ABSTRACT
In his widely quoted paper, “The Museum: A Temple or the Forum” (1971), Duncan Cameron distinguishes between two opposing museum stances. The idea of the museum as temple has its origins in the historical moment when private collections in Europe such as royal treasures and cabinets of curiosities— all of which testified to Europe’s imperial conquests—were transferred to public hands. Until this development, which occurred a little over a century ago, collections were generally viewed as private, idiosyncratic affairs. If a scholar, for example, had a rare opportunity to view a private collection, the collection was understood to be a reflection of its collector; it spoke of the collector as a world traveler, as a wealthy person, as an eccentric, and so on. But once museums became public, collections took on a new significance. The public, or more accurately, the cultural elite, gained a sense of ownership over museum collections and began to demand that the objects be meaningful to them. In this atmosphere, museums evolved to reflect the values of the establishment that defined (and continues to define) them. For the educated classes, the museum became a temple dedicated to enshrining objects deemed significant and authentic. In short, the museum “represented a standard of excellence. If the museum said that this and that was so, then it was a statement of truth” (Cameron 1971: 17). In this context, the museum visitor experiences the museum as a site of stability. The museum as temple represents (in principle) shared values that the museum visitor is expected to find meaningful and edifying. At such a museum, the individual’s
personal experience of life can be viewed in the context of “The Works of God Through All the Ages; the Arts of Man Through All the Years”
(Cameron 1971: 21)
