Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University. PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-01

Across cities in America and the world old buildings are retired to the fate of demolition. The once glorious piece of architecture are seen as unwanted, eyesores and just not fit for today's needs. This thesis seeks to show that with an adaptive-reuse approach, one can restore the 'lost glory' of such old buildings and even add new undiscovered value to its performance and architectural richness. / Master of Architecture / In the cycle of architecture, old buildings are often demolished while few are reutilized to regain new purpose. The once glorious piece of architecture is seen as insignificant for today's fickle needs as key issues such as population growth and modernization become evident. Developers and key decision-makers understand the parallel connection of population growth and the need for increased structure to supply growth’s demands. In efforts to maximize profits, owners and developers are hasty to demolish buildings without considering the potential of reinvention. Adaptive reuse is the act of reinventing an existing building for a new use and purpose by adding or subtracting from it current state and making it more fitting to serve its new use. This thesis shows the adaptive-reuse approach and illustrates how the restoration of old buildings reveals new value to the building’s performance and architectural richness.

Thesis advisor: Marjorie Howes / Focusing on elegiac dimensions of the museum, Reinventing the Museum: Textured Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Women’s Elegies contends that Eavan Boland, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and Gwendolyn Brooks help us conceive a new spatial imaginary, which addresses traditionally underrepresented subject matters and historiographies with ethical alertness. Reading their works and their affective-experiential modes through an interdisciplinary feminist lens, this dissertation explores the ways in which the four women poets revise and update Julia Kristeva’s foundational concept of women’s time. Their decision to draw from museums—both physical and metaphorical—foregrounds woman’s embodied self and its relational ontology, ultimately to challenge the dominant dynamics of historiographical, literary canon formation. Functioning as bookends are my chapters on Boland and Brooks whose writings about Irish and Black experiences respectively explore tactics of space-making at the face of postcolonial, post-slavery displacements and diasporas. Taking Boland’s museum elegies as a point of departure, I move on to Plath’s plastic self-elegies where an inquiry into the plasticity of the self and theatrics of self-exhibit happens. Next, I examine Bishop’s shift from Enlightenment taxonomization to love as a possible antidote to enlightenment culture. Straddling between love poetry and elegy, Bishop’s prismatic love elegies often cast a discursive journey to proto-museums with the beloved as a figure for love. Her occasional superimposition of the lover on the racial other gestures towards Brooks’s necropolitical elegies and elegies of necropolitics, the latter of which resonate with the mission of Black neighborhood museums. Each assigned with a textured materiality—textile, plastic, light, and firmness, respectively—the chapters are divided into three sections that proceed from the poets’ problem posing to their attempt to think through the identified problem. On a broader scale, the chapters progress from the most concrete, fungible, and tangible materiality to the least, which points to a way of being, an attitude towards life. Assigning textured materialities to each chapter additionally draws attention to the interstices between the formal materiality of poetic language and nonlinguistic gestures and speech sounds. In this manner, my project actively builds on the momentum of and expand current debates in and around genre theory, phenomenology, affect studies, a version of historical materialism, postcolonial/Black studies, and museum studies. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

This thesis explores the atmospheric sequences within a steel museum located in the South Side Works of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The South Side Works, once a historic steel production area, is now undergoing renewal and redevelopment, yet it still retains traces of its industrial past. The exploration begins by examining the pre-union steel production space, characterized by hazardous conditions, limited natural lighting, and uncomfortable indoor temperatures. Visitors are transported to the 19th-century factory workers' world, experiencing the dim light from above, sweltering heat, dirt on the ground, and the large scale of the production space. This atmosphere contrasts with the post-union era, marked by enhanced natural light, modern steel construction, and a connection to the outdoors. The shift signifies increased attention to workers' rights and well-being, moving from dehumanization to humanization, symbolized by the "Union Hall" where workers advocated for their rights.The "Union Hall", which is the turning point of the journey, serves as a symbol of empowerment and progress for steelworkers.Technological advancements have further improved the working environment, making the production process more standardized and automated. This thesis aims to narrate the story through the qualities of spaces—scale, steel construction, materials, and light—by utilizing architecture study methods including modeling, sketches, lighting studies, and architectural drawings. By showcasing two contrasting spaces, it explores how the sequence of space, along with materials, light, and scale, shapes the architectural spaces and atmosphere within the museum, reflecting the evolution from furnace to fairness. / Master of Architecture / This thesis explores the atmospheric sequences within a steel museum located in the South Side Works of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The South Side Works, once a historic steel production area, is now undergoing renewal and redevelopment, yet it still retains traces of its industrial past. The exploration begins by examining the pre-union steel production space, characterized by hazardous conditions, limited natural lighting, and uncomfortable indoor temperatures. This atmosphere contrasts with the post-union era, marked by enhanced natural light, modern steel construction, and a connection to the outdoors. The shift signifies increased attention to workers' rights and well-being, moving from dehumanization to humanization, symbolized by the "Union Hall" where workers advocated for their rights.The "Union Hall", which is the turning point of the journey, serves as a symbol of empowerment and progress for steelworkers. This thesis aims to narrate the story through the qualities of spaces—scale, steel construction, materials, and light—by utilizing architecture study methods including modeling, sketches, lighting studies, and architectural drawings.

