International Scientific Conference on City Museums and the City Museum of Volos
Cities’ Portraits in City Museums - Global stances, local practices

Volos (Greece) 1st March – 2nd April 2006

Saturday 1st of April 2006

Creating City Museums in Greece. Four examples from the region of Thessaly (central Greece)
Session coordinator: Aigli Dimoglou (Director of Volos Municipal Centre for Historical Research and Documentation)

V. Kolonas- D. Tsasis On the City Museum of Volos
Lena Gourioti (Archaeologist-Ethnologist, Director of the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa, Greece) Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa: a museum in continuous evolution
Foteini Lekka (Archaeologist-Museologist, project manager of the redisplay of Municipal Historical and Folk Museum “L. & N. Sakellariou” – Centre of Documentation and Communication, Karditsa, Greece)
From the Municipal Folk Museum to the City Museum of Karditsa: transforming institutions and attitudes
Maroula Kliafa (Writer, Head of the Educational Programmes Department of “Kliafa” Cultural Centre, Trikala, Greece) The conversion of “Kliafa” industrial complex into a cultural centre.

On Cities and their communities
Session co-ordinator: Professor Pantelis Lazaridis (President of the Dpt of Architecture, University of Thessaly)

Kevin Hetherington (Professor of Geography, Open University, United Kingdom)
Eleonora Skouteri-Didaskalou (Social anthropologist - Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) “City museum”: What’s in a name -or rather two?
Riki van Boeschoten (Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and Oral History,  Director of the Laboratory of Social Anthropology, Department of History, Archeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Greece)Urban Voices - Using Oral History In Urban Museums
Nikos Belavilas (Lecturer, National Polytechnic School, Athens & President of the Hellenic Committee of TICCIH)Lavrio and Ermoupolis: The historical conscience of two industrial cities

City Museums in the 21st century: New roles, values and challenges
Session co-ordinator: Michael Polkinghorne (Cultural Planning and Co-ordination, United Kingdom)

David Fleming OBE (Director, National Museums of Liverpool, United Kingdom)
Darryl McIntyre (Group Director, Public Programmes, Museum of London, United Kingdom) Communicating the stories of modern London: Readapting the galleries at the Museum of London
Rebecca Lim (Museum Service Manager, Croydon Museum Service, United Kingdom) Museum of Croydon – ChangingLifetimes and beyond
Ian Jones (Secretary ICOM-CAMOC – museums of cities, United Kingdom) A model 21st century museum of the city.  
Jørgen Selmer (Director, City Museum of Copenhagen, Denmark) City Museum of Copenhagen and the municipality of Copenhagen - creating a framework for developing the city museum into an active player in the citizens lives.
Lena  Millinger (Marketing and Communications Officer, Malmö Museum, Sweden) The City museum and its citizens - memories as keys to history
Renée Kistemaker (Senior consultant research and development, former Head of Museum Affairs and vice director,  Historical Museum of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) The city museum in the 21st century:  opportunities, threats and dilemma’s, Some examples from the Amsterdam Historical Museum
Marlen Mouliou (Archaeologist-Museologist - Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Adjunct Lecturer in Museum Studies, University of Thessaly, Greece) & Irene Nakou (Assistant Professor, University of Thessaly, Greece) Mapping the world of city museums: Traces and clues

Sunday 2nd of April 2006

The new City Museum of Volos under the microscope
Session Coordinator: Villy Oikonomou (Economist- Regionalist)

Introduction: Reflecting on the City of Volos and its new museum
a. Yannis Aspiotis – Chrysa Zarkali: Presentation of data gathered during the front-end research conducted for the City Museum of Volos project Team
b. Vilma Hastaoglou: Lecture - Volos: The profile of the city
c. DVD presenting various events organized by the Municipality of Volos and DIKI as a way to disseminate information on the creation of this new museum to the people of Volos and establish creative partnerships with them.
Workshop:    
a. SWOT analysis on the City Museum of Volos
b. Presentation of the invited delegates’ assessment work whose content and scope will inform the final shaping of the new city museum character and philosophy.

In Greece, museums addressing the culture of modern times are called ethnographical, historical, folk-art, etc, and so on, and, to a certain extent, comprise “city” museums, which concern the history of the city, where they are situated, during modern or recent periods of history.
Modern traditional heritage, ethnography, early and late urbanism, material life in its various expressions – private or public – religion, crafts and trades, vocations, as well as immaterial cultural features, have been preserved in collections and museums of the country thanks to private initiative. Behind the first steps of every cultural museum of recent years lies a collector, an extraordinary individual, not always academically qualified in what concerns the establishment and organisation of a museum. It is one thing to be a collector and quite another to establish and maintain an operating museum.
Difficulties and omissions, to the extent of harming objects, which are usually undocumented, due to negligence or ignorance, are frequent phenomena, especially in the case of regional museums. We recognized that during the years of operation of the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa, which plays a “metropolitan” role in the region of Thessaly.
The debate concerning the transition from collections to museums has been in progress for decades in our country and is yet to be concluded – we are always referring to museums of modern cultural heritage. The complex legal regime of their administration exacerbates this confusion and that is why any effort to have a relevant policy shaped by the State still leaves the leading role in the hands of private initiative. The State keeps for itself a secondary, “supporting” role.
The organisation-operation of museums of modern culture, museums that are substantiated and not just museums in name, lags behind in Greece 1. First of all, there is no actual direction. Besides, necessary “raw materials” for transforming collections into museums are missing: there is no permanent housing nor steady funding or staffing with specialized scientific personnel.
Within this web of negative contributing factors, is it utopian to discuss and envisage such a “city museum”? The answer is no.
While we present the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa 2, it will become obvious that anything supported with seriousness and served with faith, hard work and persistence, can become reality.

The Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa
The Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa is a legal entity of private law and has been in operation for 32 consecutive years.
It was established by a group of Larissa citizens under the leadership of Giorgos Gourgiotis, a person with post-graduate studies in chemistry, with knowledge of conservation of museum objects, a collector of artworks and objects of the pre-early industrial era, a scholar of the modern history of Larissa and its surrounding area.
The Museum was established at the time of “fast development”, after 1950 3, a time when the then-recent economic structures and the invasion of high technology prevailed in the country. Thus, a new globally accepted social model was established as a standard of living and urban centres as housing shells. The Museum was founded when Larissa, in 1950, had 30-40,000 residents and was beginning to change, to lose its neoclassical urban face – the late phase of the development of Greek tradition – before it was finally transformed into a modern multicultural major city.
Larissa has had a continuous history over millennia and is characterized by certain timeless features. Ever since antiquity, it has kept its name, at the same location, on a main junction of land-routes of the continental trunk of the Greek peninsula. It is surrounded by an extensive, fertile plain with a rich hinterland of primary production, which renders it a centre with satellite towns and residential suburbs. The Peneios River, running next to the city, is closely intertwined in its myths and traditions and nourishes the city, while helping its development through the power of water. Larissa fell prey to foreign invaders and was destroyed – as an unfortified city – and this is why there is a lack of preserved historical monuments. However, with its assimilating power – ever since antiquity, it has been called “Lariss-ifying” – it keeps incorporating new residents and continuously following a timeless upward course.
The Ethnographical Historical Museum was established in Larissa during the dwindling of the late traditional phase of its history, in an attempt to preserve the city identity during a future that was anticipated to be leveling everything and, also, in order to reflect the cultural character of the region. The Museum was placed at the service of society.

From the very beginning, its founders established the basic specifications the venture of setting up a Museum required:

• Collection, to the extent of hoarding, for purposes of preservation, of material objects and immaterial features of people’s life in the pre-early industrial period; recording, conservation, display, studying and disseminating knowledge
• Co-operation with the competent Directorate of the Ministry of Culture
• Co-operation with individuals of exceptional special qualifications
• Safeguarding permanent housing, which means duration and steady funding to guarantee quality and development
• Raising the awareness of the city’s general public in regards to the Museum.

The first action of the Museum was to present its permanent Exhibition and alternating periodical exhibitions highlighting special aspects of ethnography, urban life and the arts. The Museum promoted scientific research through commissioning studies and organizing conferences, seminars, publications and lectures. Its educational activities initially addressed primary and secondary education pupils.
As decades passed, the Museum operation followed an upward course. It redefined its aims and planned new options and directions.
A major achievement of the Museum was the decision for re-housing to a newly constructed building (Haravgi district), the foundations of which were laid in 1992, following an initiative by the Museum founders and the support of the Prefecture of Larissa. The work was completed as a Ministry of Culture project included in the Regional Operational Plan of Thessaly. The building stands on a plot of 6,176 m2 and comprises a suitably arranged (exhibition, administration, education, storage, conservation, etc) constructed area of 2,650 m2; it is to be inaugurated within 2006.
As time went by, Museum funds have increased, but they are by no means steady. It is funded by the Ministry of Culture, sponsorships, and the Local and Prefectural Government.
The Museum has increased the members of its scientific personnel, but not yet to the extent necessary. It is equipped with an electronic system of recording – documenting. It is promoted through links in the websites of the Ministry of Culture, the Prefecture of Larissa and the Municipality of Larissa.
The Museum is supported by the Local and Prefectural Government, the Region of Thessaly and local political agencies. The local community and cultural bodies of the region are enthusiastic supporters of their Museum.
Museum collections number around 20,000 ethnographic and urban objects, material evidence of family and vocational life, objects of public life (e.g. coins), of church use and worship, folk art works made of various materials, etc. These date back to the 18th century and up to 1970-1980. The Museum possesses small units of ancient Greek and Byzantine objects and a collection of plastic art works on themes related to its interests, works by 20th century artists. The Museum records oral testimonies related to the objects and their documentation data make it easy to comprehend the history and old functional use of collected objects.
The Museum’s permanent exhibition units change with time, but the topics are always of general interest and their presentation is all the more enriched.

Special emphasis is placed on periodical alternating exhibitions, which provide the opportunity to present new specific topics and objects from the Museum collections. Periodical exhibitions are organized along the lines of Knowledge-Education – Recreation and they are open to visitors, providing a high aesthetic level and clear annotation. These exhibitions are usually accompanied by related satellite events, such as educational courses, scientific meetings, conferences, publications or concerts. For example, the periodical exhibition “Greek Folk Musical Instruments” was organized in 1998; it was exclusively sponsored by the Municipality of Larissa in cooperation with the Museum of Greek Folk Instruments in Athens. It was accompanied by the following events:

• Educational programme for primary education pupils “..the tabour played every sweet sound of the world”
• Scientific meeting and Round Table on “Greek Music – from Antiquity to the Byzantium and Modern Times”
• Publication of the scientific meeting minutes.

The Museum’s Department of Educational Programmes has been in operation since 1991. The education provided is multi-faceted, specialized and, to a great extent, self-funded. It addresses, besides other target groups, older pupils of secondary education and students of Further Education from both Greece and abroad. Besides free participation programmes for the pupils of primary education, special cooperation sessions are organized for teams of children and adults as well as Special Education children. Furthermore, programmes are organized for parents and children, for socially excluded population groups, repatriated Greeks or Greek ex-patriates, members of therapeutic communities, KAPIs (Open-Care Day Centres for the Elderly) and Greek Roma. The Museum maintains “Educational Networks” with city Schools and local Museums of the region. Every year, since 1991, 5,000 children and adults have participated in the educational programmes of the Museum.

The educational and cultural actions of the Museum stopped in 2004, when the re-housing process started. The two Museum-devices, “Games-letters in Granpa’s time” and “Greek Traditional Costumes” have travelled to primary school classes around the country. Scientific research continues along with the participation of the Museum’s scientific personnel in events organized by other agencies.
In 2001 the Museum founded the “Historical Archives – Centre of Research into the History of Thessaly” due to the accumulation of archival material, publications and manuscripts from the 16th to the 19th century, as well as photographs from the end of the 19th century onwards. Furthermore, the new Museum department collects family archives/records of Larissa citizens. The Historical Archives of the Museum are expected to be further organized and developed at the new building.  

The Museum’s smooth 30-year course of development has been based on choices made, on its Administration and its scientific and other personnel. The Museum focuses on personal ethos combined with academic qualifications and industriousness. Maintaining relations based on co-operation principles between Administration and personnel safeguards the balance between paid work (personnel) and volunteerism (Administration).

Besides the Board of Directors, who are not paid, a circle of volunteers co-operates with the scientific personnel and Administration. New members and friends of the Museum – second generation – are characterized by the same zeal for social contribution as that of the pioneers. The Museum is all the more supported by the local society. It has become a pole of attraction for the general public of Thessaly and Greece, and its visitability has been enhanced. However, there have never been many foreign visitors. The Administration wishes to open up the Museum towards Europe and plans to do so through co-operation and networking schemes. 

A small scale increase in the number of the Museum’s scientific personnel members has taken place in the 32 years of its operation. Furthermore, the use of the electronic system of data recording and the Internet update and facilitate related tasks. Volunteers partially meet the needs arising from the lack of paid personnel.
A Museum’s financial resources are never sufficient. Museums are not steadily finite places or actions. They keep expanding, improving, and increasing their activities. They are living social cells.
The Administration the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa never stops seeking – trying to increase funding resources. It proceeds with organizing necessary marketing schemes.
This is the experience derived from the rationale implemented by the Administration of the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa. The generation, the people who created and are maintaining Museums of Private Law, ought to safeguard their successors in the developmental course of the Museum in times to come. The right way is to raise public awareness and incorporate in the Museum’s human force promoting young people of the right ethos to guarantee optimum service and work provision. Participation of a wide range of population groups and local society agencies, as well as children, in the cultural events and actions organized by the Museum opens prospects for future development.
The work of Museums of Private Law has been constructive for the preservation of modern cultural heritage and this has been recognized by the competent authorities of the Ministry of Culture, which cannot see to everything.
After an almost unacceptable delay, the building of the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa is being completed in 2006, 14 years after laying its foundations; unfortunately, there have been serious omissions.
Culture agencies and a country’s museums are not assessed on the basis of work produced, especially when this work is of a certain quality, suitable for cultural goods. Senior executives at the Ministry of Culture give priority to centrally located Museums and cultural agencies of Public Law. Regional museums and cultural agencies of Private Law are always in waiting, playing second fiddle.
The conclusion of our experience: Every Museum of modern culture that is created within the European Union, which promotes in a concise manner the historical course of the community it represents, is a tool of humanizing the leveling globalization that looms ahead like an inevitable fact. It supports the maintenance of vital multi-form regions, which comprise the European mosaic. It is a key to open the door to acceptance and tolerance of “otherness”, to getting to know each-other through the cultural status of the populations of the globe. This acceptance is imperative in the 21st century, when humanity migrates and co-exists, when borders have been transcended.
This is the context the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa has been working in for decades. This is the context within which the new Museum being planned for the city of Volos will be operating, placing one more pebble in the mosaic.

