(from The Interior Architecture Reader, edited by Gregory Marinic, 2018 Routledge)

Chapter 6

Symbiotic spaces

Decolonizing identity in the spatial design of the Museum of Macau

Emily Stokes-Rees

This chapter considers the narrative character in the Museum of Macau (MoM hereafter) and its potential to demonstrate how museums can use spatial configuration as a way of shaping knowledge and history. Dvora Yanow, Professor of Organizational Studies at Keele University in the UK, has studied museum buildings as narrative spaces. Her central thesis is that buildings – museums in particular – are both storytellers and part of the story being told; the museum is both a house of material culture and an artifact itself. It presents itself to be read and deciphered as an integral part of the narrative alongside the displays. Echoing Yanow’s position, this chapter employs the idea of symbiosis, pointing to the mutually beneficial coexistence of unlike organisms – a synergistic relationship that might result in the emergence of a new species.

Symbiosis can also be used as a model for the mutual relationship between the idea of the museum, its nation of origin, its building, and its

narrative; each benefit from the relationship. This chapter posits that the give and take between form and function in the MoM and its building reflect the extent to which the museum’s building and story are inseparable, and that Macau’s unique identity is inextricably linked to its colonial history. The architecture, both exterior and interior, is not subservient to the museum’s content and message, but rather, acts as a protagonist in the communication of symbiotically framed ideas about the past and the present, form and function, colonial and postcolonial, and East and West.

National museums, like all built structures, exist on many levels. We encounter them first as built form in the physical landscape, and then, as one enters the building, as spaces of exhibition. Public spaces, like museums, are also inherently tied to community, being both spatially anchored and symbolically constructed. As architect Tan Hock Beng has claimed, “Buildings remain a space for the formation of identities. This, architecture achieves through the relationship between buildings and the people who question how and why they come to be.”1 Lawrence and Low (1990) echo this sentiment in their description of the built environment as:

tangible evidence for describing and explaining the often intangible features of expressive cultural processes… As expressions of culture, built forms may be seen to play a communicative role embodying and conveying meaning between groups, or individuals within groups, at a variety of levels.2

In other words, the physical space of the museum can be seen not simply as a lifeless container to hold objects and visitors, but as a dynamic participant in the interpretation of culture and the experience of identity. At the same time, the organization of the built environment affects the people who experience it – their feelings, behavior, and relationships with others.

Throughout history, the museum has been an “emblem of Western cultural tradition, [a] formative tool of modernity, a means to reconfigure colonial pasts” and a lure for tourists.3 As Douglas Davis has put it, “no building type can match the museum for symbolic or architectural

importance.” Tony Bennett, for example, examines the political uses that governments have made of museums as sites for social reform, carefully constructed public spaces through which state objectives can be achieved. He describes museums at the turn of the twentieth century as monumental institutions built to simultaneously represent enlightened thought, political unity, and evolutionary continuity. The imposing facades and entrance halls of many museums were designed to be inspiring and uplifting (perhaps intimidating), their internal layouts echoing the discourses of science, culture, and power presented within. Resembling historic ceremonial monuments, their architecture was comparable to Greek or Roman temples, cathedrals from the Middle Ages, or Renaissance Palaces. Not only did their architectural characteristics make these historic museums reflect ancient sites, their settings also emphasized the building as a site of contemplation and learning. To this day, museums are often set apart from other structures, approached by an imposing central flight of stairs, or set back from the street and nestled into parkland. In constructing buildings in this style, a ritual process is experienced by visitors to the museum: the climb up to the door feels like entering a church or cathedral, for example, and individuals are, therefore, psychologically and culturally prepared to respect the “civilizing rituals” of museum visiting. Traditional museums like the Smithsonian or the British Museum immediately spring to mind, where temple-like architecture sustains the image of the national museum as a spiritual repository representing all human achievement.