This master thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies is written as part of the final examination of the Master Program in Archive, Library and Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies at Uppsala university. The study is also done within the framework of the Kulturarvet som högskolepedagogisk resurs vid Uppsala universitet project at Uppsala university.The thesis focus on the university museums in Uppsala and their relationships to LGBTQ. The main theoretical framework consists of queer theory and critical cultural heritage theory. The qualitative methods used are interviews and close reading. The study aims to analyze the way the Uppsala university museum managers talk about museums and LGBTQ and study the legal framework and the political climate in Sweden in regards to LGBTQ-issues at university museums.A central conclusion is a problematic framework surrounding the university museums and LGBTQ. The university museums exist in a gray area between being museums and parts of the university. This means specific laws, regulations, recommendations and guidelines about LGBTQ-issues at museums and universities are hard to apply at the university museums. The Uppsala university museum managers give voice to a situation where the museums lack the recourses and the incentive to deal with the complex issue of LGBTQ representation and perspectives. The close relationship between specific academic fields and the university museums also reflects in the way the museums deal with LGBTQ. This affects the way the museums interact with the university and the public since the museums unintentionally reproduce old heteronormative narratives. / I takt med att föreställningar och attityder i samhället förändras händer även något med museers verksamhet. Både sett till vad museer väljer att fokusera på och vad samhället förväntar sig av verksamheterna. Hbtq har kommit att bli allt mer aktuellt för de svenska museerna under de senaste åren. Denna studie har tittat på hur Uppsala universitetsmuseer förhåller sig till hbtq-perspektiv och -frågor. Studien utgår från kvalitativa intervjuer med museichefer från de fyra universitetsmuseerna som finns i Uppsala. De berörda museerna är Evolutions-museet, Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala linneanska trädgårdar och Medicin-historiska museet. Vad museicheferna berättar och hur de resonerar kring hbtq i relation till sina respektive verksamheter studeras. Likaså omfattar studien en närläsning av Uppsala universitets policydokument och verksamhetsmål, relevant lagstiftning samt kultur- och utbildningspolitiska dokument. I grunden finns ett teoretiskt perspektiv som tar utgång ur queerteori och kritiska kulturarvsstudier. Ett återkommande tema är den komplexa kontexten universitetsmuseerna befinner sig i. Bristen på direktiv och applicerbar lagstiftning innebär att hbtq inte integrerats i universitetsmuseernas verksamhet. Trots att museicheferna visade intresse för frågorna gav de även uttryck för upplevda svårigheter med att integrera och arbeta med hbtq i verksamheterna, vilket återspeglas i avsaknaden av satsningar. Detta kan ses som ett resultat av bortprioritering av frågorna inom Uppsala universitetet bl.a. som följd av en heteronormativt syn inom akademiska fält. Problematiken i relation till detta är att det påverkar vad museerna förmedlar till allmänheten och studenter samt vilka möjligheter det finns att inkludera universitetsmuseer i Uppsala universitets undervisning och forskning. / Kulturarvet som högskolepedagogisk resurs på Uppsala universitet