Notes
1. In 1998, ICOM/CIDOC published a manual on the documentation of Ethnographical Collections. This was the result of the work of four teams in the framework of Research & Technology Operational Programme (EPET II) – Human Networks for the Dissemination of Research and Technological Knowledge. Since then, nothing much has happened at the level of documentation.
2. I am a member of the founding team and have been managing it for decades.
3. After the Second World War and the extensive industrialization of the country, private individuals – with a few exceptions – established numerous ethnographical museums and collections in cities and towns. Material evidence of the pre- and early industrial eras was salvaged, albeit not in a scientific collective method that would have preserved the documentation of objects collected and their association with traditional society.
In 1979, a team of the National Centre for Social Research recorded 169 museums of modern cultural heritage in the country (see “Organisation and Spatial Distribution of Greek Ethnographical Museums and Collections”, Athens, 1979, p.6). This number changed as time went by. It went up or down, depending on the interest and activity of the individuals who inadequately served them. In 2006, in Thessaly alone, 92 museums and collections of ethnographical content have been recorded (“Operational Plan for the Operation of the Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa and its Networking with All Other Ethnographical Collections in Thessaly”, University of Thessaly – Region of Thessaly, Larissa, 2006, p. 20). In recent years, the Directorate of Modern Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture has been attempting to assess and upgrade the country’s ethnographical historical museums. The Greek Branch of ICOM disseminates international experience around the country. Today, to a relatively high extent, museums of modern cultural heritage are quite well organized, although there is a lot that needs to and should be done so that the image of our country’s modern culture may be fully and extensively displayed at museums (see “Ethnographical Historical Museum of Larissa, 30 Years, 1974-2004”, Larissa, 2004, p. 12).

From the Municipal Ethnographical Museum to the Town Museum of Karditsa: Re-baptizing Institutions and Mentalities

The “Lambros & Nausicaa Municipal Ethnographical Museum” was established in the beginning of the 80’s. Its modernization in the last three years started after its inclusion in the 3rd Community Support Framework. This three storey museum building was constructed by the Municipality of Karditsa in 1981, on a small plot of land in the town centre, which had been donated for this purpose by Nausicaa Anastassiou-Sakellariou (1909-2003). Since it was originally designed to house a museum, the building is “distanced” from traditional styles and characterized by serene lighting, with narrow openings on its façade. The fact that no historical building was chosen to house this museum, although it was determined by the donation of the land plot, echoes – to a certain extent – the lack of architectural identity and listed buildings to be showcased in the town. An outstanding exception is the inter-war period covered Market, constructed from iron, concrete and glass, a monument of European Architectural Heritage since 1992.
The Museum is situated across Pausilipon Park, a park from 1901, which is synonymous with the vision of urbanization that prevailed in the first decades after the annexing of Thessaly to the Greek State in 1881.
The core of the Museum’s treasure was the collection of personal itmes belonging to general N. Plastiras, an emblematic son of the town, the vestments of another eminent Karditsiot, Archbishop Seraphim, household utensils and furniture, woven items and traditional Karagoun costumes. This non-homogenous, varied and non-documented material was deployed under thematic units; historical items were placed in display cabinets, while ethnographic objects were exhibited in the traditional stage-set like arrangement that attempted to reconstruct the “natural” surroundings of the exhibits. It is clear that the museum followed the tradition established in the beginning of the 20th century that most Greek ethnographic/historical museums/collections followed and its profile was rather low in terms of both research and socio-cultural influence. So, when in the 90’s the Municipality of Karditsa received the significant donation of 3,000 works by the acclaimed Karditsiot painter D. Yioldassis, nobody seemed to object to their temporarily being placed in the museum until the Gallery building was constructed in 2001.
Proper evaluation of a museum, however, presupposes a connection between its reception and establishment area, in this case the town of Karditsa. If one goes through the informatory leaflet from the 90’s, with its “eclectic” illustrations, summarized in the titles “Plastiras – Karagouna – Plastiras Dam & Lake”, it is not difficult to comprehend the structural weaknesses of the collection and to transfer the reflection on the archetype of its rationale, in other words the town of Karditsa. Let us briefly present its history: present-day Karditsa is a town of around 35,000 people, in the flattest region of the whole of Greece, which belongs to the hamlets established by the Ottomans as soon as they occupied the land at the end of the 14th century, so that they might demographically and economically strengthen the region. From an insignificant village of 200 inhabitants, mainly Muslim, within two centuries Karditsa developed into a commercial crossroads, necessary for the inhabitants of the mountainous regions of the Agrapha range and the inhabitants of the flat lands of south-western Thessaly. The Agrapha and the plains are closely associated in the minds of the residents with struggles: the national-liberation struggle, in the case of the Agrapha (a focal point of resistance during the Ottoman era) and the class-social struggle in the case of the plains (the oppressed farming population resisted grand land-owners, as Thessaly was the last rampart of the manor). These population pools, with their powerful traditions and their strong cultural identity lagged significantly behind in shaping an autonomous urban consciousness among town-dwellers. The decline of the highlands, due to mass urbanism in recent decades, and the recent collapse of farming incomes due to the exclusive extensive cotton cultivation, and not only, significantly undermined the self-confidence of the “town” as well (“urban” abutments are minimal, anyway). The psychological and financial strengthening of the last two decades is almost exclusively due to the artificial “N. Plastiras” Lake, a tourist resort dominating local tourism guides. To come back to the symbolic code of the leaflet, Plastiras and the Karagoun costume waistcoat form a pretext (their scale proves the truth of the matter) to account the newly-minted myth of tourism development, which is totally alien to the vision of Plastiras, who aspired to development based on the industrialization of the plains of Thessaly, through the dam and the generation of cheap electricity.
Let us take a “leap” to present time, to the “Lambros & Nausicaa Municipal Ethnographical Museum – Documentation & Communication Centre” or, else, “Town Museum”, as it is called for short. The basic principles of the “Town Museum”, in regard to its operation, role and mentality, are reflected in the theme of the photograph on the left, which depicts “Signa”, a religious ceremony performed on Easter Monday every year in most villages on the Agrapha range. The procession of the population, carrying the icons of the church iconostasis in their arms, stops before the “raised” trees, i.e. trees specially selected on Holy Thursday and considered guardians of the community, and the priest reads out the special blessings. This religious “performing act” symbolizes, in our language, everything familiar, experienced, collective and emotionally charged; these are all attributes that to a high extent characterize a visit to the museum, at least at the initial stage. The management, however, of the theme, the ploy of the “image within the image” (if we observe the child moving in the direction of the frame, the iridescence and the “darkening” of the camera lens) re-positions us as observers of a scene which we approach from a distance, with sobriety under the terms we ourselves select.
The “town museum” was planned in order to operate as a living workshop of documentation and research into the town history since the 15th century, when its name first appears in written sources, to date. The aim was not simply to preserve objects and all sorts of material and immaterial documents, such as archives, town-planning drafts, old books, oral testimonies, etc. Emphasis was placed from the very beginning on the multi-cultural diversity, which also determined collecting criteria. So, next to Plastiras’ decoration medals and uniforms, there came a gradual indiscriminate accumulation of household utensils, furniture, woven textiles and looms, costumes and sock-knitting machines, farming machinery, old equipment from various companies, public building lighting fixtures, railway ticket invalidating machines from Thessaly Railways, borders of Karagoun shirts, and anything else one could imagine as representing the culture of daily domestic and public life in the last two centuries. We knew that most of the material collected could not possibly be exhibited, either due to their volume (space available is very limited) or bad preservation or because they would not fit in with the museological scenario. However, donations justified our existence in the local press, under the title of “new acquisitions” and made people search all the deeper into storing areas and chests so as to find items that in the past they would not have imagined of being of interest to a museum. Without our even realizing it, the dialogue with the town had been initiated. Every donation delivery was accompanied by an oral testimony of the user about the items donated and the experiences associated with them as well as the surrounding atmosphere of the town at that time. The whole effort for raising public awareness and participation in the re-creation of the museum culminated in the establishment of the Museum Friends Club at the end of 2005. The working teams that were created aspire to support the museum as far as its basic and immediate needs are concerned: searching for sponsors, locating collections, recording of historic buildings as well as informing town agencies are some of the actions already undertaken.
To date, more than 1,650 objects – nearly five times the original number – have been collected, recorded and documented, while small private archival collections and a collection of 3,000 old printed documents from the 17th century onward have been obtained, recorded and classified by the municipal archive. The museum’s Documentation Centre includes a full series of microphotographs of local newspapers from 1882 to World War Two, all local editions, old and new, as well as copies and catalogues of photographs which belong to private citizens but are available for research and publication. An important museum infrastructure is the indexing of hundreds of contracts and court documents from local GAK (General State Archives) and court archives; this material is particularly useful for expanding and documenting the exhibition’s thematic units and facilitating researchers.
The renewed rationale that governs the museum is statutorily detected in its name change and in the new operation agency, which, also, foresees the creation of a network of themed museums within the town. This coincidence allowed for the first hub of the network, the Water Supply Museum, to begin operating in June 2005 at the old pump room of Paparantza Grove.
The operations reflected in a binding, albeit minimal, manner on the ground plan of the renovated buildings – which, one should note, is barely 400 m2 in area – are such that allow the museum to dynamically develop at all levels: from research and documentation to communication and alternative utilization of spare time. It includes two halls for permanent exhibitions and a smaller one for periodic exhibitions, an area for events and educational programmes, a booth for recordings and projections for small audiences, an office, a reading room-library for researchers, a conservation laboratory, a storing area, a shop and a café.
In closing, we would like to indicatively present certain museographical examples in order to showcase the basic theoretical principles-goals of the new museum and the manner in which we intend to implement them:
1. The effort to “conciliate” people with the city area was originally defined as one of the new goals that the museum should set. The tool selected to reach this goal was the detection of museums that have consciously or unconsciously been discredited or fallen into obscurity and their use as observational material. We project photographs and videos on “neglected” points of historical reference in line of sight of the entrance, providing incentives for even a short visit to the ground floor of the museum (“drop by” effect). This also helps with the regular renewal and creation of a dynamic image of the museum.
2. The creation of a detractive environment of symbolic historical narration requires strict selection of exhibits, a specific museum script, avoidance of loquacious scenographic imitations and emphasis on “multiple labeling/semantics” of objects.
3. The effort to avoid “long narratives” and reproduction of stereotypes. The preference towards “views” of history instead of concrete, supplementary thematic units that remind one of chapters in a history textbook is possibly a step in the right direction. Besides the selection of objects, an important role can be played here by sequence and dialogue between successive thematic units. The unit concerning the Ottoman occupation alongside the one referring to the area of the plains after 1881 automatically brings about the issue of the manor as a surviving regime that partly negates the turning point of 1881.
4. Cultivation of a climate of trust and familiarity, given the audience’s prejudiced view that the institutional role of a museum is to record the prevailing opinion and not the “weaker” voices of the past. A solution we will adopt, to the extent afforded to us by the collections, is the use of everyday objects that are familiar to the average visitor. Unfortunately, as we all know, not everyone leaves traces of his/her life. In certain cases, this remains a privilege of certain social classes alone. In the case of the museum of the town of Karditsa, this issue becomes more specific in the N. Plastiras collection, which is important for the museum, and its balance with the rest of the premises. As familiar and beloved as its presence may be for citizens, its detached presentation, essentially, keeps pace with the commands of “great history” (it is a personality on a “pedestal”!). The museological answer we provided was to “break” the area with a cubic construction, which will operate externally as an exhibition surface and internally as a studio for recording and processing oral testimonies. The idea goes back to the semantic school of Moscow and refers, both for its creators and for us, to the fact that a creation (an exhibition, permanent or periodic) is a complex fermentation processes that passes through the phases of collection, classification and study of information. The “archiving boxes”, which comprise both an exhibition surface and an exhibit, are a symbolic rendition of the unseen side of museum work. Furthermore, they allow the unconstrained coexistence of a larger area for the Plastiras Collection and a smaller area where stories, as experienced or recorded by ordinary people, will be accounted, thus mitigating, to a certain extent, the distance between “minor” and “major” producers of history. In this case, oral testimonies, photographs and objects selected by the informants themselves will comprise the tools for museum representation.