While the traditional form of the museum has continued to be an important feature in many nations throughout the twentieth century, it has also acquired several new roles. Michaela Giebelhausen’s edited volume of essays explores, for example, the ways in which the modern museum building helps to “unlock urban memories [and make] visible the city’s hidden histories.” She cites the example of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1977), which was conceived not simply as a museum, but as a multipurpose cultural center designed to “enliven the city.” Other museums have taken on more commemorative roles, and still others are the products of urban regeneration projects, reusing abandoned or neglected landmarks

and transforming them into new museums. As Giebelhausen argues, “The museum building again is being conceived as an evocative entity that is in dialogue both with its content and urban context.”10

When such expressions of identity are influenced by postcolonial politics, this task becomes increasingly complex. Lawrence Vale has noted that in states liberated from colonial regimes, building design has been used as “an iconographical bridge between preferred epochs, joining the misty palisades of some golden age to the hazy shores of some future promise.”11 In other words, architecture in a postcolonial context can play an important role in the enforcing of political control, often under the guise of creating a “national style.”12 Whether one believes the destruction of physical traces of colonialism will alter the history of the nation, or whether one chooses to build upon the memories of that past through the reappropriation of colonial buildings, the construction of new museums remains an important debate in many formerly colonized nations.

Macau and its museum

Macau is a small “special administrative region” on the southern coast of China, to the west of Hong Kong across the Pearl River Delta, bordered by Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east and south. With an estimated population of around 636,200 living in an area of 30.3 km² (11.6 sq. mi.), it is among the most densely populated places in the world. Macau was administered by the Portuguese from the mid-sixteenth century until December 20, 1999, when, as the last remaining European colony in Asia under Portugal, sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China.

The Museum of Macau occupies the Fortaleza Sao Paulo do Monte, otherwise known as the Monte Fortress. Built between 1617 and 1626, the Monte Fortress formed part of a complex of buildings, including the Sao Paulo Church and the Jesuit College, which has often been referred to as the “acropolis” of Macau – the symbolic and (almost) geographical center of the city.13 Prior to 1623, the entire complex was controlled by the Jesuits, but in that year, when the first Capitao-General arrived in Macau, he took

possession of the fortress, which subsequently served as the Governor’s official residence and the center of Portuguese political and military power in the territory. The fort thus became the heart of the original Portuguese settlement. Later, it served as a barracks, a prison, and, since 1965, a meteorological observatory and public park. Its central location as well as its historic importance indicates that the fortress has been an important part of civilian life throughout history.

Consider for a moment, therefore, the risk (or perhaps the irony) of making a Portuguese fortress the location for a museum whose aim is to tell the story of interethnic harmony and tolerance that characterizes Macau. In interviews with museum staff and government representatives during a field visit there not long after its opening, it was impressed upon me over and over that the designers desired to highlight the problems of building a museum as a reflection of the problems in building a postcolonial identity for Macau. Local architect Carlos Bonina Moreno believed the location and historic significance of the fortress met all the optimal conditions for the museum site; however, he observed two problems which are chronicled in detail in the museum’s publication entitled, A Museum in an Historic Site: The Monte Fortress of St. Paul (1999). The first hurdle was accessibility. Like all good military fortresses, it is strategically positioned atop a large hill with steep cliffs and commanding views over the city. As Moreno put it, “After all, it’s a mountain. If people have to climb up the hill and get all hot and exhausted trying to get there, they won’t come. We wanted to make it easy for people to come.” Second, and more problematic, the fortress consisted mainly of walls and turrets, with only one small, single-story building. As a result, it did not actually have any structures to sufficiently house a museum of the size envisioned. The question thus became focused on how to go about creating a space large enough to accommodate 1,500–2,000 square meters of exhibition space that would not risk harming the historic fabric and ambience of the fortress and that would be easily accessible from the Sao Paulo ruins and the street below.

The solution lay in incorporating the building directly into the museum’s story; its physical characteristics and structure have determined

the narrative logic of the exhibition space. The completed museum comprises three floors, two of which were excavated within the fortress walls, and one standing above ground (Figure 6.1). The main entrance to the museum is thus underground, accessible by a series of escalators which carry approaching visitors in and up to the lobby area, flanked by a large mural sculpted out of Portuguese marble portraying Macau’s history. Once in the entrance hall, there is an expansive stretch of colonial arches in cream and white running around the original walls of the fortress (Figure 6.2). With the building elements adjusted to fit within the existing historic structure on the site, the museum remembers its past while at the same time looking forward as a modern proactive cultural institution.

