Symbiotic spaces: Decolonizing identity in the spatial design of the Museum of Macau

Author: Emily Stokes-Rees Year: 2018 Source type: chapter (Chapter 6, "Part 2: Territories," The Interior Architecture Theory Reader, ed. Gregory Marinic, Routledge, 2018) Raw file: raw/chapters/stokes-rees-2018-symbiotic-spaces-museum-of-macau.md

Note on pagination: the working extract carries no page numbers (only the chapter's endnote markers, e.g. "[20]" for the Barreto interview, note 20); direct quotes below are therefore cited without page numbers, with endnote sources identified where the chapter supplies them.

Summary

Stokes-Rees reads the Museum of Macau (MoM, opened 1998 in the seventeenth-century Monte Fortress) as a demonstration that museums "can use spatial configuration as a way of shaping knowledge and history." Following Dvora Yanow's thesis that museum buildings are "both storytellers and part of the story being told," she argues that the MoM's building and story are inseparable: its architecture "is not subservient to the museum's content and message, but rather, acts as a protagonist" in communicating a symbiotically framed identity — past and present, colonial and postcolonial, East and West. Drawing on fieldwork shortly after the museum's opening (interviews with museum staff and government representatives, including Director Teresa Fu Barreto and local architect Carlos Bonina Moreno, plus visitor observation), the chapter shows how the fortress's physical constraints became the narrative logic of the exhibition (two floors excavated within the fortress walls), how the visitor's predetermined route stages a linear, unified national history rendered "natural," how the historic fabric itself was incorporated as exhibit, and how the whole culminates in a rooftop panorama — "blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, past and present, architecture and interiority, city and museum."

Key Claims

Museums are narrative spaces: 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" (Yanow's thesis, adopted by the chapter).
Museum space is "not simply a lifeless container to hold objects and visitors, but a dynamic participant in the interpretation of culture and the experience of identity" — and "the organization of the built environment affects the people who experience it – their feelings, behavior, and relationships with others" (after Lawrence & Low's communicative account of built form).
The museum as building type is uniquely charged: "no building type can match the museum for symbolic or architectural importance" (Douglas Davis, quoted); the museum has historically been "an 'emblem of Western cultural tradition, [a] formative tool of modernity, a means to reconfigure colonial pasts' and a lure for tourists."
Traditional museum architecture works ritually (Duncan): temple-like facades, imposing stairs, parkland settings — "the climb up to the door feels like entering a church or cathedral… individuals are, therefore, psychologically and culturally prepared to respect the 'civilising rituals' of museum visiting."
Bennett's "exhibitionary complex": visitors "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."
In postcolonial states, architecture enforces political control "under the guise of creating a 'national style'" (Vale) — "an iconographical bridge between preferred epochs, joining the misty palisades of some golden age to the hazy shores of some future promise."
The MoM's site is a calculated irony: a Portuguese military fortress (built 1617–1626; later the Governor's residence, barracks, prison, and since 1965 an observatory and public park) — the "heart of the original Portuguese settlement" and center of colonial power — houses the museum of interethnic harmony; the designers explicitly made "the problems of building a museum… a reflection of the problems in building a postcolonial identity for Macau."
The building determined the narrative: the museum's two lower floors were excavated within the fortress walls, the main entrance is underground (escalators up to a lobby flanked by a Portuguese-marble historical mural), and "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."
Three floors = three sections (Genesis of the Macau Region / Popular Arts and Traditions in Macau / Contemporary Macau): the visitor is "drawn along a set path," the museum's layout dictating "a particular 'path' through the nation's history."
"Time traveling": prehistory is displayed in a tunnel-like passage; the entrance corridor "narrows perceptibly, bringing (both physically and symbolically) representations of Western and Chinese civilization – displayed on opposite walls – closer together in space, through time"; they "do not physically meet, but converge in the gaze of the viewer upon a video box… with red holographic writing that reads, 'MACAU.'"
The entrance hall sets three representational strategies: symmetry between East and West (the key theme of Macau's postcolonial identity); the parallel demonstration "that China and Europe are equally civilized and cosmopolitan"; and Macau as the product of "the inexorable encounter between these two monolithic culminations of four thousand years of history."
Director Teresa Fu Barreto on the Project Team's vision: "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" — a single, uncontestable narrative built into the building.
The spatial narrative is linear and progressive (Smith: "the central idea of modern society is that of progress"): "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 spatial construction, the relation of national prehistory to "modern, developed Macanese society is interpreted as 'natural' – a past in symbiotic relation to the present."
Historic fabric is incorporated as exhibit: a cistern uncovered during excavation is restored into a Macanese fishermen display; original fortress walls link past to present — "the fortress is as much an artifact of the narrative the museum articulates as any other object displayed within"; "the gallery becomes 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."
Symmetry is the displays' organizing rhetoric: a Portuguese and a Chinese cannon "stand side by side" with a shared pile of cannonballs "that could be used in either one"; the São Paulo facade's "bicultural imagery" is credited to a cooperative effort of Western Jesuit designers and Eastern craftsmen; the female icons Tin Hau, Guan Yin, and the Virgin Mary are shown "binding the three faiths into one common experience."
The MoM "functions as both product and producer. It redefines old spaces as new, represents changing cultural practices, and creates new identities" — a medium for the production of cultural identity "where 'the museum itself is on display.'"
Discipline can fail (Rose): "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'" — Stokes-Rees observed visitors drawn to whatever "caught their eye" and children using the galleries "as a maze, running and playing 'hide-and-seek'" — yet concluded that "the museum nonetheless privileges certain readings."
The rooftop garden is the narrative's climax: "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"; "high points are automatically places of iconicity"; "History becomes a progression rooted in the past and moving forward and upward into the future."
Collective memory through movement (after Connerton): "Moving through the space of the museum…, 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."
Conclusion: the building's design is "an active agent in constituting knowledge and experience"; "Emerging out of the mountain, the MoM becomes a condensation of the rich natural and cultural context in which it is located… blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, past and present, architecture and interiority, city and museum."