In the 1920’s Trikala was no more the Otthoman town that the Greek army had liberated in 1881. The town was by now adorned by beautiful neoclassical builidings, spacious squares and wide tree-lined streets, while the Lethaios River was spanned by stone bridges.
It was not only the face of the town that had changed. Local society had also developed and had left behind its atavistic customs. Similar progress had been accomplished in the economy, which was still, of course, based on agriculture and animal farming; however, industry had started developing, especially cottage “kasseri” cheese producing cottage industries.
In 1926, a young man from Trikala, Theodoros Kliafas, a graduate of the Commercial School in Volos, decided to sell his share of the family animal breeding business; with the money, he bought two thousand square metres of land in the outskirts of town and built an Ice-making & Refrigerating Plant. To this industrial complex came to be added another activity in 1927: manufacturing of refreshments, especially lemonade/soda water.
Thanks to the ice produced, which at that time was in high demand, Kliafas’ factory soon became a landmark for the residents of Trikala.
Unfortunately, WW II interrupted the factory development; in fact, the building was requisitioned by the Nazi conquerors for a year.
After the liberation and the political settling of the region, the refreshment sector started developing fast and the Kliafas’ products became famous and were available around the whole of Thessaly.
In the meantime, Trikala had grown; its commercial centre had shifted and its social life had moved from the left to the right bank of the Lethaios River. So Kliafas’ industrial complex was now situated in the heart of the town.
In the mid 1970’s, the activities of the factory – which was now under the management of Kostas Kliafas – were transferred to the new plant, on the 3rd kilometer of the Trikala-Larissa Road.
In 1994 the old factory closed down for good. That is when the question arose as to what would become of this interesting 1926 building. Proposals for its development were numerous and financially interesting. However, the Kliafas’ family turned them down and decided to turn the building into a city Museum, aiming and promoting and studying recent local history.
Works for the transformation of the industrial complex into a Cultural Centre started in 1996 and expenses were undertaken by the Kliafas’ family; there were no subsidies.
Architectural plans were designed by Fani Tsapala-Vardouli, while the presentation and display of collections was undertaken by Museologist Petros Zambelis.
In 2003 the Kliafas’ Company History and Culture Centre was ready.
This is a multi-dynamic Museum, where visitors can see and get to know not only the development of industry but also the course of the social, economic and cultural life of the town of Trikala from 1881 to date.
After crossing the paved yards, which is adorned by potted herbs and traditional games, such as the snail, noughts and crosses, hopscotch, etc, visitors enter an impressive interior. The great air-coolers – a relic of the old refrigerating equipment – and the wooden rafting of the ceiling establish the atmosphere of a yester era.
This space is dedicated to the modern factory, which visitors get to know through grand scale slides, company products and various souvenirs and gifts displayed in the cabinets.
The next hall is dedicated to the old factory. It is dominated by the office of the company founder, with the old-fashioned safety box and the typewriter of the time. This is where we have the opportunity to form a mental picture about  how the factory operated and what the working conditions were like from 1926 to 1994 through drawings, photographs, old advertisements, workers’ booklets and small gadgets, such as a manual filling device, two ice boxes, wooden barrels and a collection that shows the development of glass bottles used to sell refreshments.
Next we visit the local history room to study the 15 large scale thematic tableaus referring to various aspects of life in Trikala.
Through photographs, documents, letters, event programmes, money notes and small daily life objects an attempt is made to present visitors with as full a picture as possible of the development of the city in the last 150 years. There are also explanatory texts to help us comprehend changes that have taken place.
Our acquaintance with the relatively recent past of the town is helped by the fifty large scale photographs showing views of the town from the beginning of the 20th century to 1960.
The third hall we visit is a traditional printing room, which preserves the atmosphere of another time. We can observe the letter cases and admire the imposing press and plate engraver. On the wall one can view front pages of old Trikala newspapers and photographs depicting journalists, printers and newspaper sellers. Visitors’ attention is captivated by a collection of piano music scores dating from 1900 to 1970.
Before continuing our tour we rest at the small café with the metal tables and wicker chairs. We enjoy our refreshment while admiring the grand collection of glass bottles used by numerous Greek refreshment industries as well as old advertisements.
We then go through the multiple use hall, which is furnished with 120 seats and fully equipped with modern audiovisual aids and get to the old machine room, which has been preserved as it was in the 1950s. We then visit the old bottling plant, which today hosts a unique collection, in Greece, of bottle caps and labels from around the world. Variety and high aesthetic quality of illustrations are a point that attracts one’s attention, along with the harmony of colour schemes.
We conclude our tour of the premises by visiting the hall that houses a beautiful 1890 pharmacy from Trikala. We then cross the corridor decorated with big canvases by shadow-player Thanassis Spyropoulos inspired by traditional tales of Thessaly. The display cabinets with old children’s toys, some of which are hand-made, are outstanding. We then enter the library hall of the Organisation of Children’s and Adolescents’ Libraries, which creates an atmosphere of freshness, due to the tens of lighting balloons hanging from the ceiling. There are around 6,000 selected volumes on the shelves, catering for a wide range of the young readers’ interests. The premises are also used as a meeting place, where the children can enjoy a game of chess, play with puppets or an educational game on the computers, listen to a story or sit in the small amphitheatre and watch a film or a ballet performance on DVD.
However, permanent displays are not enough in a museum. The Kliafas’ History and Culture Centre frequently hosts photography and document exhibitions portraying the life of residents of the town and the way they worked and had fun. There are also seminars on local history, lectures, musical evenings and evening DVD ballet shows.
One of the aims of Kliafas’ History and Culture Museum is to collect archive material. The Centre has a collection of Thessaly newspapers from 1883 to 1970 on microfilm, a large collection of photographs, a rich archive of taped folk tales and testimonies by people from Thessaly, tapes of all pre-election speeches by Trikala Mayor-candidates after 1976 and archives of schools, associations, unions and enterprises.
Finally, besides all the activities mentioned above, the Kliafas’ History and Culture Centre is also involved in the publication of books aiming at promoting and highlighting local history.

 
Some time in 1984 I remember being on a bus in an unfamiliar part of the city of Glasgow in Scotland where I lived at the time. I don’t remember the reason for my journey – it is unimportant now - but one thing from that day remains vivid in my memory. As we passed under a railway bridge I happened to look up and see a piece of graffiti high up on an inaccessible part of the bridge. It was clearly old and it said in a matter of fact way:

`Workers come and fight in Spain’

Glasgow at that time was a de-industrialised and run-down working class city with high unemployment and few prospects and was just embarking on an early form of what we would now call re-branding as part of a regeneration strategy to try and boost its place-image and encourage business and tourist revenue into the city.
 Following New York’s lead after its financial crisis and associated crime wave in the 1970s with its I©NY campaign, the city council had displayed many posters all over the city with a picture of a smiling yellow cartoon character from a popular children’s story book (Mr Happy) with the slogan around it saying `Glasgow’smiles better’ [in English]. This is a play on words in English and means both `Glasgow smiles better’ and `Glasgow is miles better’.

Glasgow’smiles better.
Workers come and fight in Spain

Two very different `brands’. The city was ever a palimpsest of different times. Glasgow was one of Britain’s great industrial cities and rose to prominence during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a centre for shipbuilding. With it came the labour movement and a radicalism rare in Britain. This city on the river Clyde became know as `Red Clydeside’ after its tradition of workers’ socialist agitation. This was the city where troops were ordered into the main square in the town in tanks in 1919 to suppress worker unrest and was a centre for Communist party activity, electing one of Britain’s few Communist members of parliament, Willie Gallacher, in 1935. It is not surprising, therefore, that there should have been graffiti from the 1930s calling for workers to go and fight in Spain against Franco’s fascists as part of the republican International Brigades. What is surprising was that it was still there when I took my journey. How out of place it seemed in 1984, in Thatcher’s neo-liberal Britain. And yet how evocative - the year of a protracted and bitterly fought (and lost) strike by miners against pit closures that really saw the death throes of labour movement radicalism in Britain. It wasn’t part of the city’s place image campaign either which wanted a happy and innocuous `childish’ image for business rather than one that reminded of past agitation and struggle.

There are crossroads where ghostly signals flash from the traffic and strange juxtapositions are the order of the day. – Walter Benjamin, Surrealism.

No one had curated this graffiti; it was not part of any heritage trail. Perhaps there is a record of it in The People’s Palace, the museum of labour history in Glasgow – I have never checked – though I did go there once or twice around that time (a dusty and forgotten old place then). But frankly I don’t care if it has been curated because what matters to me is not so much the memory of that day and what I saw but the haunting evocation that I experienced and the recognition that cities always bring forth such evocations and the forgotten and unexpected past reveals itself in surprising ways. Ghosts don’t have to rear up before us as apparitions rattling their chains to be real. The reality has to do with the unfinished disposal of the past and its manifest absent presence that is expressed in such things as the material culture of the city. This material cultural figure injects the non-linear temporal rhythm of the event into the experience of the city. Time as event: Kairos rather than Chronos.
 The other time I experienced something similar with as strong an effect was when I visited Berlin in 1995 for a conference. Six years after the Berlin Wall came down, we were staying in the Hilton Hotel in what was previously part of communist East Berlin and all around us were office buildings and warehouses still pock-marked with bullet and shell holes left over from the battle of Berlin in 1945. The experience was uncanny (Unheimlich) – one was connected with an important and traumatic time in the past - precisely how the revenant past is experienced. Again this was not something that had been curated and since then, like the wall itself much of this past has since been swept away.
 City museums, museums in general in fact, and heritage preservation are not very good at dealing with the revenant event. Curation has little time for ghosts and that is a shame. Generally museums want to make the past knowable in their terms through an easily recognisable language of chronological representation rather than let it speak in its own spectral language of Kairos. We might have expected this in the past as until about 1990 it was largely the heroic past that was curated and told as a story of progress and achievement through the narrative displays of artefacts. But since then traumatic and overlooked `subaltern’ pasts have come to have increasing prominence within museums. Museums across the western world are now saturated with what the cultural critic, Andreas Huyssen, has called a discourse of trauma. Starting with trying to acknowledge and recognise the unrepresentable aporia in historical narratives of civilization and progress that is the Holocaust and then moving on to such dark historical events associated across the world with slavery, Apartheid, Aboriginal dispossession, colonial and Imperial exploitation and the `terrorism’ of oppressive nation-states across the globe mean that heritage, the past, is no longer seen in museums as a happy, unproblematic narrative that can be told from the viewpoint of the unmarked subject. Subaltern histories of minorities, of women, of the oppressed, of the losers in history now have to be acknowledged too in the context of recognising and diverse and multicultural audience. Rightly so. But as Huyssen points out, in doing so such acknowledgement often leads more to a form of amnesia rather than recognition. There is, in general, a smoothing over of the traumatic past, often with the effect of disposing of its lessons in the desire to make visible and to acknowledge within temporal narrative conventions. We might add that the revenant language of such ghosts is represented out of existence in this process of curating and collecting the past and putting it on display within a recognisable story; their absent presence and its haunting quality is turned from a performative register into just another form of representation; another story told with artefacts that act not as things in themselves but as indexes not only to the events of the story they are telling but also to the museum’s story of performing a culture of accountability in times of a pervasive politics of recognition.
 No one should deny that those stories should be there. Conservative critics, such as those engaged in the `history wars’ surrounding the historical narratives now told by the National Museum of Australia, would have us go back to a time of master narratives and master/slave stories where the strong, white, male voice is the only one allowed legitimate place in the space of the museum and the history book and that must be resisted. Yet the presence of display a dominant discourse of chronos (derived originally from the philosophies of Winckelmann, Hegel and Darwin with their narratives of progress, developmentalism and triumphant strength) is still there and these new stories are often just enunciations within that discourse rather than a new discourse of time in itself. There is a danger in the overemphasis of dealing with the past as traumatic or forgotten or overlooked through re-presentational devices about past present and future and of story telling through material culture as index symbols, that museums create a situation in which the performative utterance as opposed to the representational picture is silenced. The revenant is performative, a uncertain kind of parole, and its evocation a powerful one yet one that is difficult to coax into the language of representation,

What art though that usurpest this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did Sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee, speak.

Horatio in Hamlet I.1

 Take a walk though any museum now and you will see representations of the traumatic past told as representational stories. I’ll never forget a visit to a `museum of the resistance’ in a city in France a couple of years ago: Floor one narrative - lots of pictures of heroic resistance fighters shot by dastardly German soldiers; Floor two narrative - lots of pictures of dastardly German soldiers shot by heroic resistance fighters. But dead bodies covered in dried blood and flies, lying crumpled in a ditch, all look the same. And how tragic they all look today.
 That, then, is the real dilemma for any museum of the city – exploring the relationship with the urban past and present through representational narrative (Chronos) and the non-representational or performative event (Kairos). Too often the event, the encounter with the past that we might chance upon as we walk or drive through a city is forgotten or curated out of existence and time is turned from a series of varying and contradictory rhythms into the single, linear narrative of history – a re-telling of `then’ in the `now’ rather than the palimpsest of different nows.
 Yet time dances through the city in different ways and that is often lost on city museum. That dance is more a samba than a march. Follow its rhythms and you will encounter a city’s psychogeography: its felt sense of place, buzz, atmosphere, evocative spirit, its ghosts and so on. As the Surrealists like Louis Aragon and Andre Breton realised, cities are haunted places and the revenant speaks through the forgotten, the overlooked, the outmoded, the ignored and the brought-together in unexpected juxtapositions. Sometimes this is just part of the everyday and it barely registers with us or requires recording, at other times it can have the shock effect in startling us into a state of wakefulness about our present time in relation to the past in ways we do not expect. Museums of the city should want to engage with these sorts of experience of urban life. Which will give me the best sense of a city: a couple of hours spent in a museum reading about its history, seeing artefacts and pictures, perhaps hearing oral testimony or a couple of hours spent wandering through its streets without a guide book, chancing upon buildings, people, culture, graffiti – some historically important other not?
 There is, of course, a long tradition of cultural criticism of the museum that perhaps begins with Antoine Quatremere de Quincy’s distaste for the Post-revolutionary Louvre of the 1820s and its decontextualising and desacralising of art brought about through the museum practice of removing it from the sacred spaces it was originally produced for and placing it in a secular space instead, through to Maurice Blanchot’s lamenting of the lack of acknowledgment of the absence of absence within Andre Malraux’s famous celebration of the museum as a totality of representational presence in his idea of the musée imaginaire in 1947. We would, perhaps, agree more with Blanchot’s than with Quatremere de Quincy - the museum is ever a space of death and ruin as it is of curation and conservation. Different stories leak out through its narrative spaces, stories that sometimes go unseen by the authors of this space. There is a place for the museum – as part of the experience of the city and our encounter with its past rather than as the sole guardian of that past that is then told to us through a story.
 We know that the author has been dead since Roland Barthes announced it some 40 years ago and yet the curator/auteur is perhaps one of the last `authors’ to realise this. People will make of a museum what they will. Often the will wander though it in a distracted manner taking little notice of what they see. That is good. That is also how we experience the everyday of the city. This distracted mode of reception is a skilled and accomplished one, a reception far more democratic and genuinely critical than any tutored Kantian pure gaze. But to respond to this demand to be more accessible by telling simpler stories than before in order to avoid being elitist is not enough. This is often just another example of an unreflexive imposition of the representational onto the performative with all lack of recognition of diverse audience responses that that implies. Yet museums are as much space to walk in as they are place to look-at in. They are spaces to become subject within through the kinaesthetics of the body as much as through the reflections of the mind.
 Movement and performance - we are talking here of flow and rhythm. Is the museum forever to be imagined as a space of stasis and contemplation as bodies halt momentarily on their promenade through its narrative spaces, or will it acknowledge the performative process of flow that shapes it as much as the cities that it is often found in? It is not just bodies that move through a museum so does time and it does so in a non-linear way.

The museum is in no way made up of immutable afterlives and the eternal dead. Statues move; we know this, just as Baudelaire was frightened to see unreal images subject to a surprising development. With each decisive work of art, all others shudder and some succumb, a death that is the resurrection of tomorrow; and this movement is in appearance infinite, for if, as Schiller said, `what lives immortally in song must die in life,’ what this immortality maintains, conveys, and sustains is this death itself becomes work and negative creation.

Maurice Blanchot, The Museum, Art and Time.

Museum’s fear the loss of the uncurated and narrativised past and generally overcompensate by telling smooth rather than rough-edged stories of their subject. Yet these are the same spaces where things disappear into store, get lost or stolen, or disappear into display stories overtaken by events or by interpretations of those events, or the re-attribution of values as society changes. Museums are always/already haunted spaces trying to fend off an ever present army of absent presences. To acknowledge that, to recognise that that is closer to our appreciation of the past in our daily lives, rather than try and deny it and to explore instead what happens when one lets the uncanny find its voice, when the non-place of `museum-representation-land’ becomes the living place of performance - that is perhaps all we ask of museums.