Moving from the entrance hall and into the galleries, the MoM’s exhibits have been arranged within the structure of the building to describe the nation’s progress from distant past to recent past. Reflecting this plan, the museum is divided into three major sections, corresponding to the three floors of the building: Genesis of the Macau Region, Popular Arts and Traditions in Macau, and Contemporary Macau. Each of these sections is then divided into thematic areas. Moving through the museum, the visitor is drawn along a set path, picking up elements of the story by stopping at the vignettes along the way. The extent to which this kind of predetermined route is enforced upon visitors is described by Bennett as part of an “exhibitionary complex” – an efficient and disciplinary way of getting visitors to internalize meanings. He describes early exhibitions in which the world was staged for British consumption; visitors to these museums, he says, proceeded along directed routes, devised “to comply with a program of organized walking which transformed any tendency to gaze into a highly directed and sequentialized practice of looking.” In this way, the museum building, through its spatial layout, organizes time and ideology within its walls.

Figure 6.1 The third floor of the Museum of Macau – the only part of the building that appears above ground

Image credit: E.S-R (2002)

Contributing to the effect of movement through history, the MoM uses the concept of “time traveling” by displaying its prehistory in a tunnel-like passage, a technique more and more frequently used in new museums. As one enters the museum and travels along the length of the opening hall, the corridor narrows perceptibly, bringing (both physically and symbolically) representations of Western and Chinese civilization – displayed on opposite walls – closer together in space, through time (Figure 6.3). They do not physically meet, but converge in the gaze of the viewer upon a video box centered on the far wall, with red holographic writing that reads, “MACAU.” In this way, the physicality of the entrance hall sets out the main representative strategies of the museum. First, it establishes symmetry between East and West, an important theme in the construction of Macau’s postcolonial identity. Second, it demonstrates, through its parallel

comparison of developments in philosophy, writing, mathematics, empire, religion, and technology, that China and Europe are equally civilized and cosmopolitan. Lastly, it initiates the museum’s main narrative of Macau as the product of the “inexorable encounter between these two monolithic culminations of four thousand years of history.” As Director Teresa Fu Barreto commented to me on the Project Team’s initial vision:

Introductory exhibition hall in the Museum of Macau, with European material on the left and Chinese material on the right. Depicting the parallel development of European and Chinese civilization is important in constructing Macau’s postcolonial sense of identity.

Image credit: E.S-R (2002)

They wanted to choose bits from the Chinese way of life and the Portuguese way of life and show how the two blended and balanced to live in a peaceful way. They didn’t want to talk about different versions of this history or different opinions … so, the museum reflects this throughout the building.

[20]

Thus, this introductory gallery has the effect of bringing objects from different cultures and time periods together to convey a message of Macau’s history as a product of the convergence of two great civilizations. It highlights the theme of cultural flow and symbiosis carried through the rest of the museum.

This type of exhibition reinforces the passage of time; it is a long history, and it is a history that has steadily and linearly progressed through time, reminiscent of Smith’s observation that “the central idea of modern society is that of progress, because modern, industrial society lives on and is sustained by perpetual growth.” The physical structure of narration is characterized by interiority and the progression from a beginning to a finishing point, calling attention to the performative acts of moving and viewing, of the ordering of one’s experience of history as a continuous, unified story. Through the spatial construction of the narrative, the relationship between the prehistory of the nation and modern, developed Macanese society is interpreted as “natural” – a past in symbiotic relation to the present.

In the transition from the first to the second floor – further illustrating the symbiotic relationship between structure and narrative – a passage was built through an intermediate mezzanine floor where a historic street scene is recreated. Here, the exhibits were adjusted to incorporate existing interior architectural elements of the fortress, such as an old cistern uncovered during the excavations, which has been restored and fit into an exhibit recreating the environment of Macanese fishermen. In another area, the displays incorporate original fortress walls, linking past to present and adding to the narrative of Portuguese/Macanese “cultural symbiosis.” What is on or separated by the walls is less important than what is occurring within the museum’s spaces; the architecture is not a passive entity but something of constant notice; the fortress is as much an artifact of the narrative the museum articulates as any other object displayed within. The effect of these techniques is also to turn the gallery into a parallel in situ archaeological museum, and the building itself becomes an integral exhibit object. The juxtaposition of colonial history and postcolonial present –

respect for colonial spaces adapted for museum use after independence – thus becomes instrumental in redefining the nation. The museum is symbolically intertwined with the fortress and hill, becoming a unique and powerful blend of interior and landscape.

