ABSTRACT
In 1834, the city of Vänersborg, which locates in the Southwest of Sweden, burned to the ground. Almost sixty years later, in 1891, the doors of the Vänersborg Museum opened. Then, in 1994, the Vänersborg Museum once again opened up, but this time as a 'museum of museum history'. The author situates the museum in its historical, spatial and political context, and suggests that an interpretation should consider not only the overarching role of colonialism, but also the impact of 'civilised' European bourgeois culture upon patterns of movement and behaviour in the city and the museum itself. The Vänersborg Museum undoubtedly is a museum in the sense that it was built to house and display collections in order to achieve traditional museum-objectives in terms of education and enlightenment. The Vänersborg Museum was designed by the architect August Krüger, who was born, educated and practised his trade in Germany before coming to Göteborg in 1852, where he had his office.