References
Walter Benjamin (1985) "Surrealism" pp. 225-239 in One Way Street, London: Verso
Maurice Blanchot (1997) "The Museum, Art, and Time"' pp. 12-40 in Friendship, Stanford: Stanford University Press
Andreas Huyssen (2003) "Present Pasts", Stanford: Stanford University Press
William Shakespeare (1980) "Hamlet", London: Penguin

The Museum of London, which brought together the former Guildhall and London Museums, opened to the public in a purpose built building in 1976. At the heart of the Museum in 1976 was the permanent exhibition devoted to a “three dimensional biography of London” from prehistoric times to an impression of the city in the immediate post war period.
In the late 1990s the Museum embarked on a redevelopment programme that included the world city gallery (London in the 18th and 19th centuries), London before London (prehistoric London), and most recently the medieval London gallery which opened to the public in November 2005. During the past two years the Museum has been planning the re-development of its exhibition galleries that interpret and depict the history of London since the Great Fire of 1666. This new gallery depicting modern London will replace the existing world city gallery and take the story to the present day and also speculate about London in the future.
The redevelopment planning provides an opportunity to move away from a traditional, chronological and encyclopaedic driven approach as well as an exhibition design approach that was in many ways out of date and out of touch with visitor needs. Previously, the gallery exhibits assumed that the visitor was well educated with some knowledge already of the city’s history and made no allowances for families or children, the city’s cultural diversity and rapidly changing demographic profile or the use of new media as a means of conveying the rich information resources now available to us.
Planning the development of a new suite of exhibitions and public programming is a mixture of excitement, considerable debate and discussion (internal and external), shaping and responding to new expectations, and creating opportunities for new ways of telling the stories of London and Londoners. Learning is now at centre stage of a museum’s purpose, and the Museum is drawing on a multi-disciplinary approach from the outset by bringing together curatorial, learning, design, visitor services, information technologies, collection management and other subject specialists to collectively plan and develop the new exhibition galleries, define learning outcomes and plan the public programmes. The Museum has moved away from chronology as the sole driver and is using a thematic approach – although still using chronology as anchor points in telling the narrative as audience research firmly indicates that the public still want chronology in some form. Learning will be integrated more strongly in the gallery and visitor experience – whether that be formal learning programmes for schools or informal learning through performance, debate, use of object trolleys and explainers - and the layering of information from exhibition text to the use of information technologies to allow visitors to interrogate online resources about the collections and, importantly, continue to interact with the museum beyond its walls.
The planning of new exhibitions is not undertaken in institutional isolation. It is also important that we see where mistakes have been made, and it is inevitable that we too will make some mistakes but hopefully at the edges. We will draw on the experiences of the new national and major museums already opened or in planning stages from the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, the new Native American Museum and the proposed African American Museum in Washington DC, the City Museum in Beijing to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, the Melbourne Museum and Te Papa in Wellington. At the same time we should not be blind to another interesting museum development such as the creation of museums of conscience that reveal the failures of human society. They include the House of Terror in Prague, New York’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the slave quarters of Goree Island in Senegal and a group of human rights organisations called Memoria Abierta in Buenos Aires is working to build a museum that will recall the kidnap, torture and execution of thousands of Argentine citizens by that nation’s military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. There are many more such examples that explore connections with the past that are too often ignored by ignored or forgotten by the major museums.
The challenges facing new museums and those in the process of reinvention include asking fresh questions about a nation or a city’s history and identities; and setting up conversations with its audiences. In its positive aspects a museum can bring the community together to examine and seek answers to collective questions - to take pride and comfort in cultural identity that is a mosaic; a compelling picture made of different parts; a number of diverse stories that collectively make up a great anthology of a city or nation.
The key to how the Museum of London will represents the city’s voices lies in its determination to include them in the story from the start. Through the process of consultation and involvement the museum should aim to reflect the communities’ inheritance and stories, which may not always have been part of the “majority history”. Dialogues between the museum and communities do not guarantee that things will run smoothly. Within each community there may be factions with differing views arising from religion, political outlook, socio-economic background, geographic location and the like. And to be frank, we cannot consult with every community within London and be everything to everyone. But it does give people a feeling of ownership if they are involved in museum planning from the start, and the museum’s work can only be strengthened if it seeks partnerships with those communities whose culture it intends to represent1 .
Most people are open to legitimate doubt, or have the gift of imagination that helps them to understand things from someone else’s point of view. Museum educators recognise this moment of change and call it ‘landmark learning’.2 The visitor receives a brief but indelible sense of the subject, against which any subsequent exposures will be referenced. Not every visitor will discover every element, because exhibitions are not classrooms but rather immersive environments, offering a number of choices. Something that fascinates one person will be disregarded by another. What we do is assemble the evidence, design it to be attractive and accessible, and then leave it to the visitor.
What does all this mean in the case of the Museum of London? A major redevelopment programme is not restricted simply to the creation of new exhibitions and refurbished facilities. Our aims during the next four-five years are to transform the Museum by:

• changing the presentation of London’s stories to make these stories more relevant and engaging to present and future audiences
• creating new spaces and resources that will actively encourage more people to use the Museum’s collections and knowledge base for their own learning and enjoyment
• extending the Museum’s reach by using this redevelopment project to engage new users and stakeholders locally, nationally and internationally
• attracting families, children, diverse communities, and particular socio-economic groups as our primary audiences following extensive user and non-user consultations and evaluation studies.

In summary this transformational aim has four change objectives for the Museum

• to create the Modern London gallery covering 1666 to the present day
• to bring more and better learning exhibits into our galleries
• to convey a stronger sense of London’s contemporary identity as a vibrant and dynamic world city with diversity at her heart
• to engage new audiences and stakeholders.

The new galleries will tell the stories of modern London that are complex and multi-layered, and will inevitably make demands of visitors, intellectually and emotionally. The galleries must strive to communicate the story clearly and in a way that our target audiences will understand and be engaged by. The new galleries must create new ways of understanding London’s past and present. They must draw out common patterns in the city’s history that have applied to many different types of people across time and which have real resonances for today’s Londoners. In drawing out these common patterns the galleries must strive to generate a sense of ownership of the past and empathy, breaking down the idea that the past is ‘not about me’.
The galleries could be seen as having two guiding metaphors – Hollywood film and treasure trove.
As a film, they have to present the drama of history. They have to convey a sense of people being caught up in the big events that have shaped London during the past 300 years, struggling against the odds or triumphing over adversity, experiencing both success and failure. The emphasis here will be on storytelling, human interest and theatricality. London must be more than just a backdrop, but an active agent in the story, its character affecting people’s behaviour and outlooks. At this level the galleries must engage visitors emotionally. They must also provide an outlet for emotion and allow visitors to respond to the story.
The desired visitor response might be: This makes me think about my own life. How would I have felt if…?’ or ‘I was aware of this but not what it was really like…’
As a treasure trove, the galleries will have to enable the visitor to step out of the story, stop off and delve for things that they are interested in themselves. The galleries have to make it easy for the visitor to find out more (eg through text, new media, programmes, contact with staff, resources in the information zone) and communicate to them that the Museum is eager to help. We will layer information accordingly.
The desired visitor response might be: ‘This makes me curious. I wonder if they have anything about…?
The design philosophy will be critical to achieving these goals. Central to our thinking about the design will be the audience. Decisions, chosen means of expression, and the subsequent design are based on the needs of the intended audiences, measured through front-end, formative and summative evaluation. The audience will be given information in a variety of formats to accommodate various learning needs and preferences. The exhibitions will be designed to accommodate those who wish to skim through the story of London as well as those who wish to take more time.
The design of the exhibition will respect the integrity of its subject matter. Moods and emotions will be generated to affirm the key messages of particular spaces. We will ensure that key themes are clearly expressed through the design of exhibits and the placement of key objects. The design solution will ensure that there is a sufficient number of objects, or appropriate multi-media, to present and explain each particular theme. The exhibitions will be engaging. The design will make the subject matter come alive through attractive presentation and opportunities for establishing personal connections and meaning. The media used and the means employed to present exhibits in spatial planning, design, and physical presentation will be appropriate to the audience, the exhibition's themes and subject matter, and the collections.
Orientation and way finding throughout the exhibition will provide the visitor with a conceptual, physical, and affective overview of the exhibition. Spatial organization will support the exhibition's organization. Way finding will be intuitive, obvious to visitors, and support the exhibition's sequencing of information and experiences. The galleries and learning centre will be physically accessible to all our visitors, and the needs of all potential visitors will be addressed. Visitors will feel comfortable and safe while in these areas. All our exhibits will be accessible, and meet or exceed accepted British standards.
The current work on the conceptual and intellectual framework of the new exhibitions, exploring London as both a global city and a people’s city, will draw out a meta narrative of city, people and change. This is a major focus of activity during the coming months. But drawing on the experiences of other museums world wide, there are some guiding principles that are taking root and shaping our thinking. In summary they are:

• creating a new history of London by having the confidence to interpret new patterns for London’s past within which all these stories can sit comfortably. Like most museums we have limited exhibition space (about 3000 square metres) to be an interpreter of societal change and the physical space at our disposal will fundamentally affect what we will have to say. The challenge is what to include and headline and what to leave out – and in the context of overarching authoritative voice.
• exploring and portraying a London that recognises the achievements and contributions of a culturally diverse society. We wish to convey a stronger sense of London’s contemporary identity as a vibrant and dynamic city with diversity at its heart.
• taking a multi-disciplinary approach by combining subject areas such as archaeology, history, geography, the visual arts and ensuring that the exhibitions and programmes interpret the meta narratives.
• telling the stories of London and Londoners in ways that ask fresh questions about histories and identities that set up conversations with our audiences through exhibits, staff interaction and events in which they are reassured by the familiar and challenged by the new. In effect we will show them identities with which they are familiar and then stretch the boundaries.
• presenting themes, stories and issues about which there might be disagreement. We have to recognise that differing value systems will meet and sometimes collide in what we need to say. But we need to show that careful balance has been given to different points of view, and that the best academic advice about the accuracy of statements, statistics etc was employed. What makes museums different from a newspaper or indeed the local hotel bar when it comes to discussion of current and controversial issues is the museums’ contribution to informed debate. Museums can make a crucial interplay between intellectual and emotional knowledge. We want visitors to say: “I knew this happened, but I didn’t realise what it was actually like.” Emotional connection, founded on scholarship, is what museums can do best.

It is perhaps also timely for the museum to do some serious thinking about the value, role and use of our collections. Some of the questions include:

• should we decide on the themes and stories primarily by using historical accounts and then select objects to illustrate that schema or should we interrogate the objects and see what themes can be deduced?
• many museum collections are old and embody previous curators’ views of what was “important” or symbolic. To what extent can these collections be re-purposed to address contemporary issues, new lines of historical enquiry? Or are they largely irrelevant?
• what types of collections should the museum be building now to represent current concerns, interests and the diversity of London? How far can such collecting be objective or is reflective of our own subjective views as were collections created in the past? This poses a question about the interface between “historical” and contemporary” and how soon after an event has taken place -such as the recent terrorist attacks in London – does the historian take over from a journalist or commentator?
• should the museum continue to de-contextualise objects or should be recording contemporary “supra-objects” – such as a room or a building in its entirety (as is the case in Sweden) in its entirety to give significant meaning to the individual meanings of that collage?

The Museum of London aims to challenges its visitors with a number of significant questions about the histories and identities of London and Londoners, and the issues of representing different cultures within society. In concluding, it is important to remember how important museums can be as facilitators and mediators of cultural exchange. They can be places of both entertainment and discovery, with the potential to consider the great questions of our world and our time in ways that are matched to the interests and capacities of their audience.
Museums are the new cultural frontiers. They can show people the limits of their own experience, and help them to cross the imagination boundary to gain the insights we all need into the viewpoints of other people, other cultures, and other times.

Notes
1. Simpson, M, Making Representations – Museums in the Post-Colonial Era, London and New York, Routledge, 1996, pp 48-49 (paraphrased).
2. Durbin, G., (ed), Developing Museum Exhibitions for Lifelong Learning, London, Museums & Galleries Commission, 1996, p 4.

  This paper explores the challenges faced by the team creating a new city museum gallery – the Museum of Croydon, at Croydon Clocktower, London, UK. It will also look at the role Croydon Museum Service as a UK local authority museum service plays within its community.

Firstly I would like to present some statistics to set Croydon in its city context.
Croydon Museum and Heritage Service is funded by a London local authority Croydon Council, and is a community Museum. Croydon has a population of 340,000 the largest of any London borough.
In the 2001 census 36% of Croydon population classified themselves as Black Minority Ethnic (BME) the largest groups in Croydon are White British (64%), Black Caribbean (8%) Indian (6%) and Black African (4%). Croydon is also part of the Edge Cities network; launched in 1996 the network brings together towns and cities on the edge of the major capitals of Europe. This network consists of nine local authorities based on the edge of a city, for example Croydon is located on the edge of South London. Our other partners include North Down, Northern Ireland; Fingal, Ireland; Nacka Sweden; Espoo, Finland; Loures, Portugal; Ballerup, Denmark; Getafe, Spain and Kiffissia, Greece. These municipal authorities have all identified that they face common economic and social challenges due to their location. The Partners have been collaborating to exchange knowledge, ideas and experience in addressing these challenges including joint projects and activities. The website for the network can be viewed at www.edgecities.com This site brings together the information, experience and best practice of the Network on issues relevant to Edge Cities.
The Museum as part of Croydon Clocktower - Croydon’s cultural centre will be at the heart of the Council’s vision for a new cultural quarter. Croydon has high cultural aspirations and significant plans for the future. Culture is seen as playing a pivotal role in regenerating Croydon, particularly the town centre. It is believed that the creation of a dynamic and successful cultural quarter will enhance Croydon’s urban renaissance plans, proving to be the vital component in the drive to become a vibrant city with real vision and a bright future. Major, cutting- edge redevelopment projects will not only deliver high specification office space, unparalleled infrastructure and transport links that will make Croydon the most accessible town on the fringe of London (the extension of the East London Tube line and tram extension), but also with culture at their heart, introduce new restaurants, cafes and shopping to attract daytime and evening visitors alike. In addition, a new theatre and concert space, a more diverse night-time economy, better sports facilities, piazzas, public art and street festivals - all encompassed within the cultural quarter - will make Croydon a place that people want to live, work, study and socialise in - a place that is visually attractive, with landmark buildings and an improved public realm with spaces that feel alive and energised. It is a key challenge for the new Museum of Croydon to be an integral part of this exciting cultural movement. The Museum must appeal to the potential visitors and users of the cultural quarter, and because of its key city location in the city centre it will find itself in direct competition with the leisure and shopping industries.

Scope of Museum Service

Croydon Museum and Heritage Service works, as part of Croydon Council, to enrich and enhance the quality of life of Croydon’s residents, and to encourage opportunities for local people to pursue their cultural interests and ambitions. It aims to promote a sense of place, a feeling of belonging and to engender local pride and enhance Croydon’s image regionally, nationally and internationally.

