Here We Go Again: History Redux
Those who find traditional history museums a stuffy procession of rusty spoons and dusty dioramas may want to explore an open-air alternative: "living history museums" where one can time travel on the cheap. Consider the Spanish Village in Barcelona, where travelers and scavenging scholars can efficiently inspect 49,000 square meters of historical buildings and tilt at old slides with Don Quixote. At Heritage Park in Calgary, Banff-bound hikers can stop to pose for photos (and eat 19 century ice cream) with locals dressed up as Canadians from the days of fur trading and the occasional American invasion. For those who can get visas to China, and local families on their first post-Covid-zero outing, the Millennium City Park in Kaifeng offers a hundred acres of life in the Northern Song Dynasty (a Northern Song Dynasty in which food vendors take WeChatPay). Discuss with your team: do such living history museums offer valuable lessons in culture and history, or should we treat them mainly as entertainment—more Frontierland than the Smithsonian? Should schools take field trips to them?
“I build time machines,” says artist Aaron Delehanty. He has transported museumgoers back to places such as southern China in 5500 BC and east Africa in 1896. “The intention of a diorama is to build a replica of a specific ecosystem and to do it with such precision that they become time capsules for that environment.” Until the late 19th century, most museums displayed taxidermized animals and other natural specimens in aseptic rows of glass cabinets. Until the late 19th century, most museums displayed taxidermized animals and other natural specimens in aseptic rows of glass cabinets. This changed in 1890 when Carl Akeley, a taxidermist at the Milwaukee Field Museum, reimagined their presentation. What became known as the “Akeley method” involved creating a custom artificial environment. Akeley went on to work at the Field Museum in Chicago and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Early dioramas depended on the use of hunted animals. Many of the major contributors — most notably Akeley and friend President Theodore Roosevelt — were hunters and ardent conservationists. Museums became staffed with teams of scientists, sculptors, taxidermists, carpenters, muralists and painters who made dioramas.
The Poble Espanyol was built for the 1929 World Fair in Barcelona. The blueprints for the village were designed by Puig i Cadafalch - eminent architect and important representative of the Modernisme. The plans were implemented by his students Francesc Folguera and Ramón Reventós. They were assisted by the art critic Miquel Utrillo and the painter Xavier Nogués, who traveled through some 1,600 (!) Villages throughout Spain to make notes and drawings to capture the true essence of Spanish architecture. After the exhibition, the Poble Espanyol should actually be demolished again - but the residents of the open-air museum have become so popular that they successfully prevented the demolition. (omg i was there)
Heritage Park is the largest living museum in Canada and we are super lucky to have it here in Calgary. All employees and volunteers of Heritage Park are dressed in character and always have a smile on their faces eager to talk and educate.
MILLENNIUM CITY PARK, which is located in western shore of beautiful Longting Lake in Kaifeng, is a large-scale historical cultural theme park with 600Mu total floor space in Chinese famous ancient city Kaifeng. It was founded in July 1992 in accordance with The MILLENNIUM CITY PARK done by Zhang Zeduan, a famous artist in Northern Song Dynasty and opened to the public in October 28th 1998. The PARK is a valuable life drawing for social custom, which represents social life, social custom and building structure of Kaifeng as ancient city in Northern Song Dynasty. Although it only shows part Kaifeng, it is very easy to know other streets’ situation by supposing. MILLENNIUM CITY PARK represents lively flourishing scenes of Kaifeng in Northern Song Dynasty: walking in the streets along Bianhe River.
The breathtaking sight of the gleaming Mark Twain Riverboat and the imposing gallantry of the Columbia Sailing Ship approaching the dock beckon guests into Frontierland, a robust panorama of America’s pioneer past. As you past through the stockade entrance you are surrounded by an amalgam of sights and sounds that authentically conjures up images of America’s western expansion, from the bustling river fronts of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers of the late 1700s to the raucous and dusty desert southwest of the 1880s. The colorful drama of Frontier America in the exciting days of the covered wagon and the stagecoach…the advent of the railroad…and the romantic riverboat. Frontierland is a tribute to the faith, courage, and ingenuity of the pioneers who blazed the trails across America. (read about the rides and its correlation to the history of America)