Misplaced Pages

#233766

21-499: Abingdon County Hall Museum (also known as Abingdon Museum ) is a local museum in Abingdon , Oxfordshire, England. The museum is run by Abingdon Town Council and supported by Abingdon Museum Friends, a registered charity . It is a Grade I listed building . The building was built as a county hall for Berkshire , Abingdon being Berkshire's county town ; it was to serve as the principal sessions house and administrative home for

42-401: A bank or a railroad depot. Many local museums are also open-air museums in which several historical buildings from the area have been collected in some museum villages and rebuilt in a new location. In some cases the character of the local history museum is superimposed with the representation of a famous or well-known person from the area, or focuses on a single branch of the economy that

63-634: A different time and place and perform everyday household tasks, crafts, and occupations. The goal is to demonstrate older lifestyles and pursuits to modern audiences. Household tasks might include cooking on an open hearth , churning butter , spinning wool and weaving , and farming without modern equipment. Many living museums feature traditional craftsmen at work, such as a blacksmith , pewtersmith , silversmith , weaver , tanner , armorer , cooper , potter , miller , sawyer , cabinet-maker , woodcarver , printer , doctor, and general storekeeper . The North American open-air museum, more commonly called

84-401: A historically significant or thematically typical building; it is often a former public building such as a school building, a former courthouse, or city/town hall since the structure, which was already owned by the municipality and can continue its use as a in the public realm as a museum. Other times museums are located in repurposed commercial buildings that had significance for the area such as

105-604: A living-history museum, had a different, slightly later origin than the European, and the visitor experience is different. The first was Henry Ford 's Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan (1928), where Ford intended his collection to be "a pocket edition of America". Colonial Williamsburg (opened in 1934), though, had a greater influence on museum development in North America. It influenced such projects through

126-407: A museum dedicated to the unique German concept of heimat , a form of local cultural identity. Open-air museum An open-air museum is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts outdoors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum . Open air is "the unconfined atmosphere ... outside buildings". In the loosest sense, an open-air museum

147-660: A year. There are also smaller exhibitions on local themes that are changed every month. The Monks' Map of the River Thames around Abingdon in the 16th century has been held at the town's Guildhall since 1907. A reproduction of the Anglo-Saxon Abingdon Sword , discovered in the river at Abingdon and held by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford , has also been put on display. In December 2011, with

168-707: Is any institution that includes one or more buildings in its collections, including farm museums, historic house museums , and archaeological open-air museums . Mostly, "open-air museum" is applied to a museum that specializes in the collection and re-erection of multiple old buildings at large outdoor sites, usually in settings of recreated landscapes of the past, and often including living history . Such institutions may, therefore, be described as building museums. European open-air museums tended to be sited originally in regions where wooden architecture prevailed, as wooden structures may be translocated without substantial loss of authenticity. Common to all open-air museums, including

189-495: Is the grandest". It housed a courtroom for the assizes until 1867 when Abingdon ceded that role to Reading Assize Courts . Following the completion of a major restoration of the building, Queen Elizabeth II , visited the town hall, signed the visitor's book and unveiled a plaque in November 1956. The museum's collections were started in 1919. The museum has permanent collections and presents temporary exhibitions several times

210-594: The union with Sweden . Most open-air museums concentrate on rural culture. However, since the opening of the first town museum, The Old Town in Aarhus , Denmark , in 1914, town culture has also become a scope of open-air museums. In many cases, new town quarters are being constructed in existing rural culture museums. Living-history museums, including living-farm museums and living museums , are open-air museums where costumed interpreters portray period life in an earlier era. The interpreters act as if they are living in

231-612: The BBC television series Horrible Histories , in July 2012 and was officially reopened by the Duke of Gloucester on 8 March 2013. A new museum café was established in the basement. 51°40′12″N 1°16′53″W  /  51.6700°N 1.2815°W  / 51.6700; -1.2815 Local museum These museums can cover a governmental defined unit such as a town , city , county , or parish or they can cover an area defined within

SECTION 10

#1732776416234

252-533: The Justices of the county. The county hall was designed in the Baroque style by Christopher Kempster who trained with Sir Christopher Wren on St Paul's Cathedral . It stands on large pilasters with a sheltered area beneath for use as a market or other municipal functions and was completed in 1683. Nikolaus Pevsner said of the building: "Of the free-standing town halls of England with open ground floors this

273-729: The Nordic Museum in Stockholm , to establish his own open-air museum Skansen , adjacent to the Nordic Museum. Skansen, opened to the public in 1891, was a more ambitious undertaking, including farm buildings from across Sweden , folk costumes, live animals, folk music, and demonstrations of folk crafts. The second open-air museum in the world to open its doors was also in Sweden: Kulturen in Lund in 1892 . In 1894

294-525: The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History ( Norsk Folkemuseum ) was founded in Oslo by Hans Aall , inspired by Skansen. Aall bought a large tract of land adjacent to King Oscar's royal collections, probably with a merger between them in mind. The open-air Norsk Folkemuseum was opened at Bygdøy in 1902. In 1907 the royal collections were incorporated after the death of King Oscar and the dissolution of

315-688: The Norsemen". He believed that traditional peasant houses should be preserved against modernity, but failed to attract support for the idea. The first major steps towards the creation of open-air museums was taken in Swedish union ruled Norway in 1881, when the Swedish union King Oscar II transferred four historic farm buildings and the stave church from Gol to the royal manor at Bygdøy near Oslo (Christiania) for public viewing. This, in turn, in 1884 and 1885 inspired Artur Hazelius , founder of

336-541: The continent as Mystic Seaport , Plimoth Patuxet (formerly Plimoth Plantation), and Fortress Louisbourg . The approach to interpretation tends to differentiate the North American from the European model. In Europe, the tendency is to usually focus on the buildings. In North America, many open-air museums include interpreters who dress in period costume and conduct period crafts and everyday work. The living museum is, therefore, viewed as an attempt to recreate to

357-521: The earliest ones of the 19th century, is the teaching of the history of everyday living by people from all segments of society. The idea of the open-air museum dates to the 1790s. The first proponent of the idea was the Swiss thinker Charles de Bonstetten , and was based on a visit to an exhibit of sculptures of Norwegian peasants in native costumes in the park of Fredensborg Palace in Denmark ,"Valley of

378-508: The fullest extent conditions of a culture , natural environment , or historical period . The objective is immersion, using exhibits so that visitors can experience the specific culture, environment or historical period using the physical senses. Performance and historiographic practices at American living museums have been critiqued in the past several years by scholars in anthropology and theater for creating false senses of authenticity and accuracy, and for neglecting to bear witness to some of

399-549: The help of British Motor Heritage , the last MGB Roadster sports car, which came off the production line in Abingdon in 1980 was lifted through a window 30 feet up, for display in the museum's main gallery. From 2010 to 2012, the museum and building underwent a two-year restoration programme, partly funded by the National Lottery . The museum was informally reopened to visitors by Martha Howe-Douglas , an actress in

420-550: The museum's mission. In the United States while some museums may be part of the local government or receive funding from them in some way. However, most local history museums are usually self-funded. These museums can also run as independent organizations or they can managed by an accompanying local historical society which also will maintain an archive of local records in addition to the museum's three-dimensional object collection. Local history museums are frequently housed in

441-404: Was or is particularly formative for the region. Local history museums offer the interpretation of the everyday lives of ordinary people and the unique histories that locale may offer. These museums also offer a more in-depth look into the details of how national and international events affected the locale represented by the museum. In Germany, a specific type of local museum is a Heimatmuseum ,

SECTION 20

#1732776416234
#233766