The South Kensington Museum in context
An Alternative History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4105082 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bruce Robertson (Santa Barbara City College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-14 |
| Publication date | 2015-03-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Museum and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1479-8360 • E-ISSN: 1479-8360 |
| Publisher | University of Leicester (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.29311/mas.v2i1.32 |
| OpenAlex | W2149848946 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 6 |
The South Kensington Museum-now the Victoria and Albert Museum-has a complex history. Founded in 1857 as an omnibus museum of art and industry-a condensation of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in all its abundance-it had a bewildering variety of possible futures ahead of it, including failure (or existence as an adjunct to a café, as one infamous ad campaign suggested twenty years ago).2 Yet the history of the museum has generally been written teleologically and typologically, as though it were both inevitable and obvious that it should turn into an art museum. The figure behind this foregone development is Henry Cole (aided by a few of his curators), who is perceived as rather quickly subjugating the conflicting possible directions of the museum to the goal of making art available for the public. I would like to offer a sketch of a different history here, one that sees the context of the museum not in the field of other like museums but in its location, both physical and institutional, on the land owned by the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and in the Education Department
Archaeology · Geography · Architecture, Design, and Social History · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies
Foundational photographs
Myths of the Odyssey in the British Museum (and beyond)
Specimens Distributed’
La dynamique de pouvoir dans la représentation de l’Autre. Le cas des arts de l’Islam en Europe
The Franklin Relics in the Arctic Archive
Museums for the many? Rhetorical optimism and the failure of sustained political will at three London government-funded museums – then and now
Suffering is the badge of all our tribe
The Mobile Museum
Design museum futures
Museum Geography
Objects of utility
Tastemakers, 'Foreign Merchants' and the Making of the V&A's Islamic Art Collection
Architectures of display at the National Gallery
Imagining and engaging difference in the art museum
Victorian Pioneers of Corporate Sustainability
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.71 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2025 (21) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 15 |