Its scope:

• Temporary exhibitions programme in Croydon Clocktower and around the borough (with 250 sq metres of exhibition space)
• Lifetimes Gallery (currently being redeveloped as the Museum of Croydon, 570 sq metres)
• The Riesco Gallery of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain
• Museums collections management and development
• Education services providing formal and informal learning opportunities at the Clocktower and around the borough (includes school’s outreach service)
• Advice on heritage initiatives

Challenges faced creating a new city museum gallery

Whilst Croydon as a city museum faces external challenges such as the growth in the cultural offer in Croydon it also faces challenges of a more specifically museological nature. For the team developing the new Museum of Croydon the key challenges we face are:

• Representing and reflecting the diverse communities we serve and opening up a dialogue with our visitors and encouraging them to engage with our displays and collections
• Making our work relevant to our visitors
• How to develop our approach to Contemporary Urban Social History Collecting

Our plans for the new city gallery, the Museum of Croydon were formulated utilising evaluation and research from Croydon Museum Service’s first social history gallery, Lifetimes. This offered the team a rare opportunity to build on the strengths of the former gallery and address some of its weaknesses.
Lifetimes opened in March 1995. It featured over 300 objects and stories, largely donated by local people, which told the story of Croydon from 1830 to the present day. In 1996, it won the ‘Interpret Britain’ Award and was well regarded in the sector as an innovative example of displaying social history. It was specifically renowned for its early use of touchscreen technology as a main interpretation tool. Between 1995 and 2004 282,000 people visited the gallery.
Following significant efforts over a number of years Croydon Council was successful in being awarded £933,500 in April 2005 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to re-develop the Lifetimes gallery. The redevelopment will allow us to build new and bigger displays, including a digital memory room where visitors can add their memories and stories this will have direct escorted access from the Museum to the Local Studies Library and Archive of the Clocktower. It will enable us to update the computer technology and provide a virtual gallery. The funding also allows for the creation of a new activities suite for public events and education and
Physically the gallery will be divided into chronological six areas.
1800 – 1899
1900 – 1938
1939 – 1959
1960 – 1979
1980 – Today
Croydon Now
The gallery will contain two key display elements. A 3-D timeline will snake through the gallery space; in each chronological area it will display 5 to 6 key objects telling the main story/messages of the period. Modular showcases in each area will provide object-rich displays, with each area containing 50 to 60 objects and stories. As with the original Lifetimes gallery the main interpretation tool will be touchscreens that will display contextual information about the objects along with the oral histories of those people who have donated the objects. Low-tech interactives in each area will also work to demonstrate important themes in the area.

This paper aims to utilise key practical examples to examine how we have developed our new approach to meet the challenge of creating a new city museum.

Establishing a new collecting methodology and active contemporary collecting

The Croydon approach, which was articulated in the collecting methodology for Lifetimes is characterised by the following principles:

• It is oral history-led collecting
• There is a preference for loaned objects as opposed to acquiring objects into the collection
• Collecting is very closely linked to the utility of the material – there has to be an identifiable outcome, for example we would not want to collect new stories and objects if we could not commit to publicly display them

Lifetimes used 25 themes covering human experience to ensure that there was a sense of equal representation across the displays. Ethnic diversity was represented according to a statistical breakdown of the Croydon population for each of the chronological periods. The challenge for us as a team was to move beyond the old Lifetimes collecting methodology to move towards a new collecting framework that allowed us to integrate contemporary collecting into the main gallery displays. The collecting for the new Museum of Croydon has necessitated a review of the themes and statistics used when the original gallery was created. Whilst the new gallery uses the original methodology as a basis for collecting it moves beyond to ensure that we highlight active collecting over passive collecting. Whilst there has been the inevitable rush to ensure we have enough content for the new gallery, the aim for our forward collecting is to commit to ensuring we can support an active contemporary collecting programme. The physical design of the gallery has been developed to ensure that objects can be changed regularly to allow collecting to be displayed. We have also ensured that Croydon Now provides an area where the contemporary can be dynamically displayed as part of the ongoing gallery narrative, bringing Croydon’s story up to date. We will use audience development work to inform our contemporary collecting and its direction. Croydon Now helps to provide this by providing a flexible display framework.

Working with stakeholders and communities

We have based our new approach on committing to working in partnership with our communities and stakeholders. One example of this work has been our development of the Riesco Community panel. The Riesco panel work involved creating a new steering group from scratch. We invited representatives from across the community to take part in the group that would help us to steer the direction and development of our gallery of Chinese ceramics. The group has the initial remit of developing the temporary exhibition programme for the gallery, but has the potential for more development. We believe that the community panel recognises that multiple communities have an interest in the collection, not simply the communities that may have perceived cultural links to the collection content. The panel also allows the creation of unusual connections and facilitates the development of creative relationships. The development of the panel is a learning experience in the broadest sense for our team, we will be learning as much from the participants as they may gain from their involvement. We also hope that this work will link into our audience development priorities

Exploring our focus on explaining museum practice

Much of our approach to the gallery interpretation and educational work has been about demystifying museum practice, trying to explain to our audiences and visitors what museums do. One example of this work has been the delivery of educational sessions using the museum as a case study. Our Museum Education officer has worked in partnership with Croydon Education and Training Services (CETS) to deliver modules to ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language) students on their course module. The sessions have used the museum as a case study and focused on our approach. For example, students have practised interviewing skills based on listening to our oral history collection and examined what makes a good interview and what skills are required. Students have focused on developing literacy skills looking at the way that we write object labels, the students created their own displays and wrote their own object labels.

Directly targeting hard-to-reach audiences and actively involving them in the development of gallery
Another example of our approach to developing the gallery was trying to utilise the development works as a medium for engaging potential audiences with our work. The Hoardings Project specifically targeted audiences we knew were difficult to reach, generally people who might not have visited the gallery before. We worked with the groups and professional artists to produce artworks based on the museums’ collections. These artworks will be displayed in a final temporary exhibition to accompany the new Museum of Croydon. Our hope is that the groups that we have worked with will become ambassadors for the new gallery through their involvement with our work.

Utilising local, regional and national partnerships to add value to delivery

Another principle of Croydon’s approach to the new gallery has been to recognise the value of working in partnership, not only at a local level but most significantly at a regional level. Croydon was successful in attracting funding from the London Museums Hub, the Heritage Lottery Fund & Moving Here to participate in the Refugee Heritage Project. This project involves four regional London museums, Hackney Museum, Redbridge Museum, Croydon Museum and the Ragged School Museum. Each museum is working with their local refugee communities to document intangible cultural heritage. Croydon, for example worked with the Croydon Refugee Forum to identify two local refugee organisations, Yes Africa & Nile Volunteers Network. Last summer participants from both organisations worked with the museum and a professional filmmaker to produce their own films. These films have been developed into a DVD and will be displayed in the new gallery.

Diversifying practice in relation to interpretation to reach new audiences

The redevelopment of the gallery has also led the team to reflect on interpretation practice. Whilst a commitment to touchscreen technology has fed through into the new gallery, the team has actively tried to develop more diverse interpretation methods. Whilst Lifetimes relied solely on the touchscreens to convey information, the new gallery will take a layered approach to delivering information. This approach is underpinned by the principle of a three-tiered local history resource. Level one is the gallery, level two is the Memory Room and level three is the Local Studies Library and Archive. Simple labels will accompany each displayed object, where possible the simple label will point to the objects owner, for example ‘Peters’ Subuteo figure.’ The intention here is to re-enforce the people and their objects aspect of the gallery. Key objects on the timeline will have longer length labels that explain why the selected objects convey the main messages of that chronological area. Again, the intention is to provide some interpretation that does not require the visitor to use the touchscreens, providing an alternative source of information. The touchscreens will then deliver a further level of contextual information, the oral history that accompanies the object and then sources of further information should visitors want to continue independent research. We have also further developed this access to information approach by providing visitors the opportunity to view object information at their leisure in the Memory Room. The Memory Room in the gallery will also provide visitors with the opportunity to contribute their own memories and stories via computers. These stories will then provide an alternative to the museum-authored interpretation in the gallery. Finally from the Memory Room visitors will be encouraged to take their research a step further by visiting the Local Studies Library and Archive where they can access primary resources to take their research to a further independent level.
During the closure required to refurbish the existing gallery the Museum service has had to look at diversifying its practices. As a result of this we have embarked on a number of different approaches to reach our existing audiences and new audiences. The Museum education service has delivered outreach sessions in schools and community venues. The museum team have also delivered a major temporary exhibition, Their Past Your Future in partnership with the Imperial War Museum and The Big Lottery. The exhibition celebrated the anniversaries of the end of the Second World War, with exhibits from the Imperial War Museum and our own collections. We were able to secure funds to mount the exhibition in a local shopping centre, the Whitgift Centre in Croydon town centre for four weeks. During this period we reached over 12,000 visitors most importantly many of these were visitors who had not previously visited the museum.
The new Museum of Croydon will open at Croydon Clocktower in September 2006.

Urban living
We have always had a tendency towards urban living. Even by the early seventeenth century half the population of the Netherlands lived in urban areas. Now, 90% of the Dutch live in cities, towns and suburbs. In Belgium only 3% are eccentric enough to live in the countryside. In fact, the 21st century is the first in which the majority of the world’s population lives in cities and they continue to be a magnet with 29% of Greeks living in Athens and more people living in Tokyo than in the whole of Canada.
Cities shape the history of their countries and the world. They can be beautiful, they can be works of collective genius like Paris or New York, they can be ugly, noisy and dirty, but without them we would have nowhere to focus our energies, and without cities, without large concentrations of people there would be no emptiness, no wilderness, no countryside. Cities matter. They also need looking after. Yet, so many of our museums of cities, while they have much to say about the past, have little to say about our present urban condition, and even less about our possible futures.

City museums
Across Europe city museums have been by tradition guardians of city treasures. Mostly, they have not attempted to trace the development of their city in a systematic manner. Why should they? They have been museums in the city, and not always specifically about it, and so many are 19th century creations reflecting city pride.
With some outstanding exceptions, museums devoted exclusively to a major city, its history, its development and its social life are rather thin on the ground. A significant number of those museums which really are about their city have been, and many still are, essentially museums of city history where the recent past is a foreign country rarely visited, today is avoided and tomorrow ignored.
In fact, you could make a broad distinction between a museum whose main function is to conserve collections which reflect the city’s finest, iconic hours and frequently the taste of an urban elite, and a museum which focuses on the city and examines the past to shed light on the present and does not hesitate to tackle delicate subjects like immigration or crime. The latter sort of museum is becoming increasingly common.

A model museum of the city
What should be the purpose of a museum about a city, beyond increasing the sum of human knowledge and entertaining the visitor? If we were to set one up now, if we had a tabula rasa, what should it be about?
First and foremost, the museum of the city should be about understanding the city and communicating this understanding to its audience: where the city has come from; where it is today and where it could go to in the future; how the city functions; who and what make up the city; its influence on its hinterland; its relationship to its country. It is a tall order, especially in a big city: the bigger the city, the taller the order, and in a large city there is that other audience of tourists to consider.
Most other museums, it could be argued, have an easy time of it. Their subject is specialised: the decorative arts, transport, natural history. The city is a complex phenomenon, an interaction of people, buildings and spaces, and it is continually in a state of change. The museum of the city consequently has to take on board a whole range of disciplines from history to sociology, to architecture and urbanism.

Setting up the model museum: the proposed Museum of Cardiff
Cardiff, the capital of the Principality of Wales is a young city, the product of the industrial revolution. Until around the middle of the 19th century it was a small, rather obscure town with a modest, unremarkable history. Then growth, built on the nearby coalfields, was spectacular and by the end of the century it was the world’s largest coal-exporting port. In the 1960s the coal mines and the steelworks went into decline and like so many cities, especially in Europe and North America, Cardiff has had to reinvent itself in the post-industrial age and find new roles and new means of employment.
In 2002, the City Council of Cardiff proposed creating a museum about Cardiff, a city of around 275,000 people. A model cited by the Council was The People’s Palace in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. The People’s Palace covers the historical, social and cultural development of Glasgow. Glasgow is a much larger city than Cardiff, with a city history going back centuries. Cardiff like most places in England and Wales was Roman once, but effectively it’s history started not much more than 150 years ago. In those years no-one had systematically collected artefacts on this young city, certainly not the City Council. In contrast, the People’s Palace collection was put together in 1898 and the museum has been collecting ever since.
The consultancy firm of Chadwick Jones Associates were invited to examine the proposal by the City Council. Their research yielded up plenty of old photographs and films and a visual history of the city would be easy to compile. There were some objects collected by local people or held in various museums, such as a few old buses, a tram, some vintage cars, old police uniforms and oddments. That was just about it, and it soon became clear that a well-balanced museum of the city’s history on the scale of the People’s Palace could not be created, at least not one that would get people pouring in through the doors day in day out. If Cardiff does not have a wealth of artefacts immediately to hand, it does have a real history, full of life and interest. It is a blood and guts city. The challenge would therefore be to create a museum which in spite of a seemingly limited collection, could attract local people and visitors and provide a worthwhile return on the investment of public money.
What could be done? In the view of Chadwick Jones Associates the best solution was to start with the city as it is now and work back in time as interesting and relevant artefacts became available, but also to look forward to the future: in short Cardiff today, yesterday and tomorrow.
They proposed that the Museum of Cardiff (“Cardiff Alive! The Museum of Cardiff Life”) should take as its model the Arsenal in Paris, the architecture centre which deals with the urban development of Paris from the city’s beginnings to the present and beyond, but it should be about people as well as bricks, mortar and concrete. It would be a reference point for the city, reflecting its social and urban development with a collection highlighting the city’s identity, not a collection which could relate to any city, but one which would draw attention to the uniqueness of Cardiff, a bilingual city and capital of a Principality.
The Museum would inform visitors not only of the city’s history, but also its development, its character, what it is now and how it could be. It would reflect the human artefact which is the city, where the past is continually being reordered to serve the needs of the present.
There would be permanent and temporary exhibitions on Cardiff past, present and future, on its buildings, streets and spaces and its people. There would be film, video, oral history and educational work. There would be lectures, talks and seminars, and it would be the place where the City Council would deposit its plans for the city’s future to involve local people in shaping their city. It would, in short, be considerably more than a city history museum, unconnected, as so many city history museums are, with the city around it.
To minimise risk, it was proposed to start with a phased development, starting modestly and appointing a project officer to build up the collection, map out a collections policy and reach out to local people to encourage them to be actively involved in the project and help achieve the common objective of an outstanding museum about their city.
The building and its location were a vital consideration. There are always questions to be answered intelligently about buildings and their locations: how does the location help the museum as a destination attraction? How easy is it to get to by public and private transport and by school parties and by service and delivery vehicles? Is the building distinctive and in a prominent location? Is the building close to other attractions which can help its development – or perhaps hinder it ? Are there any planning restrictions and constraints? What is the potential for future expansion?
A museum building has also to take into account a contemporary audience with different and more demanding expectations from previous generations. This has consequences for museum design. It has led to extensions, remodelling, renovation and refurbishment - to the new MOMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the restored Neues Museum in Berlin, the Pompidou Centre in Paris. For example, the entrance to the Pompidou Centre and its escalators on the outside take away the ‘front steps’ of high culture and the public piazza in front of the building is informal and freely and easily accessible. The Cardiff museum had to be like this: an inviting building in an inviting setting. As a museum about the city it should set an example of good design, a model for the city.
After a considerable degree of research a new building as part of a proposed city centre retail development was put forward as the ideal solution. A city centre location seemed logical for a museum of the city and a new build gives freedom to the architect. In the event, the Council decided on the cheaper option of locating in a building which had housed the City library. The building dates from the late 19th century and is typical of its period, very handsome, but designed, one would think, to keep people out. It is not user friendly, and an attempt to convert it into a national modern art gallery was poorly executed and the project was eventually abandoned. The building remains a challenge, but it can be transformed by inspired refurbishment.
The first temporary exhibitions have already taken place as a foretaste of the future museum, and a project officer has been appointed to take the project through its first phase.