This cultural symbiosis of form and function is carried through the displays with representations of symmetry between East and West. In one gallery, a Portuguese and Chinese cannon stand side by side, and between them a pile of stone cannonballs that could be used in either one. In another area, an explanation of the symbolism of the nearby Sao Paulo Church’s facade emphasizes its bicultural imagery and that it was a cooperative effort between the Western Jesuits who designed it and the Eastern craftsmen who built it. A text panel about the church reads:

There are statues of the Virgin and saints, symbols of the Garden of Eden and the Crucifixion, angels and the devil, a Chinese dragon and a Japanese chrysanthemum, a Portuguese sailing ship and pious warnings inscribed in Chinese.23

This parallel structure, which is apparent throughout the museum, emphasizes the historical process of the meeting between two separate but equal civilizations and Macau’s role as an active generator of new cultural forms. Elsewhere, displays on religion make reference to the female religious icons of Tin Hau, Guan Yin, and the Virgin Mary, each occupying a sacred space in their respective religions, binding the three faiths into one common experience.24 As a place with which we can examine the relationship between the construction of the past and the spatialization of public memory, the MoM functions as both product and producer. It redefines old spaces as new, represents changing cultural practices, and creates new identities.

In her book on visual methodologies, Gillian Rose asks, “just how effective are these disciplining technologies?”25 She argues that many studies of museums “concentrate too much on the disciplining effects of institutions and not enough on the way [they] … may fail or be disrupted.”26 Although I

was unable to speak to more than a handful of visitors in detail about this, as I sat on numerous occasions watching people move through the museum, it became clear that some visitors seemed to be drawn to certain areas by something that caught their eye, rather than the greater narrative of the exhibition. I also observed children making use of the space as a maze, running and playing “hide-and-seek” rather than treating it as a display of interesting information and objects. From these few observations, I would argue that for the most part, while the museum’s layout cannot guarantee a specific response in all visitors, and while the unusual behavior I observed could perhaps be interpreted as symbolic of a struggle against hegemonic history, the museum nonetheless privileges certain readings.

The literal and symbolic journey of historical progress finds its climax as one exits the museum onto the rooftop garden and an outdoor café. From here, the whole of Macau is in view, reinforcing the role of the museum as overseer and protector of this tiny city-state’s heritage. Like other famous mountains in cities (Rome comes to mind, or Mont Royal in Montreal), high points are automatically places of iconicity. Locals can look out and see their houses, workplaces, and locales of their childhood. By virtue of the dignity of the location, its history, and its symbolic potency, the Monte Fortress was a natural place to build a museum that was supposed to “reflect the soul and spirit of Macau.” From inside out, the museum’s design provides the visitor with opportunities to reflect upon the identity of Macau through its symbolically ordered space. History becomes a progression rooted in the past and moving forward and upward into the future.

Ever since museums first appeared as institutions, their architecture and interiors have been scrutinized; “praised and criticized in equal measure.” Their unique qualities have attracted the critical attention of cultural and architectural historians who have repeatedly tried to define and articulate museums’ special characteristics. It has even been claimed that museum architecture’s “cultural significance not only surpasses that of other building types, but also possesses a genuine seismographic quality.” Michael Levin, for example, considers the museum to be an instrument that

“almost by definition, does more than express current social values and tastes; it also makes a cultural statement which goes beyond its own place in history.” As such, history and identity lie not only within a museum’s displays but are also reflected through its exterior shell. Whether modern or colonial, the museum building is an evocative typology in dialogue with both its content and its wider social-historical context.

In his book How Societies Remember, Paul Connerton suggests that it is within those commemorative practices involving some kind of participation, whether through ceremonies, rituals, or codes of behavior, that collective memories are produced and sustained among members of society. Moving through the space of the museum in such a way, visitors – whether consciously or unconsciously – participate in the creation and maintenance of collective national identity. By controlling the path of movement, ways of seeing, and the objects and displays around which this vision is directed, museums acquire a special social authority. This chapter has highlighted observations of the strong links between location and narrative, form and function, architecture and interiority. The Museum of Macau and its architecture, in turn, reflect the extent to which the museum’s story was conceived as a systematic whole and key site for postcolonial nation building. This discussion of exhibition techniques and dynamics has enabled a clearer reading of the institutional processes of display at work within the MoM. In addition to conveying knowledge, the visibility of some of the specific modes of display highlights the museum as a medium for the production of cultural identity, where “the museum itself is on display.” The MoM’s use of spatial layout, for example, was shown to dictate a particular “path” through the nation’s history, as well as its history as a place of exchange and cooperation.

