How to do new things with old things?

According to the dictionary, house museums are called ‘Memory museums’ because it shows the ‘collection of the trace of the people who lived there.’ So, historic house museum is telling about the social history of certain people, and even the story of a certain region and historical period. If the people who stayed in the house were historical figures, the place would become more qualified as a house museum than others. I think this Powel House museum is the case.

As I was traveling around the Powel House Museum, it was interesting to look, touch, and listen to its own episodes of every single furniture and ornament. Also, this house museum seems to be meaningful by making sort of community bonds, judging from the fact that people who related to this house tried to keep the original one no to destroy. Especially, the carved words on a leaf of a door, saying ‘“Powel House 244 S 3^rd Philadelphia Original Shutter - Please Save” was very impressive. Even during the transitional period the project for restoring was attempting, and those 'forward-thinking' museum professional people kept trying to do new educational programs and improve display methods.

Comparing to this way of putting meanings to the museum in terms of preserving, the way of engaging visitors’ interest (Ghost Tour) seems for me to be unrelated to the house museums except the concept of ‘old’ place. As one of the important living history places, is this the way of creating meanings and network connections? Making people come in with events, and then look into the museum? Even so, to tell the truth, I am still not able to figure out what kind of real significance that house museums are carrying other than just historical places. This might be the reason that there was the ‘parking lot revolution’ incident. I think that people who did not think the building was meaningful enough wanted to use more space to store their cars, destroying the houses.

Penn Museum Review

     Penn Museum is called "an internationally renowned educational and research institution dedicated to the understanding of cultural diversity and the exploration of the history of humankind." It was named 'Free Museum of Science and Art,' but changed as a fee-charging museum with the present name. The museum shows us how architecture and archeology appears in each human culture. 

      According to the video clips in audiovisual room, the director of the museum brought the stuffs in the museum to the TV show, called ‘What in the world?’ Never heard of it, it was very popular for about 20 years since 1950’s. At the show, he invited some experts, artists, and celebrities to introduce the object, give some visual examinations, and talk to the public. This interesting story was available to hear at the ‘Video Theater’ inside the Roman World exhibition. There are 6 each story about the museum and one of its collections. Among them, the most interesting thing was about a Crystal Sphere from China in Qing Dynasty. While I was watching the video, I was wondering why they didn’t put this wonderful content before visitors tour the China exhibition just as they did for Egyptian Sphinx exhibition. It was much easier and much more interesting to walk around the displays after seeing the videos. 

      Right after watching the video clips, I directly went back to the crystal to check out. It had no meanings until I know what was going on behind it. And then, when looking below the display, there was a sign ‘Adopt Me.’ This sign was attached Not only on the crystal, but also on the ‘Lioness with Cub’ statues. Why they are trying to give away the artifacts that they scraped and preserved for quite a long time? If more visualized information is given in advance of touring, it would be much helpful to get closer to the contents of the museum.