The museum of the city as a practical city resource
A museum as proposed for Cardiff can help provide us with an understanding of the city’s social and urban development. After all, a museum, if we accept the ICOM definition “acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for the purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment.” A museum of the city can go beyond this and provide a thoroughly practical service to the city: a museum without walls in short. (Of course, it can be argued that offering a practical service to the city is no business for a museum).
 A problem for most of us is finding out what is happening to our city and what is proposed for the future. We elect city councils to run our cities for us. In practice, that is not usually enough. So often we seem to have little influence in determining the course of local events. Where do we find out? Apart from the web, the best place is usually the local library, where local governments deposit their plans. Occasionally, a particular proposed development will be the subject of a special exhibition.
Beyond that, where can we get a sense of how our city has developed, where it is now and what its future could be? Books on local history pour out in their thousands, packed with old sepia tinted photos. Usually they are exercises in nostalgia, though the photos can frequently show us how the urban fabric has declined over the years and how our place has become just like any other place - or they can make us rather glad we are living in the present.
But how can we then get involved (if we want to) and help change our environment for the better?
One example of what can be done is not strictly a museum of the city. Earlier, we mentioned the Arsenal. It was set up in Paris in 1988 and is an architecture centre writ large, and more besides. Owned by the City of Paris, it aims to broaden public understanding of the evolution of Paris, explaining the architecture and texture of the city and how it has developed over the years, its condition today and its prospects for the future. The Arsenal deals essentially with urbanism and architecture, not people except in so far as their lives are shaped by the built environment around them. Yet it is a forum for explanation and debate and it has helped Parisians to get a better understanding of their city and contribute actively to its development. The ethos is “it’s your city, not ours, we need your involvement.” It is where the Mayor places the Paris Plan Local for discussion and where major proposals are displayed before action is taken to implement them.
In the model museum collecting material evidence on city history would remain a central activity, but the museum would connect with urban planners, economists, sociologists, geographers and others with an interest in the city and be a centre for debate and discussion. The museum would effectively be a forum and reference point for the city, helping to make us aware of the richness that can be found in the urban environment and helping us shape the city’s future.
In an ideal world every city would have a reference point about itself, an Arsenal which would deal with people as well as places, and with the present and future as well as the past. It could be a city museum to inform us not only of the city’s history, but also its development, its character, what it is now and how it could be.
It would be the place to go to find out about any aspect of the city. Yes, it would have the usual things: three-dimensional objects, records of places and activities, testimonies, themes, permanent exhibitions, oral histories. With a bit of imagination, there would be a large satellite map of the city at the museum’s entrance showing its growth over time and, ideally, a web cam overlooking the city for the visitor to compare and contrast the old and contemporary city through simple computer technology. Above all, though, the museum would aim to capture the essence of the city, the intangible quality which gives the city its uniqueness.
Finally, let’s not lay too great a claim on what a museum can do: a museum is a museum, after all; it is not government. However, the museum about the city can help, perhaps significantly, to improve the urban condition, which, after all, is not a bad ambition.

The institution:
Museum of Copenhagen is 105 years old, owned and run by the municipality of Copenhagen. Originally created to preserve objects from the “good old days” before the industrialisation: Paintings, decorative art, curios archaeological objects. Situated in an 18.th century palace originally built by The Royal Shooting Society, the museum was up to around 1993 somehow the prototype of a traditional European city museum.
Since then we have totally changed the museum and among many other activities made new permanent exhibitions covering all époques from the founding in the 12.th century and up till year 2000. But this will not be the point of my presentation. Instead I will focus on the framework in which we work and through this on our visions for the future. Visions that we have already started to carry out:

Our framework:
The state:
Museum of Copenhagen is a state approved museum. That means, that we work according to the  museum law. To the city museum this means, that we can carry out all the archaeological excavations in Copenhagen, and that these excavation must be paid by the builder or owner of the archaeological spot. The law also says that we and the authorities making city planning are obliged to cooperate in order to secure that historic values of the city always are taken into account, before decisions in city planning or change of buildings are carried through. Of course the city museums advise are not always followed, but we are heard at an early stage of the process.

The politicians in the city council:
There is an general positive approach from the politicians toward culture, and budgets in total have grown through the years. They also follow “The Arm’s Lengths Principe” and never directly interfere in the museums chose of research and exhibition themes.
But: - on the other hand, the basis budgets are reduced a little every year and the money saved put into “small boxes with labels on”. Then we can apply for the money if we want to make an activity that corresponds to the label – and we always want that. Fortunately the labels have very relevant texts like “digitalisation of the cultural heritage”, “accessibility for the citizens to the cultural heritage and to the collections”, “integration of immigrants and refuges in the Danish society”, “cooperation with private enterprises”, e.l.

The contract between the municipal cultural administration and the museum:
The city museum is run by 4-year contracts between the municipal administration and the museum. They are not juridical documents, but they define our activity and economy in the 4 years period. At the same time they are open to new ideas and changes, which are very important because we change opinions and ideas of research and exhibition themes more often than every 4 year. On the other hand we must follow the superior direction and report our results.
In our new contract we have for the first time tried to describe a mission statement and some visions that looks at the museum from outside and in, and that focuses on the citizens instead of describing our mission as creating “the best city museum”.

Our new mission statement says: “The Museum of Copenhagen must participate in the strengthening of the feeling of identity for the individual citizens and groups of citizens – and thus secure development and the feeling of “being part of a whole” – a feeling of coherence in the city.”
With this sentence we want to signalise, that what we do, has a wider utility value than the museum itself.
The vision statement in the contract aims at:

• Use the museum in the integration of newcomers to the city: That comprises everyone from refugees from non western countries to newly employed clerks in the municipality administration.
• Develop the museum through partnerships with business-companies and develop a museum service for the business companies parallel to our school services.
• Move the museums story telling from the museum building out in the streets to meet people where they are.
• Make our collections, research work and story telling accessible on the internet in cooperation with other museums and with the city libraries and city archives.

The citizens, the public opinion and the press,are more interested in art and events. The historic exhibition with artefacts, pictures and texts are not seen as the big attraction. Our number of traditional museums guests are declining, but our number of school classes, groups from language schools, groups from companies and organisations of all kind are increasing. Guided tours and audio walks are popular.
And the interest in history in general is increasing in Denmark. TV-series and new magazines and internet sites are very popular and there are a massive focus on the historic cityscape being of great value to Copenhagen, that due to our strong economy changes very quickly these years.

The conclusion:
Forced by the circumstances, but also by free will, the old city museum in the much to small 18th century palace has taken the challenge opposite to many other museum; Not to go for a new modern museum building, but step by step to develop a new flexible museum concept. A city museum with activities of different and ever changing kind spread round the city and the internet in close cooperation with many partners.

How does this work?
To succeed and develop this loose construction needs a firm and qualified management and administration. Therefore we are now increasing our administration and adding a professional administrator close to the museum director.
-Then it needs back up from the political and the municipal administrative level, -and we have that, although the good will is not always followed by money.
-Then it needs back up from the staff. The border line between the city museum and other institutions and areas of the municipal administration are partly broken up. It is no longer just enough to fight for our own institution !
And then it needs good luck, good networks and good communication, and that is not always the case.

The future:
Is not known, but hopefully we can always change and develop in the tension between our own professional ambitions and plans on the one hand, and the economical/political possible solutions on the other hand.
Thus we must try to be the voice of history that can qualify to days discussions in the city, and the feeling of the citizens themselves to be part of history. 

Internet links:
www.bymuseum.dk
www.goldendays.dk
www.mik.dk
www.absalon.nu (archive, library, museum; opens in September)
www.dieselhouse.dk

My city Malmö is situated in the very south of Sweden, opposite Copenhagen just across the Öresound. Only five years ago the two cities were linked together by a bridge, one of the longest connections in Europe. And some of you may remember that the Swedish Icom together with their Danish colleagues made the offer (that failed in favour of Vienna) to host the 2007 General Conference in the Malmö – Copenhagen region under the title “Bridging Cultures”.
Malmö is a city of around 270 000 inhabitants. 35% of the population are immigrants or of immigrant descent. Malmö is in many ways a segregated city and neither the museum staff of about 100 persons nor the museum collections reflect its multicultural composition. Rightwing elements, racism, rising crime rates, segregation and street gangs are increasing problems in a once prosperous worker’s town. We need to bridge cultures. The city’s as well as the museum’s corporate plan is to actively work against these difficulties and towards an inclusion of everyone in society.
Malmö Museums presents the history of the city and the region from many aspects; cultural history, industrial and maritime history, natural history. From being a traditional museum, featuring mostly the story of kings and upper class, presenting objects without much context, we are now struggling to become the Museum of the Citizens of Malmö in the true sense.
When taking such a step, questions arise. What is the role of the museum? To whose needs and what kinds of needs does it cater? Is it to show the history of the place in which it built, or to tell the story of its people, perpetually moving in time and space?
Modern society sometimes has very little room for culture. Competition for the attention of the public and the citizens is fierce. To find ways to attract interest in culture and history within all groups of society, museums as institutions and city museums in particular will have to have the courage to move out of their “four-wall” seclusion and get involved in the lives of their citizens. To do so you have to have a different view on what to present, where to present, with whom and in what way. Recent studies in Sweden state that the cultural institutions, though speaking about openness and equality, largely remain dominated by white, well-educated males, closed to those not already belonging to this world. Museums tend to be self-righteous about for example approaches to multicultural issues = we know best what is needed. Museums cannot be isolated islands but must move with time and build bridges to the society around.
Objects in museum collections are often accompanied by detailed information about the material, year of manufacture etc, but what really gives life to an object is the story behind. So the museum took steps to renew its activities and amongst those new initiatives were

• A Forget-me-not day on the importance of safekeeping memories, happy as well as traumatic
• Holocaust seminars commemorating the sufferings during World War II and opposing racism and intolerance at large
• Keys to Memory / an exhibition
• MIME, a EU/sponsored project which I will describe
• Roma people – myth and predudice
• Nazism in Scania
• Power over people, the story of the city castle and the power it and ints inhabitants have generated and still imposes on the citizens
• Hot spots quick, small exhibitions, where topical questions are reflected on in history and present day
• Projects and seminars on migration and multiculture

To further illustrate the path Malmö Museums have entered, I would like to present a case study on a project called MIME/Migrating Memories, with which the Malmö Museums set out to become the Museum of all the Citizens of Malmö, by involving new groups of citizens.
The main question in the Migrating Memories project was
What becomes important when you leave your country for one reason or another? Which objects, scents or pictures awaken memories?
We asked new inhabitants in Malmö, Tampere and Nottingham to chose their most important object and tell the story behind it.

The MIME project of which I was elected project coordinator, was based upon a preceding exhibition at our museum entitled Keys to Memory, which had attracted attention for its human touch and simplicity.
MIME - Migrating Memories, consisted of four parts, interlinked:

•  Workshops for young immigrants.

Cooperation with schools providing training for young immigrants, 15-25 years old, in collecting memories

•  Interactive multilingual website with a chat forum, www.migratingmemories.net
• Travelling snowball exhibition
•  Two-day international seminar on the importance of safekeeping memory, with workshop

The MIME Partners in applying for EU funding for the project were Malmö Museums, Malmö, Sweden, the Museicentrum Vapriikki, Tampere in Finland and The Nottingham Trent University, England. Malmö Museums became the lead institution with me as the project coordinator responsible for actions from idea to the final reports and audit to the EU.
The Project period ran one year from November 15, 2000 till November 14, 2001 with a total budget of € 245.614. The funding and Support came out of the EU Culture 2000 Programme and consisted of 56,4% of the total budget.
Arlinda, was 11years old at the time of the project. She came to Sweden from Mitrovica, Kosovo as a political refugee with her family in 1998. When the project was started she did not even know if she would be allowed to stay in Sweden or be expelled. She chose as her objects a small box with worry dolls and she became the symbol for the project, her picture, the blue box with the small dolls and her story.
”We came here because we had to move as there was a war in our country. We were scared. We were only two kilometers away from the war. You could hear the bombs and thought the house would fall. We had no time to take anything. We don’t even know how we got out of the country. We had to hurry up and save our lives.
I only have some toys that a friend gave me when I came here. I feel sorry for them. They are really tiny. I take them out of the box and tell them it is a pity they have to be in there so I keep them in my pocket. I talk to them when I am sad. It feels as if I am talking to a friend or something.”
The workshops for the young newly arrived immigrants were a little bit different in the three partner cities but mainly consisted of

• Museum visits
• Interview technique lessons
• Photography lessons
• Web site work lessons
• Memory workshops, discussions about what a Cultural heritage can be and Story telling.

The students came to the museum or our partners, such as city library, city archive etc, with their teachers in the Swedish language. This way the teachers view the museum as a resource and all appreciated this way of teaching a new language as innovative and inspiring as it let the students work with their own memories and their own words. The students were also present at the exhibition openings in the different cities to give presentations in public on their chosen objects.

The students then proceeded to take pictures of their objects, of themselves and put their texts and photos on the Migrating Memory website. Some students were interviewed on video and the video was also shown in the traveling exhibition as well as their objects live in the blue boxes.
The traveling snowball exhibition opened first in Tampere, where 20 immigrants to Sweden met 20 immigrants to Finland. It then continued to Nottingham where the 20 memories of citizens from that city were added on. When the exhibition returned to Malmö it featured 60 Blue Memory Boxes presenting 20 participants from each city with Object, Photo and Memory text. With the exhibition was included a Video presenting four students and one adult person, talking about their memories awoken by the object they had chosen. There was also a CD with memory triggering sounds.
The last part of the project was an International 2-days- seminar on the importance of safekeeping memories ironically enough held on September 12 / 13 2001. This very much put the museum right in the middle of the world as the first speaker presented his research on how to handle traumatic memories. In this seminar students and teachers were also invited to participate and do presentations about their objects and about the project and their work as a whole.

