ABSTRACT
The way in which the museum displayed its objects and organised its space was the major tool it had for shaping visitors’ interaction with those objects; it was the museum’s most significant method of creating meaning. The nineteenth century saw a whole series of technical advances in building and in display techniques, and a significant amount of debate over these questions.1 For the purposes of this chapter, two aspects of the display space have been distinguished and studied separately, the layout and architecture of the museum as a whole, and the individual displays in which the objects themselves were exhibited. Of course, in practice it is less easy to find a clear division between these two aspects; layout and display techniques are intimately connected with each other, and mutually reinforcing. However, for investigation, it is useful to separate the two.
