Enfilade

Happy International Museum Day (18 May)! From the Quarto Group:

Owen Hopkins, The Museum: From its Origins to the 21st Century (London: Frances Lincoln, 2021), 320 pages, ISBN: ‎978-0711254565, $60.

Using examples of the greatest cultural institutions to shape the narrative, this book outlines the history of the museum movement, tracking the evolution from princely collections in Europe and the Enlightenment’s classically inspired temples of curiosities, via the public museums of the late nineteenth century, on to today’s global era of iconic buildings designed by the world’s leading architects.

Owen Hopkins is an architectural historian and Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University. He was previously Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum and before that Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, both in London. He has written six books, including Reading Architecture: A Visual Lexicon and Lost Futures, an examination of the disappearing architecture of post-war Britain. He is also a regular commentator on architecture in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television.

C O N T E N T S

Preface

Introduction: The Age of Museums
1  Origins
2  The Enlightenment Museum
3  The Public Museum
4  The Modern Museum
5  The Global Museum
6  The Museum Now

Notes
Index
Further Reading
Picture Credits
Acknowledgments