During the project period additional activities were arranged, complementing the four main project parts, such as a Memory workshops for young children, an exhibition made by an SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) class.
In the exhibition there were Memory books, where people could write down their impressions of the exhibition and add their memories awoken by it. The students made presentations at the library and in schools and at exhibition centres to promote the project. In Finland the immigrants beat the museum staff in a football match arranged together with a party for all participants and a catalogue, made out in the same blue memory box style was produced to the first inauguration of the exhibition.
And although all objects in the exhibition (except for a few that had to be replicas because the owners were not able to loan them, e g a baby’s bottle) were loans to our museums to be returned after the end of the project, the pictures of the participants and their objects as well as their stories became important parts of the museums’ collections.
After the final exhibition day, participants, staff members and others taking part in the project were asked to write about their experiences from working with MIME. To tell your story gives you identity, visibility and participants were proud to present their stories realizing that others took an interest. It was a relief and a grief.
For young people it was a way to look beyond the latest fashion and techniques and find the roots. Time to reflect and make priorities.
To museum staff as well as participants it meant meeting people from a different background. The encounters were fruitful.
So this project ended in November 2001. Or did it? Why am I presenting this project to you today, five years after? Because it still lives. Among the aftermaths I would only like to mention a few:
Theatre Play based on the MIME idea was produced and played in the local theatre. Small exhibitions of about 10 boxes were sent out to community centres and schools and theatre foayers as well as the city hall, the so-called Mini-MIMEs. The project was the main reason for Malmö Museums to be elected Swedish Museum of the Year Award 2002. I have made numerous presentations of the project in different connections and to different audiences and written several articles of out experiences from the project.
MIME was elected Best Practice at a EU meeting in Naples in 2003. In Denmark the project became the model for other exhibitions with immigrants arranged by the Danish Refugee Board and the Images of Asia-festival. In 2004 the project was presented at a EuroCities meeting and in a booklet as Best Practice within the EU. A year ago I presented the project to the World Leisure European Conference as a way to work with young people and language education and the project was also presented here in Greece at an ICME conference on Oral History.
Last year in the Italian city of Cortemilia, the Ecomuseum produced a replica exhibition opening on August 21, 2005 along with a MIME style catalogue and my colleague there wrote:
“The opening went well and the reactions at the exhibit were warmest than we thought.
A lot of people came and they were all moved and touched by the result. A lot of compliments for the idea and for the fitting itself (grafic included). Even the members of the North African community visited it (never happened before) more than one time and everybody spent time and attention to the written stories. Most of the people walked through it reading every think, from the beginning to the end. Really astonishing!”
And now MIME is in Volos. Thank you for keeping Migrating Memories alive by inviting me to speak here today.
Because as one MIME participant remarks:
 “You cannot not remember. To remember is a way to survive and move on in life.”
A City museum in my view has to mirror its citizens through time and in all facets of society. It must not be afraid to touch upon difficult questions but be prepared to act as a bridge between now and then, between people and cultures, between high and low. Bridging cultures. No story is to small. No memory to unimportant. No parts of history to be forgotten. Museums do not have to be neutral in their presentations. Hiding behind non-existing demands for total objectivity will not support the idea of a living museum interacting in society.
“I will help build the new museum”, said an enthusiastic young participant in the MIME project, when he entered our museum for the first time. “I will come back with my children and say “I am in this museum”. And he was right. It is only through close cooperation and relations with its citizens that a museum can claim to be a true City Museum.
Museums do have an important role to play in safeguarding our heritage. But it must come with a context. A human touch. To tell your story gives you identity and the participants in the MIME-project felt at the same time grief and relief. Things they had not been able to talk about for many years, which it took a lot of courage to reveal, were keys to memories for others. They took pride in knowing that their life stories were important in the history of the city.
As every human being in himself is a museum – with objects, memories and a story to tell.
I wish my colleagues the best of luck in the important and challenging work that lies ahead of you here in Volos.

In this article I will try to share with you some of my views on the challenges facing city museums in the coming years. I realize that many of my observations do not have a general validity: they are based on our own practise in the Amsterdam Historical Museum, especially during the past fifteen years. Therefore I will start by presenting you some examples of our work during that period. During the conference City Museums as Centres of Civic Dialogue?, 3-5 November 2005 in Amsterdam, it was clear that many city museums have dealt with similar problems and challenges concerning their visitor, presentation and collection policies. I hope that my article will contribute to the discussions about the future City Museum of Volos.

Introduction to the Amsterdam Historical Museum
The Amsterdam Historical Museum (AHM) opened in its present location in the centre of the old city, in October 1975. The museum is housed in the 17th century and 18th century buildings of the former Civic Orphanage of the city of Amsterdam.
Over 80% of our financial budget comes from the municipality of Amsterdam. In order to realize exhibitions, publications and other activities extra subsidies and sponsoring are required. The number of visitors varies yearly between 170.000-200.000.
The collections of the museum are very rich and varied. Roughly they cover the period from the 13th century, when Amsterdam was founded, to the present time. One of the highlights is the collection of 17th century paintings, which for example contains high quality group portraits from painters like Ferdinand Bol and Barthelomeus van der Helst and even Rembrandt. There is a large collection of historical objects and arts and crafts, and an archaeological collection. During the past years a lot of  attention is paid to the acquisition of objects and immaterial heritage of Amsterdams 20th century history.
Around 1993 the AHM wanted to start some new collection, presentation, and visitor policies. Visitor research at the time showed clearly that the museum attracted almost no families with children and very few local or national visitors with an immigration background. Although the outcome of the research was in many ways positive we had of course to take the negative judgements very serious: our permanent exhibitions were not lively and ´emotional enough; it was difficult for visitors to identify themselves with the presentations; visitors missed an interactive approach; especially the rooms on the 19th history were old fashioned and the 20th century presentation was almost non-existant. A special problem for this last period was that the AHM´s 20th collections at the time were very small.
In order to make important changes the AHM developed a number of policy lines, which had to result in a new permanent exhibition of the 19th and 20th century history by 1999. Another result had to be a new visitor approach in the educational and public relations departments. These policy lines were ´tested´in temporary exhbitions in the years 1994-1998. In order to achieve the best results we formulated each time the precize results we wanted to gain. Most of the time we were able to carry out visitor research to check the outcome.  
In the following four of our main approaches will be briefly described.

The biographical approach
In the second half of the nineties the AHM developed the concept of biographical collecting. Starting in 1998 every year several, carefully selected, people were ‘documented’. They were interviewed, their home and work situation were photographed and drawn, the museum acquired personal objects for the collection. In other instances this ´people´approach was applied on a smaller scale. This approach greatly contributed to making our exhibitions more emotional and easier to identify with. It also was one of the instruments for our new, 20th century collecting. This approach turned out to be very and could be used in several parts of our new permanent exhibition of the history of the twentieth century. A good example is the ‘children’s gallery’. The theme of this gallery is how children lived in Amsterdam during the last 140 years. The last showcase shows a moment from the life of Yasmine Kho (1987). In 1999 she was twelve years old, in her last year of elementary school. She was interviewed, she drew a plan of her room and on the request of the museum she recorded her life during a week. Next to the showcase is an interactive programme in which the visitor can find all the family trees of her classmates of elementary school `De Punt´in the Western part of Amsterdam.

Stimulating interactivity as an educational approach
A special policy was developed to make our museum more interesting for children. Outside schoolprograms children rarely visited our museums. Our exhibitions had to become less ‘passive’ and more stimulating.
One of the temporary exhbitions in which we tested this strategy was a temporary exhibition about the prints and drawings of Jan Luyken (1649-1712) in 1998. This Amsterdam artist was around 1700 one of the most pöpular book illustrators in Holland. His most famous work show scenes from Dutch daily life, such as birth, childhood, marriage, work, old age and death. Our museum owns the world’s  largest collection of his drawings, prints and books.
In this exhibition we wanted to make a special effort to reach families with children, age 8 and older. That’s why Anneke van de Kieft of our educational department developed a so-called children’s trail consisting of ten special ´do´items. Her intention was to offer the children a lively visit and to  stimulate them to take a  look at some of the original drawings.
The exhibition consisted of walls, which showed on one side the drawings and prints,  and on the other an item of the children’s trail. An example was the so-called ‘electric’ game. Another part of the trail was the ‘old’ and ‘new’ game: although crafts and objects have changed objects functions are often still  the same. At the end of the exhibition was a computer quiz, where children (and of course adults) could test their knowledge of Jan Luyken.
Of course we applied our experiences with testing different ways of stimulating visitor interactivity in other temporary exhibitions before applying this in our new permanent exhibition rooms of the twentieth century in 1999.

The multicultural approach
Amsterdam has a large immigrant population: over 37% of our citizens are immigrants or direct descendants of immigrants from non-industrialised countries, the largest groups coming from Turkey and Morocco and from our former colony Surinam. Part of our new museum policy line was to find out how we could make our museum more interesting for those Amsterdammers. We wanted to elaborate this in educational programmes, in exhibitions, in our acquisition policy and our pr approach. And, if possible, we wanted to hire more persons with this an immigrant background in the higher positions in our staff.
To be frank, we more or less started off somewhere. In 1995 we were asked by a Turkish cultural organisation in Amsterdam to organise a photo exhibition in our museum about a village in Anatolia. This village was typical for the place of origin of many Turkish Amsterdammers. The exhibition was realised in 1996. As a separate part we included a section where objects were on display, which were taken to the museum by visitors of recent Turkish descent. The experience we gained with this project was widened the next year during a more or less similar project about Moroccan Amsterdammers.
Using our many personal contacts from these two projects we were able to work more efficiently in the preparation of our new permanent exhibition.  In many parts we were able to include the history of immigration, like in this caroussel of immigrants to Amsterdam in the twentieth century, a combination of our biographical collecting and our multicultural approach.

The socially ´inclusive´ approach
In recent years the multicultural approach has been greatly refined, working more and more from an intercultural point of view. Instead of focussing on separate cultural and ethnic ´groups´the emphasis shifted to the dynamics of intercultural interaction between citizens. An interesting and important example is the project and temporary exhibition East, an Amsterdam neighbourhood (October 2003-february 2004). The district East Amsterdam (60.000 people) shows an enormous diversity of ethnic cultures. Very few inhabitants of East visit the AHM.  Our educational department played a major role in this project, working for the first time in co-operation with a temporary staff member with a background in Social Work.
Most important objective of the project was to find out what could possibly be our role in a neighbourhood like East. Secondly we wanted to reach different target groups of people who were not familiar with our museum and to establish a more lasting relationship with these groups. With these objectives in mind the museum developed, prior to the opening of the exhibition, several ´outreach´ activities in the form of sub-projects. The idea was to make people more familiar with the museum, to explain the intentions of the project, stimulate participation of the inhabitants and to involve them in the process of making the exhibition. This was accomplished by developing relations with people in the neighbourhood on a basis of equality and by working in a question-oriented way.
A large part of the preparation and implementation of the sub-projects took place within the neighbourhood, often followed by activities in the museum. All sub-projects were set up in cooperation with welfare and community organizations, something that is very uncommon in the Dutch museum world. Several of them being immigrant organizations.
In the end many East inhabitants came tovisit the exhibition, parts of which were made with their help. Besides this a successful new working method  was developed to reach new target groups. Almost two years after the exhibition finished our network in East  still exists.

Conclusions
By elaborating and testing the policies described above in a nutshell, we have tried to become a museum that is more question (visitor) oriented; using stories and emotions in its exhibitions to make history more accessible; more fun, especially for younger people; as much as possible welcoming to all Amsterdammers, including those who came more recently to the city; putting a greater emphasis on the history of everyday life.
What will be for us, city museums, the opportunities, dilemmas and threats in the coming years?  My view on this is, like I stated in the beginning, mostly based on our own situation. However, in many ways we are not different from many other city museums, especially in England, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, as became clear during the conference in Amsterdam in November. Of course what follows is just an impression.

Opportunities
Storytelling, both as a source of historical information and as an educational vehicle, is very popular. Citizens are willing and even very motivated to tell relate their personal. This is a great opportunity for city museums. By telling stories and sometimes by making personal objects available for the museum people may be more involved in what the museum is about. It is one of the ways to make the museum more inclusive, opening its doors for all citizens.
Another opportunity for the next years is to use the museum as an instrument for emancipation.  Controversial subjects like homosexuality, prostitution, the history of slavery and so on do not only bring a new public to the museum, they also can make it possible to present the audience a different view on controversial subjects, and thus stimulate discussion. During the conference examples from Liverpool and Amsterdam were presented.
A third opportunity is the wide interest which many people show today, certainly in cultural heritage, also outside the museum: monuments, archaeology, archives. Examples from cities like Barcelona, Bruges, Antwerp and Venice show how constructive a closerco-operation between the different heritage sectorscan be. An extra dimension comes from including the natural environment as has been done by Professor Amareswar Galla for example in his projects to development a more sustainable approach of heritage in Vietnam.
For all the opportunities mentioned here the importance of tourism, of more leisure time in general and of new technical developments such as audio guides, stand-alone equipment and so on is eminent.

What could be the dilemmas?
Many city museums have ´mixed´collections: objects of art, paper collections, objects of a more historical or documentation value, archaeology. They cover in their exhibitions a period of several centuries, including recent history. It can be a dilemma how to find a way to successfully make theolder history rooms more visitors oriented, especially when objects of great artistic value are involved.
A real challenge in the coming years will be to develop a strategy about the dilemma what should be the balance between permanent exhibitions and temporary exhibitions?
Shouldn’t we try to show a large percentage of our collections on permanent display? On the other hand, isn’t it better to have only temporary, constantly changing exhibitions in which the collections play a (major?) part? What target groups are served best by a permanent exhibition, which by temporary presentations? Part of this dilemma is the fact that, in a time of great demographic changes many people do not share a common ‘history´ anymore.
A third, and important, dilemma is the following. Should we collect immaterial heritage without at the same time acquiring material heritage, in other words can we collect for example interviews without objects? Museums have traditionally always collected objects, at present immaterial heritage is receiving more and more attention. 

Possible Threats
Privatization and an ever growing emphasis on commercialisation can be a menace to the existence of city museums. During recent years many national and local museums in the Netherlands have been privatized, working now as a foundation. For them it is a matter of survival to raise sufficient income out of admissions fees, museum shops, restaurants and so on, apart from the subsidies they still receive from the national and local governments. Unless the museum is very popular, like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, this can be a tough job.
Competition from other museums (blockbusters!) and organisations which want to attract the attention of visitors, especially tourists, is sometimes fierce. It is more and more important to develop a clear profile.
Too much emphasis on the presentation and audience tasks of a museum can lead to neglect of the maintenance and documentation of the collections.
A last threat could be the ´conservative´ side of museums. Their task is after all also to preserve cultural heritage for generations to come. Will they be able to find an answer to the expectations of whole new generations of visitors, used to quick, stimulating and dynamic ways of entertainment?

