AL M ACE N AMIE NT O DE MAT E R IALE S Agregados:

To conclude, in order to achieve the concept of spatial-storytelling through interpreting the artefacts, the media of circulation, space layout, lighting, and material should all contribute to communicate meanings of small artefacts. Then, in order to prove that the museum architecture could be considered as the medium of spatial-storytelling to communicate meanings, are there any museum cases that adopt their architecture space as spatial-storytelling of artefacts? As stated in the Introduction, the idea of spatial-storytelling adopted in this thesis involves at least two levels of meanings - the shelter of the museum building and the architectural fragment which are contained within.199

In regard to architecture as artefact displayed in the museum, there are some museum cases illustrating this level of meaning. Beamish, a North of England Open Air Museum which located at Beamish, England, is the case of a whole village as artefact displayed in the museum which contributes to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Through utilising a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings together with a huge collection of artefacts, working vehicles and livestock and costumed interpreters, this open air museum interprets the past local lives in an architectural way from the urban scale. In addition to a whole village as artefact

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Hillier, and Rooksby, eds. Habitus, p. 43.

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ibid., p. 43.

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displayed in the museum, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Ara Pasis museum in Rome are cases of complete buildings as artefacts in museums for communication. Housing original-sized reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus, and the original Altar of Peace, both museums contributes to interpret significant meanings contained by complete buildings from an architectural scale. Besides the above cases, museums also install façades or streetscape as part of architecture inside its space to interpret past lives of different societies. In the Grand Hall in Canadian Museum of Civilisation, by designing a wall as a colourful photograph capturing a forest scene, the Hall provides a backdrop for a dozen towering totem poles and recreations of six Pacific Coast Aboriginal house facades connected by a boardwalk. Same interpretive techniques are also employed in the Canada Hall in the Museum. Presented as a “streetscape”, this hall invites the visitor to stroll through hundreds of years of Canadian history beginning with the arrival of Viking explorers. Hence, scales of architecture as artefact displayed in museums varies from village scale to architecture scale to street and façade scale. In addition to the previous scales, fragments of architecture are also displayed in the museums. Examples could be instantiated as the Cast Courts in the Victoria and Albert Museum which houses hundreds of plaster casts of sculptures and architectural elements; the Bassai Sculptures Gallery which displays the Bassai Frieze in the British Museum; and also the two Parthenon Galleries selected in this thesis exhibiting the Sculptures of the Parthenon particularly the Ionic Frieze.

From the above discussion, the meaning of architecture as artefacts displayed in the museum varies from scales of urban village to small fragments of architecture. In regard to the other meaning of architecture as shelter of museum, there are countless examples which could be instantiated. Regardless of the primitive museum collections as cabinets of curiosities or modern museums as engaging environment of collections opens to the general public, shelter of the building plays a significant role in collecting artefacts and interpreting cultures. Therefore, regardless of various scales of architecture as different artefacts being displayed in the museum or the shelter of the

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museum building, they could all be regarded as meaningful vehicles for the museum professionals to communicate with the contemporary society.

With the above intension and question in mind, a museum survey was carried out on museum cases comprising seven general categories - name of the museum, type, location, year of building, chief architect, official website, and gallery of spatial-storytelling. Through checking the relevant information of 130 museums around the world, two museums that are effectively exhibiting the ‘same’ material in markedly different ways - the Ionic Frieze at the Parthenon Galleries in the British Museum and the recently opened New Acropolis Museum in Athens - are selected. What is special about the artefacts - the Ionic Frieze - is that, not only is the Parthenon Temple the spatial-storytelling of the Ionic Frieze, but also the Ionic Frieze itself is a depiction of ritual events - a visual-storytelling. In the next part, the discussion will introduce the Ionic Frieze through its general function on Classical architecture to its specific application on the Parthenon Temple.

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Chapter Three The Ionic Frieze on the Parthenon Temple

as Spatial-Storytelling

Introduction

This chapter is structured in three sections. The content of the first section is a general discussion on Gottfried Semper’s idea that original architecture actually metamorphosed from the weaving of branches to an analogous application of stone, as a meaningful activity of man. In addition to Semper’s idea, the discourse introduces the frieze in Classical architecture and the frieze in Ancient Greece as textile-storytelling by employing the Panathenaia peplos as the narrative device. The content of the second section is the particular case study of a frieze as spatial-storytelling device; the Ionic Frieze on the Parthenon Temple in Greece.

The research method being applied in the writing of the first section is a brief literature review of references to Semper’s ideas and historical development of the frieze in both textile weaving and architecture. The research method being applied in the writing of the second section is a case study based on a literature review of the Parthenon Temple. Therefore, this chapter is constructed mainly upon the discussion of how the ‘frieze’ metamorphosed from the material of textile-storytelling to the material of marble-storytelling on architecture, which naturally contributes to how spatial-storytelling is achieved on the Ionic Frieze and the Parthenon Temple.