museums

What is (of our) human making?

by Michael Shanks

I have joined the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam as part of a new exhibition program. This extraordinary museum [Link] holds the largest collection of contemporary art in the Netherlands. Experiments in temporary and often provocative exhibitions, rather than permanent displays of the collection, are the museum’s specialty, and it runs over twenty a…

Bill Moggridge, and the museum as design studio

by Michael Shanks

Bill Moggridge has died. With his warmth and sense of humor he embodied the human in human-centered design. Bill in class at Stanford, before he went off to direct Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum – click on images to enlarge The obituaries give the details of Bill’s extraordinary contribution to industrial design. With Bernie…

this happened here – presence and authenticity in an archaeological sensibility

by Michael Shanks

Gary (Devore) has brought my attention to a remarkable new publication from the Panstwowe Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau [Link] “The Auschwitz Album” or “Lili Jacob Album” comprises about 200 photographs taken by the German SS and depicting the arrival of a transport of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp in 1944. This new collection takes 31…

creative spaces

by Michael Shanks

I have just received a copy of Make space: How to set the stage for creative collaboration, from Stanford d.school’s Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft – [Link] It is about the wonderful environment of the Peterson Building, home of the d.school, how it came to look the way it does, with its customized fittings, studios,…

Beamish – quiddities

by Michael Shanks

Beamish – Living Museum of the North – [Link] Historical textures of the everyday. I first wrote about Beamish in my book with Chris Tilley – ReConstructing Archaeology (1987) [Link] Focusing on the narrative that frames the museum, I hated the clichéed, static, and ideological experience it presented of the north-east of England. There is…