Bibliography
City Museums as Centres of Civic Dialogue? Amsterdam 2006. Publication of the proceedings of the conference of the International Association of City Museums in Amsterdam, 3-5 November 2005.  The book may be ordered at the Publishing House Edita, Het Trippenhuis Postbus 19121, 1000 GC Amsterdam. edita@bureau.knaw.nl
Renée Kistemaker, Comment collecter et présenter l´histoire des nouveaux habitants d´Amsterdam ? Une nouvelle mission pour le Musée Historique d´Amsterdam. In Comment inscrire les musées de ville dans la ville ? Association international des musées d´histoire/ Conseil français des musées d´histoire/ Musée d´Histoire de Marseille. Marseille 2003
Amareswar Galla, Culture and Heritage Development: Ha Long Ecomuseum, a Case Study from Vietnam. Museums of the future, the future of museums, part 2. Humanities Research vol. IX, no.1, 2002

In the last 25 years, the general shift recorded in regard to issues of history, memory and cultural heritage have overthrown previous views on the city and its location.
The city, the urban landscape, is treated like a palimpsest, something produced over a long period of time, bearing the marks of history, the loss and complementation of older urban forms, a landscape where the (collective and individual) memories of habitation – old and new – are recorded. The city, thus, becomes a privileged landscape of history, a location of memory, a place preserving cultural heritage.
If, generally speaking, memory is beleaguered by gaps, alterations and “imaginary constructs”, the city location, more inert and less flexible, preserves numerous city elements. The urban landscape, like a fossil of time, becomes synonymous with the character of the city and reflects a landscape of history – an agent of memory; in this aspect, it may be viewed as an open museum where history and memory take on a material form, where traces are left by physical changes, ways of life, citizens’ ideas and activities.
The physiognomy and characteristics of the city of Volos will be presented by examining three isues:

1. The geographical “stage” of the city, the natural framework wherein human activities that have decidedly defined the city’s character take place
2. The location of the city as a record of history, its stratification, where the change of the urban form during the last 200 years will be detected and the elements that comprise identified.
3. The memories of the city, as recorded in the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage, which the city has dynamically undertaken in recent years.

The location: the geographical “stage” of the city
The sea, the plains of Thessaly and the imposing mass of Mt. Pelion define the natural environment where Volos was born and developed; they are the forces that affected the development and decidedly shaped its character. Volos emerged in this primal geographical framework – in the only physically protected exit of Thessaly to the sea, i.e. the Pagassitikos Gulf – as a port city that established its existence through its contacts with distant worlds and cultures; this identity has remained unaltered for centuries. The coastline slowly changed, giving way to various residential sites, and was linked to the appearance and disappearance of ancient settlements. The “focal point” of habitation shifted from era to era, but it has continued virtually uninterruptedly and periods of prosperity have succeeded each other. In the broader environment of the city, historical topography provides numerous documents of the continuous inhabitation of the region: some of the most important Neolithic sites in the Balkans, such as Sesklo and Dimini, and prosperous Mycenaean locations, such as Iolkos (identified by recent archaeological research) next to Dimini, or those at Pefkakia and Palia Hill. Pagasses prospered during the classical period, comprising the seaport of Ferres. The impressive complex of Hellenistic and Roman Dimitrias, which flourished during the Early Christian era, stretches over Pefkakia, while a Hellenistic city that preserves its authentic town planning form and walls is located on Goritsa Hill. Phthiotid Thebes (Thebes of Phthiotis), an important Early Christian and Byzantine centre, is preserved a little further to the south, in present-day Nea Aghialos. Important church monuments date back to the Byzantine period; some are located around the city, such as the monastery of St. Lavrendios, Kato Moni Xenias and the Episcope church. In recent times, Volos operated as a complex including the 24 Mt. Pelion villages, important centres of Modern Greek enlightenment that developed a remarkable cottage industry tradition, which the city would later capitalize on through its industrial activity. After all, modern Volos owes its rebirth to the transfusion of workforce, entrepreneurial ideas and professional skills from Mt. Pelion settlements and other centres of expatriate Hellenism.

 History and its locations
By examining the modern face of Volos – at first sight, a youthful, legible face – the urban landscape opens up like a field where one can locate not only traces of the deep past but also marks of recent adventures that have shaped the specific profile of the modern city.
A city that has been looking towards the future, the world and communication since antiquity, Volos has been unshakeably in favour of modernization, since its rebirth in 1840, experiencing significant changes in town planning, economy, and so on.
“Volos is truly a city of ants and beavers”, according to the frontispiece of the Guide published by the City’s Trade Association in 1901. This maxim expresses the city’s adherence to modernization, dynamism and its practical spirit, its utilitarian perception of the past to date.
The character of Volos was defined by the city’s relationship with the sea. Its marine front comprised a stage that witnessed crucial events of the creation and development of the city, the horizon of its “opening” out to the world, the place where change and modernization came from. For Volos, the road of modernization and change passed through the reorganization of its relationship with the sea, decidedly shaping the image of its urban landscape.
Within this urban landscape, stretching today along the seafront between the two hills – Pefkakia and Goritsa – with the remains of two ancient cities, one can detect traces of continuity and successive “shearing forces” that shaped the city during the last two centuries:
1. The inertia of the Ottoman era preserved the medieval core of the city virtually unchanged until the 19th century, a small fortress that controlled the sparse traffic of a half-deserted port. Known today as Palia, this area comprises the “Castle”, where habitation has continued uninterrupted since Prehistoric times, and the small market of the port, the “Palea Magazia” (“Old Stores”), that developed from the 17th century onwards. On this small hill, fortified by Justinian, the settlement (6 hectares) is first referred to as Volos in the 14th century. Following the Ottoman conquest of Thessaly, in 1423, an Ottoman garrison and population settled at the castle, while the previous Christian residents took refuge in the villages of Mt. Pelion. Today, fully altered, the district comprises the oldest preserved monuments of the city’s history, such as parts of the Byzantine walls, relics of an Early Christian basilica, a spa and powder magazine from the Ottoman era, while stores, workshops, residenes and inns from the second half of the 19th century are preserved in the market area.
2. The medieval urban form was overthrown by the rise of international commerce, which promoted Volos into the top port of Thessaly, bringing in new ideas and official agencies. The strive for modernization was expressed by the initiative of Christian merchants, mostly from the mountainous region of Mt. Pelion, who obtained a permit from the Sultan in 1840 to found a district for their entrepreneurial activities to the east of the castle. The first new city in Greece under Ottoman rule was formed as an exceptional counterpoint to the castle in regard to the ethnic-religious composition of the population, economic operation and town planning. The new commercial quarter (the “New Stores”) – which comprised the modern city centre – was constructed with orderly town planning along the waterfront and quickly became a small “state” with a school, a church, hotels and consulates.
3. This new dynamic core comprised the basis for the total redesign of the city by the Greek authorities immediately after its liberation. In 1882, the city’s image was modernized and the medieval heritage was practically swept away. The city was organized according to the models of official neoclassical town planning and its architecture decidedly ignored the rich tradition of Mt. Pelion region. In the following years, the installation of a railway and the construction of a modernized port opened the city to economic modernization, which transformed it from a commercial to an industrial centre. Its area rapidly expanded around the commercial district and was enriched with important civic buildings – a city hall, a theatre, a museum, a hospital, a School of Commerce and a girls’ school – that reflected a dynamic civic society on an industrial takeoff orbit. Soon, the city became the top city in population and urban functions in Thessaly, with middle class districts on the east side and working class districts on the west, around the medieval core of the castle, which was degraded and unscrupulously planned in 1889. Today, the region comprises the social and entrepreneurial heart of Volos, bearing architectural documents from the creation of a new city and its interwar prosperity.
4. During the adventurous interwar period, the city’s population and area dramatically increased. This violent urbanization (from 30,046 residents in 1920 to 47,892 in 1928), effected by the new suburb of Volos, the large refugee settlement of Nea Ionia, was caused, this time, by the non-economic causes of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which had an important economic and social impact on the city. Volos expanded its economic functions and renewed its industry with numerous workers, it demanded new technical projects, mostly those of a port nature, it established and reinforced the functional and social differentiation of the urban area and marked the end of the city’s Ottoman past with the departure of its last Muslim residents. The image of interwar Volos was dominated by natural traces of these intense reclassifications: the large industrial units (40 factories and many cottage industry workshops, mostly located near the railway and the port), which accentuated the particular “tone” of urban life, and organized or improvised refugee settlements, which rapidly evolved into purely working-class districts in the urban region.
5. Perhaps the most important event in the 20th century history of Volos was its destruction by earthquakes in 1955. The city of 65,090 residents in 1951 was nearly levelled, thousands of residents became homeless and its economy was ravaged. The city’s relationship with its past suffered greatly, as the large-scale destruction of its historical buildings brought about the loss of its neoclassical image and was further worsened further due to the choices of a regressive restructuring programme at a time when modern town planning and architecture were flourishing: the reconstruction project was assigned to the army and Volos was rebuilt according to its old plan (of 1930) without any reforms, the only stipulation being extensive expansions on its perimeter. Very few old buildings were repaired, as owners generally preferred to replace them with new, more resilient and efficient buildings; furthermore, simple types of small detached antiseismic houses were implemented on a massive scale for low-income residents and “cooperative” apartment buildings were erected for those with high incomes. The city took on the form of a scattered, faceless “garden city”, excluding its centre, where apartment buildings multiplied during the ‘80s. The atmosphere of modernization would once again permeate the city years later, with the construction of new buildings – a hospital, a theatre, hotels, schools, etc. – and in 1969 the Industrial Region of Volos was founded, aiming at rehabilitating local industry.

Memory and its present-day handling: cultural heritage
Present-day Volos, a city with a great historical depth, is a modern city with an ambiguous identity – a unique fusion of old and new. With 140,00 residents, it combines an authentic urbanity, which it owes to its past, and a relaxing serenity created by its medium size, which renders experiencing the city readily feasible.
Its succinct rectangular web (a legacy of the 19th century) makes the city austere and manageable; however, these attributes were somewhat disrupted by variability and a certain disarray of functions, creating an atmosphere of familiarity, where the practical and the functional clash with the monumental. After all, the city does not have many monuments or monumental squares and avenues. Its image reflects a perception of nature and landscape that is different from that romantic depiction of Western civilization. Its landscape preserves the qualities of open spaces and clear horizons eloquently expressing the notion of a coastal city, a commercial and industrial city that has been seriously injured by the industrial decline of the last 25 years.
However, even though the primary image of the city indicates a definite trend towards modernization, history is present in the perimeter of the city, which is abundant with antiquities, and its stratification, the valuable heritage of pieces of past urban forms (e.g. preserved pieces of the medieval core, neoclassical road mapping or documents of its industrial past – factories and residences), which coexist in an integrated recognizable form, full of symbolic references.
In this sense, the city can be seen as an open museum: not because it is encountered in a “museum” fashion, but because it comprises a most complete, authentic and experiential field that arouses memory, imagination and education.
During its modern Greek beginnings and onward, mostly after the reconstruction following the 1955 earthquakes, Volos experienced a particular and unbidden damnatio memoriae similar to the – renowned in antiquity – levelling of the historical face of a city by its conqueror as the ultimate act of punishment. Steadily ignoring the bequeathed urban area was dictated not only by need but also by the practical and functional spirit that the city displayed towards its past.
Thus, during the last 20 years, this trend has been reversed and the preservation and enhancement of architectural heritage is actively involved, for the first time, in the search for a modern image of the city.
From 1980 onwards, two parallel trends – one towards modernization and one towards memory – have been attempting to change the disfavored climate created by deindustrialization and to rally the dynamism of Volos under new conditions. On the one hand, there are the efforts to modernize transport infrastructure (roads and port) and the environment, to improve public spaces and to develop a significant service sector – established with the founding of the University in 1984; on the other hand, there is the effort to reintegrate fragments of previous eras into the modern web and to activate the city’s cultural heritage so as to enrich the quality and quantity of public spaces and allow its latent yet rich stratification to emerge.
The founding of the History Centre in 1991, following an initiative by the Municipality of Volos, actively contributed to the preservation and promotion of the city history and memory, while recent actions for the creation of museums (including the almost-ready museum at Tsalapatas and the nascent city museum) will augment the impetus generated by the Archaeological Museum in 1909.
Top priority for Volos, at a local and national level, is the reuse of old industrial buildings so as to satisfy the city’s modern needs; this priority is based on memory and necessity. On the one hand, the preservation and promotion of the most representative documents of the city’s industrial era and, on the other hand, the pressing need to find venues for modern urban functions, have promoted old factories into privileged venues wherein an unusual practice was exercised. This has led to the reintegration of such a multiply valuable “stock” into the city’s daily life, through new uses of a utilitarian or developmental character systematically avoiding, as a rule, the rationale of coarse tourism “utilization”.
The concept dynamically emerged with the programme for the facilities of the new University after 1985, when the reuse of inactive industrial units was firmly inaugurated. The 3 Faculties and 12 Departments are housed in 3 former industrial complexes located in strategic parts of the city: on the waterfront in the city centre, in the Field of Mars to the west and at Fytoko, in northern districts. The Library is also located in the city centre, housed, as of recently, in the old premises of Athens Bank; the old tobacco factory of Matsaggos, currently under architectural study, will also be incorporated in the city centre.
The University’s initiative was quickly adopted by the Municipality, which was seeking venues to implement the programme for the equipment of utility services. The first industrial building that was renovated was the Spearer tobacco warehouse, which has been housing municipal services since 1996 and comprises a focal point for the city’s cultural life. I would like to indicatively mention the warehouse of the Franco-Hellenic Tobacco Company, which today houses the Vocational Training Institute of the Municipality of Volos, Etmektzoglou Silk Workshop, which houses activities by the Municipality of Nea Ionia, the building of the old Electric Company, which houses the Musical Theatre Centre and, of course, the most important acquisition of the city, the old Tsalapatas Brick-Ceramic Workshop, which includes a host of new uses along with the Museum of Industry; last but not least, there is Papandos tobacco warehouse in the Castle district, which is destined to become the City Museum.
Despite certain weaknesses and “misses” of these interventions, a total of 21 old factories in total have acquired new significance in the city’s daily life through their new use: four by initiative of the University, fifteen by municipal initiative, one by the Prefecture of Magnesia, one by the Port Authority and two by private citizens.
Today, when the significance of memory and protection of its material carriers has been fortified in the conscience of local authorities and citizens, we may claim that architectural heritage and urban stratification do not only comprise an ideal location for reflecting on the city’s past, but also provide a privileged field for establishing its future and for convincingly seeking Volos’ future image.