Denna uppsats har berört Ivar Johnssons verk ”Arbete och Livsbejakelse” (1939) som finns placerad på fasaden av Östergötlands museum. Uppsatsens syfte är att beskriva verkets tillkomsthistoria samt undersöka dess relation till arbetartematiken och ideologi. Tillkomsthistorien har kunnat skrivas genom en redogörande genomgång av museibyggnadskommitteens protokoll samt samtida press. För undersökningen av verkets innehåll och motivbild har en analys gjorts med utgångspunkt från Erwin Panofskys och Jan- Gunnar Sjölins metoder. En diskussion görs efter analysen och resultatet visar att man kan se ideologiska tendenser i verket och att motiven kan ses följa arbetartematiken. / This essay has touched Ivar Johnson's works "Arbete och livsbejakelse" (1939) which are placed on the facade of Östergötlands museum. The purpose of this thesis is to describe the history about the origin of the artwork and examine its relationship to the working-class themes and ideology. The history about the origin of the artwork has been written by a narrative review of protocol, from the comittee of museum building and the contemporary press. For the survey of the work's content and motives image, an analysis has been made based on Erwin Panofsky and Jan-Gunnar Sjölins methods. A discussion is made after the analysis and the results show that one can see the ideological tendencies in the work and that the motives can be seen following the work themes.

This study of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum challenges readers to examine Barnum in a new light. An argument is made that P.T. Barnum was a successful museum educator whose philosophies and actions align with three modern museum education discourses: free-choice learning, constructivism, and edutainment. These findings challenge the commonly-held belief that Barnum was simply a showman, best known for his work in the circus and for a quote that has been mis-attributed to him that, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” The research undertaken for this investigation focuses on museums and education in the nineteenth century. This study presents a brief history of the emergence of museums in America, spanning the years 1782–1841. Six museum proprietors are discussed in accordance with their beliefs in three educational philosophies: popular education, useful education and didactic education. A focus is then made towards P.T. Barnum and his American Museum. A brief biography of Barnum prior to his career as a museum proprietor is included. The holdings and organization of the American Museum is described, revealing some of the influence it had on nineteenth-century culture. The thesis concludes by illustrating how Barnum’s American Museum exemplified three forms of education: free-choice learning, constructivism, and edutainment. In it I argue that Barnum was an effective museum educator and his legacy should reflect this important feature of his character. / text

<p><strong></strong>This essay is a case study based on two sources of empirical data, qualitative interviews and responses from a questionnaire, which examines upper secondary school students’ attitudes to history teaching in a museum context. The students’ answers are further analyzed in relation to the concept of historical consciousness. Thus, history teaching in the museum, from a student perspective, and the students’ capacity of expressing a historical consciousness in their answers, constitute the core of this essay. The motive for a case study like this, is the emphasis of historical consciousness in the course syllabus as well as the emphasis of cooperation between different educational institutions in the goverment’s goals of cultural politics. My study shows, that a majority of the students appreciate the museum as a learning context, they define it as an entertaining but also as an informative, involving and including milieu. The study further shows, that the students have difficulties expressing a historical consciousness, but also the complexity of the concept itself and the problems to identify and “measure” it. My conclusion is, that in order to stimulate an interest and understanding for the history subject – and perhaps even a historical consciousness – it is important that history as a school subject, is not confined within the four walls of a classroom, but is learnt and experienced through and within the center of our daily lifes.</p>

There are about 300 archaeological open-air museums in Europe. Their history goes from Romanticism up to modern-day tourism. With the majority dating to the past 30 years, they do more than simply present (re)constructed outdoor sceneries based on archaeology. They have an important role as education facilities and many showcase archaeology in a variety of ways. Compared to other museum categories, archaeological open-air museums boast a wide variety of manifestations. This research assesses the value of archaeological open-air museums, their management and their visitors, and is the first to do so in such breadth and detail. After a literature study and general data collection among 199 of such museums in Europe, eight archaeological open-air museums from different countries were selected as case studies. They included museums in a very varied state with different balances between public versus private funding levels on the one hand, and on the other the proportion of private individuals to educational groups among their visitors. The issue of ‘quality’ was investigated from different perspectives. The quality as assessed by the museum management was recorded in a management survey; the quality as experienced by their visitors was also recorded using a survey. In addition on-site observations were recorded. Management and visitors have different perspectives leading to different priorities and appreciation levels. The studies conclude with recommendations, ideas and strategies which are applicable not just to the eight archaeological open-air museums under study, but to any such museum in general. The recommendations are divided into the six categories of management, staff, collections, marketing, interpretation and the visitors. They are designed to be informative statements of use to managers across the sector.

Museums are culturally constructed as places dedicated to tastemaking, preservation, historical record, and curation. Yet the contemporary isn’t yet absorbed by history, so as museums incorporate contemporary art these commonly accepted functions are disrupted. Through case studies, this thesis examines the successes and failures of three New York museums (MoMA, Dia:Beacon and New Museum) as they grapple with the challenging, perhaps irresolvable, tension between the contemporary and the very idea of the museum.