphasis on transparency as a positive trait focusing on light and space. Overall, the discourses concerning domestic art museum architecture has been anything but static and has evolved in conjunction with changes in general architecture discourse, the symbolic value of the art museum, and social structures in the society as a whole.