Towards a Theory of Museological Soundscape Design

Museology as a ‘Listening Path’

Abstract

The traditional image of museum as a peaceful, monumental institute, where cultural heritage is preserved and presented in an uncontested way to be worshipped, is being challenged little by little in many parts of the Western world. The fulfillment of the educational and entertaining role of a new museum may be achieved through active and interactive ways of learning so that the visitor can be ‘touched’ and eventually acquire a complete museological experience. However, with the exception of certain innovative projects, there seems to be little awareness in the museological community at large of the communicational potential for methodically designed soundscapes. This essay underlines the necessity for the existing knowledge and experience around the fields of Soundscape and Museology to be gathered and combined in order to form a theory of Museological Soundscape Design along with an expanded model of methodology which would be incorporated in museum studies. Such a theory may be outlined in a framework of certain principles derived from various scientific fields such as museology, acoustic communication, education theory, music aesthetics, acoustics, psychoacoustics, architectural theory etc. Finally, a new field of expertise is proposed, that of soundscape designer–museologist by analogy to architect–museologist, archaeologist- museologist or educator-museologist.