MUSEUM

also called Alexandrian Museum, or Museum Of Alexandria, Greek Mouseion, ancient centre of classical learning at Alexandria in Egypt. A research institute that was especially noted for its scientific and literary scholarship, the Museum was built near the royal palace either by Ptolemy II Philadelphus about 280 BC or by his father Ptolemy I Soter (reigned 323285/283 BC). The best surviving description of the Museum is by the Greek geographer and historian Strabo, who mentions that it was a large complex of buildings and gardens with richly decorated lecture and banquet halls linked by porticos, or colonnaded walks. It was organized in faculties with a president-priest at the head; the salaries of the scholars on the staff were paid by the Egyptian king and later by the Roman emperor. The renowned Library of Alexandria formed a part of the Museum. In AD 272 the buildings of the Museum were destroyed in the civil war under the Roman emperor Aurelian, although the educational and research functions of the institution seem to have continued until the 5th century. See also Alexandria, Library of. institution that preserves and interprets objects for cultural and educational purposes. Museums originated with people's interest in collecting and accumulating precious, beautiful, and curious objects. The oldest such collections were privately financed, made by the wealthy or by the church. The cathedral treasuries founded in the European Middle Ages and the great picture collections of Renaissance Italy and 17th- and 18th-century France and England are examples. Since the middle of the 19th century, most museums have become publicly accessible institutions, even though many still rely on private funds. Their emphasis since World War II has expanded from a scholarly and conservationist outlook to one in which education and mass communication have become important concerns. Traditionally, museums displayed as many objects from their collections as possible, in plain and often drab display cases or hung on walls from floor to ceiling, with the aim of making as much as possible visible to a scholarly public. Little attention was devoted to making a display attractive, informative, or entertaining. Objects were classified in a scientific manner, and storage and display were ends in themselves. Since the mid-20th century, however, aesthetic concerns have increasingly influenced display techniques, and, in turn, museum architecture has attached greater importance to flexibility of space, availability of sophisticated climate-control systems, and the use of both natural and artificial lighting facilities to create varied effects. As museums have evolved architecturally from the templelike treasure houses of the 19th and early 20th centuries into centres for education and recreation, so the problems of preservation and interpretation have widened to encompass such social and economic aspects as security, insurance, public relations, fund-raising, and financial management. Museums still play important roles in scholarship, and many museums maintain research facilities and libraries for staff and outside scholars to study and publish information based on objects in the museum. Museums may have general or specialized collections. Accordingly, they may be classified broadly as general museums, natural history and natural science museums, science and technology museums, history museums, and art museums. General museums have multidisciplinary collections that may be as diverse as natural history and art. Reflecting the encyclopaedic origins of the modern museum, they are likely to have been founded earlier than the mid-20th century. Many were built by local and regional governments in order to promote civic pride and to provide educational opportunities. Museums of natural history and natural science are concerned with the natural world, both past and presentincluding the earth sciences. Well-known examples include the Natural History Museum in London, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; these institutions are also major centres of taxonomic research. The most famous museums of science and technology include London's Science Museum, the Deutsches Museum (German Museum) in Munich, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and the more specialized National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Such museums may deal with the history of science or its application, and many have pioneered displays in which visitors can participate in demonstrations and experiments, often with imaginative uses of models and machines that are especially popular with children. History museums may document a period or event in history, a particular place or person, or an archaeological site. Examples of major museums of history include the Museum of London, the Museum of the City of New York, the National Museum at Budapest, the Central Lenin Museum in Moscow, and the Museum of the History of France at Versailles. There are also major specialist museums, such as the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London, or the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Hundreds of small historical museums exist throughout the world. Art museums include not only institutions that house collections of painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts but also institutions devoted to film, theatre, music, and costume. Many of the world-famous art museums are housed in buildings that are themselves historic monumentse.g., the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and the Uffizi in Florence. Most of the art museums built as such in the 19th and early 20th centuries were designed in a neoclassical, monumental stylee.g., the National and Tate galleries in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and similar structures in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Since World War II much variety has emerged in museum architecture with such buildings as Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York City and Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers' Pompidou Centre in Paris.