Dialogue of different identities in the common past
Taja Vovk van Gaal on the house of european history
MúzeumCafé 32.
For the first time a permanent exhibition is going to be developed covering the history of Europe. The hosting institution, the House of European History (HEH), is coming into existence following an initiative of the European Parliament. A project team started to develop the permanent exhibition and the museum structure at beginning of 2011 in Brussels under the leadership of Taja Vovk Van Gaal, who has given us details about the project. The House of European History will be a museum in a contemporary sense of the word, offering through a range of opportunities – exhibitions, educational programmes, workshops, a website – those who are interested in Europe and history a space to learn, reflect, experience and debate. It will be dedicated to understanding the shared past and diverse experiences of European people, and will function as a reservoir of European memory, seeking to engage visitors in discovering different points of view and common ground in European history. The idea of creating a museum dedicated to European integration has been discussed in Brussels for decades. The initiative for creating a House of European History was launched on 13 February 2007 by President Hans-Gert Pöttering in his inaugural address as president of the European Parliament. Then in December 2007 a committee of experts was established led by Professor Hans Walter Hütter, director of the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany. The group submitted a report, ‘Conceptual Basis for a House of European History’, which established the general concept and content of the project, and outlined its institutional structure. This report defined the main principles and values that will characterise the project – a history of Europe with a plurality of perspectives, a collection of objects, a place of debate, organisational governance and academic independence. As a next step an Academic Project Team (APT) was recruited consisting of historians, museum practitioners and administrators with different backgrounds, coming from 14 European countries, to develop the content of the museum. The project is supported by other bodies, among them a Board of Trustees and an Academic Committee. The former supervises the work and the latter – consisting of history professors and museum professionals from several European countries – advises the team and is a guarantee for academic excellence and independence. The headquarters of the HEH with the permanent exhibition will be situated in the Eastman Building in the European quarter of Brussels. It which will reach out to the public not coming to Brussels with various travelling exhibitions executed in cooperation with different institutions and with a good interactive website. The House of European history has not yet got a collection, although the first Collection Policy has been outlining some criteria. According to the Conceptual Basis the HEH should avoid duplicating existing collections; therefore, for the permanent exhibition the majority of objects are going to be obtained on loan, and the focus will be the 20th and 21st centuries. The concrete collecting policy for the future is going to be developed based on the first permanent exhibition, using it as a test case. The main focus of the exhibition will be on the 20th century and especially the period after 1945, with a special focus on the integration processes. However, for understanding current Europe and the values on which it is based, the narrative also needs to reach back to the Greeks and Romans. The exhibition will not be an encyclopaedia of events in Europe through time, nor a summary of national histories, but an extract of the processes which have shaped the continent through time and which can help the visitor understand the 20th century. The APT started its work discussing the different concepts of European history. In order to distil the fundaments on the basis of which they started to develop the exhibition narrative, they ‘deconstructed’ historical processes and developments in line with a set of criteria and on this foundation started to construct the narrative. Debates on European identity have also been at the core of the team’s work from the beginning, as the term itself is debatable and because there does not exist a consensually accepted definition concerning what European identity means. Therefore, deeper research was undertaken within the APT and in view of the results the decision was to use the idea of ‘collective memory’ instead. The structure of the permanent exhibition according to the Conceptual Basis follows a chronological order, but it also has themes within it. Each theme has a different character and they deal with some so-called ‘red threads’, such as the concept of collective memory, a perception of centre and periphery, the metaphor of a house. The content will be layered, which will enable visitors to go through the exhibition receiving its messages. It will involve different means of communication, from original objects to multimedia and interactive activities. The exhibition will respect the multilingualism principles of the European Parliament, which means that it will be offered in the 24 official languages. At the core of the museological concept of the HEH lies the conviction that understanding the museum content will not require extensive knowledge of European history. According to the APT, the role of the HEH is not to teach or to give definitive answers to visitors, but to offer a possibility for them to widen their knowledge, to see different processes and developments in Europe through different perspectives and to discuss their views. This represents a challenge, as the team wants to tell a complex story in an understandable but by no means in a simplistic way. Recently the team has been working on the draft scenario with the collaboration of a narrative ‘designer’, focusing very much on identifying and evidencing the potential exhibits. The actual working phase also involves ascertaining the institutions which might have them in their collections. The team has just started to approach different institutions in this connection, experiencing already much positive feedback from museums which have expressed their intention to collaborate. The renovation and extension of the building is about to start and according to plans it will be ready at the end of April 2014. Following a long and complex process of preparing the interior spaces for the installation of the exhibition, and the installation itself, the opening of the permanent display is expected to take place in 2015. The permanent exhibition space will cover 4000 sq.m, the temporary space 800 sq.m. The service areas will comprise a conference hall, two educational rooms, a café and museum shop. The planned duration of the permanent exhibition is eight years, while the temporary exhibitions will last for one year. Travelling exhibitions will be of variable length. Costs involve €21.4 million for the permanent and the first temporary exhibitions (€15.4 million for fitting-out exhibition and other spaces, €6 million for multilingualism) and €3.75 million to build up the collection. For more information: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/visiting/en/historyhouse.html