Houses in Motion

Let me begin by endorsing a product: City Walks. I own both the Boston and Philadelphia decks and love each one.

Today's City Walk tour took me to Society Hill. I hadn't intended to visit any museums today, but when I stumbled on the Powel House, I decided to take a tour.



The Powel has been restored fairly well with close-to-the-original paint colors and period furniture. There is no standard admission price, but the suggested donation for an adult is $5. The interior of the house is truly delightful. It can boast of original wood floors and walls adorned with portraits of the Powel family. Architecturally, the house is beautiful and the gardens have been well-maintained. One of the most refreshing things about the house was the relative lack of an awkward, forced gift shop.

The Powel's best asset has to be its tour guides. These individuals can either make or break an historic house museum. The two older ladies who led myself and five others around the house were absolutely terrific. They took the time to find out from where each visitor had come and a little bit about his or her background. They also managed to effectively balance narrative and facts about the house with visitor questions. They made the experience worthwhile.

The only thing about the Powel that I found odd was that the guides never laid out any rules for the tour. Although no one tried to snap any photos, I am not sure whether or not photos can be taken inside. More disturbingly, the guides never asked the visitors not to touch anything, nor did they comment when visitors did touch some of the artifacts. Naturally, several people did put their oily fingers all over some gorgeous 250 year old furniture. However, while that violation bothers collections-oriented individuals, it does not bother the casual visitor. It terms of visitor experience, I will not hold it against the staff of the Powel.

In short, go to the Powel House. Its inexpensive. Its location is fantastic. The experience is delightful. I will leave you with some photos of the Society Hill area.

Bookends

I was struck recently by a quote from Elizabeth Kostova's recent novel The Swan Thieves.

"Pushing out through the doors, I experienced that mingled relief and disappointment one feels on departure from a great museum—relief at being returned to the familiar, less intense, more manageable world, and disappointment at that world’s lack of mystery."

The truth of the quote may be debatable, but I found it enjoyable anyway.

On a slightly different note, read the book. For anyone interested in art, history or very readable novels, its fantastic and moves quickly.

One More Shout-Out

I would be making a mistake if I did not give an additional word of praise to the African American Museum in Philadelphia.



For the purposes of full disclosure, I should mention that I have a long-standing interest in African Americans in Pennsylvania, and in Philadelphia more specifically. In college, I completed a major research project about black church building and community development between 1780 and 1830. This interest was my motivation for planning my trip to the museum.

What a worthwhile trip! The museum provided a great overview of the history of African Americans in Philadelphia, which reminded me of some things I had long forgotten, and taught me some new ones. The second of the four galleries had eight or so videos of actors telling the stories of various individuals from Philadelphia. These seemed to be a big hit; I saw many visitors sit and watch each of the videos closely before moving on. The third gallery had a collection of artwork by local African American artists.

The fourth gallery, however, was by far the best. That gallery is currently home to a traveling exhibit called "381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story." The text recounts the time line of the boycott. The exhibit also has a fantastic video collection of oral histories from the civil rights era. These stories are moving and extremely important. I found myself watching at least forty five minutes of the video before leaving the museum. Everyone should watch the video.

My only complaint about the museum is very minor - Pittsburgh was spelled incorrectly (the "h" was missing) on several signs.

But go to the African American Museum! It is a history museum that remains highly relative and informative.

Ring of Fire

While doing an internet search of museums to visit in Philadelphia, I stumbled on the Fireman's Hall Museum. What a completely adorable place! First, some photos:









In short, there are a few things that made the Fireman's Hall Museum so enjoyable.

1. The location is fantastic. The museum is a few steps from Elfreths Alley and only a few blocks from Independence Hall, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and the rest of Old City. To give you a sense of the location, this is Elfreths Alley:





2. The museum is free. A donation bucket is available for those who desire to be generous, but donations are not required. All too often, museums become places only for families or individuals who can afford a ticket price of $10 or more.

3. The museum is totally digestible. Larger museums (like the Metropolitan, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, or even the Penn Museum) are simply too big to absorb in one visit. In contrast, the Fireman's Hall Museum has only two, relatively small floors, and the exhibits are not too text-heavy.

4. The museum has great stuff, the kind of stuff that one does not often see. When was the last time you saw a fire bucket or walked up the first, very primitive fire engines? The stuff at the Fireman's Hall Museum is also thought-provoking. Although I had worked with these kind of objects before, I had not particularly thought about the fact that more effective firefighting developed hand in hand with improved water systems. In that sense, the museum fulfilled part of its purpose - to educate the public.

Monkey Business

This article in the Times got me thinking about whether or not museums can do something similar with objects; that is, can museums create an "experience" like the one developed by the London Zoo in which visitors are immersed in an environment?

Art museums and historic house museums can create the same kind of environment as the London Zoo. Museums like the Philadelphia Museum of Art (my employer, for purposes of full disclosure) sometimes create "period rooms" that reproduce rooms from various locations and eras. These rooms display works of art in their original setting, providing the visitor with context and, ideally, a deeper understanding of the work.

For smaller museums, however, this kind of exhibit is difficult to create, as well as prohibitively expensive. Most museums simply don't have the resources, or for that matter, the space to design these kinds of displays. In the case of other museums, the "period room" model simply doesn't make sense. They cannot transport a room from Europe and recreate it in an American museum. Take, for example, the Philadelphia Doll Museum. The museum certainly cannot create an environment for each of the dolls, and placing them in their original context would be nearly impossible. Without allowing visitors to physically handle the dolls, how can the museum help visitors to experience them in the same way that visitors to the London Zoo get to encounter monkeys and rain forests?