Whether the MoM is ultimately successful in its presentation of Macanese history is beside the point here. The key idea that I wish to highlight is that through its spatial layout and aspects of its interior architecture, the museum’s designers have attempted to present a certain “story,” and therefore a particular image of Macanese identity. The narrative path of national history is controlled by the internal route one is encouraged

to take through the museum, revealing the very nature of the building’s design as an active agent in constituting knowledge and experience. The museum in Macau uses spatial vocabularies and strategic sequencing, dioramas, and recreations to communicate meaning; a symbiosis between form and function, East and West, the past and the present. Emerging out of the mountain, the MoM becomes a condensation of the rich natural and cultural context in which it is located, where the rhythms of local life give rise to the exhibits. Resonating within the building, various design elements dovetail into relationship, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, past and present, architecture and interiority, city and museum.

Notes

1 Tan Hock Beng, “Reconstructing Memories”, in Between Forgetting and Remembering: Memories and the National Library, ed. Kwok, Ho, and Tan (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 2000), pp. 67–75.

2 Denise Lawrence and Setha Low, “The Built Environment and Spatial Form”, Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 466.

3 Michaela Giebelhausen, ed., The Architecture of the Museum: Symbolic Structures, Urban Contexts (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2003), p. 1; also Carol Duncan, “Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship”, ed. Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), pp. 88–104.

4 Quoted in Giebelhausen, ed., The Architecture of the Museum, p. 2.

5 Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 100.

6 Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies (London: Sage, 2001), pp. 171–172.

7 Carol Duncan, Civilising Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge, 1995).

8 Giebelhausen, ed., The Architecture of the Museum, p. 2.

9 Ibid., p. 6.

10 Ibid., p. 7.

11 Lawrence Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 321.

12 Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity, p. 53. 13 Both the Sao Paulo Church and Jesuit College burned down in 1835, and today only the facade of the church remains; Project Team of the Museum of Macau, A Museum in an Historic Site: The Monte Fortress of St. Paul (Macau: Museum of Macau, 1999), pp. 79–95. 14 Project Team of the Museum of Macau, A Museum in an Historic Site, p. 84. 15 Moreno quoted in Anastasia Edwards, “Macau’s Rich Past Given a Future”, The South China Morning Post, 17 April 1998, Weekend Entertainment Section: n.p. MoM museum clippings. 16 For a detailed description of the construction problems and process, see Project Team of the Museum of Macau, A Museum in an Historic Site, pp. 115–159, 162–172. 17 Bennett, The Birth of the Museum, pp. 186–187. 18 This can also be observed in history museums in Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong, for example. 19 Museum of Macau, museum text, 2002. 20 Barreto, personal interview, MoM, September 2002. 21 Anthony D. Smith, “History and Modernity”, in Representing the Nation: A Reader (Histories, Heritage, Museums), ed. David Boswell and Jessica Evans (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 46. 22 Project Team of the Museum of Macau, A Museum in an Historic Site, p. 150, 172. 23 Museum text, “Sino-Western Cultural Interchange”, MoM, 2002. 24 Mary is the central female figure of Catholicism (Christian), Tin Hau is the Taoist Goddess of Mercy, and Guan Yin is the Buddhist name for the same figure. 25 Rose, Visual Methodologies, p. 183. 26 Ibid. 27 Cathryn Clayton, “Imagining Macau: Local Identities in Transnational Formation”, PhD Thesis, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2001, p. 276. 28 Giebelhausen, ed., The Architecture of the Museum, p. 2. 29 Ibid., p. 2. 30 Levin quoted in Giebelhausen, ed., The Architecture of the Museum, p. 2. 31 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 32 Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and B.S. Frey, “The Dematerialization of Culture and the Deaccessioning of Museum Collections”, Museum International 54, no. 4 (2002): 59.