Connections

Concepts: narrative-space (the museum as storyteller and artifact), exhibitionary-complex (directed routes; organized walking; spatial layout organizing time and ideology), symbiotic-spaces (the chapter's master concept), postcolonial-identity (national style; nation building; decolonizing identity), interior-architecture (spatial configuration as "an active agent in constituting knowledge and experience"), adaptive-reuse (fortress-to-museum; colonial spaces "adapted for museum use after independence"), interiority ("the physical structure of narration is characterized by interiority"), inside-outside-dialectic (interior/landscape blend; "emerging out of the mountain"), memory (Connerton's commemorative practice; the spatialization of public memory), boundaries (the ritualized crossing into the museum), spatial-therapy ("redefines old spaces as new"), iconic-architecture (museums as the most symbolically important building type; high points as "places of iconicity").

Authors: stokes-rees-emily, marinic-gregory (editor of the Reader).

Debates: power-and-space — the museum's "special social authority" and the exhibitionary complex as spatial power (with Rose's disruption caveat).

Related source notes: source-notes/skot-hansen-2018-museum-as-destination (the museum as urban destination), source-notes/nowicka-wright-2013-seduced-by-form (museum architecture and spectacle), source-notes/sudjic-2005-edifice-complex (buildings as instruments of power and identity), source-notes/qureshi-2018-spatial-therapies (reuse reconciling past, present, and future), source-notes/hollis-2018-reconstructing-histories (alteration as historical practice), source-notes/ardener-2006-partition-of-space (space ordering experience and identity), source-notes/hollis-2018-reconstructing-histories (the altered building as composite authorship).

Direct Quotes

"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." (on Yanow's thesis)

"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."

"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." — Tan Hock Beng, quoted (note 1)

"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." — Lawrence & Low, quoted (note 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."

"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."

"no building type can match the museum for symbolic or architectural importance." — Douglas Davis, quoted

"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 'civilising rituals' of museum visiting."

"The museum building again is being conceived as an evocative entity that is in dialogue both with its content and urban context." — Giebelhausen, quoted (note 10)

"an iconographical bridge between preferred epochs, joining the misty palisades of some golden age to the hazy shores of some future promise." — Lawrence Vale, quoted (note 11)

"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.'"

"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." — Carlos Bonina Moreno, quoted (note 15)

"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… 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."

"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."

"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." (Bennett's "exhibitionary complex")

"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… 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.'"

"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.'"

"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." — Teresa Fu Barreto (Director), personal interview, September 2002 (note 20)

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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." — MoM text panel on the São Paulo facade, quoted (note 23)

"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."

"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.'" (on Gillian Rose)

"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."

"the museum nonetheless privileges certain readings."

"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."

"History becomes a progression rooted in the past and moving forward and upward into the future."

"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." (after Connerton)

"the museum as a medium for the production of cultural identity, where 'the museum itself is on display.'"

"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."

"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."

Open Questions

The chapter observes discipline failing (eye-catchment, children's hide-and-seek) yet concludes the museum "privileges certain readings" — when does spatial narrative actually break, and is play a counter-reading or simply noise?
The MoM deliberately excludes "different versions of this history or different opinions" (Barreto) — can a postcolonial national museum housed in the colonizer's fortress ever narrate the violence of the arrangement it celebrates, or does the historic fabric always domesticate the story?
Does "the building itself becomes an integral exhibit object" generalize as a definition of museum interior architecture — the shell as artifact — and how does it relate to Kurtich's third definition (preservation/renovation/adaptive reuse) and to Hollis's altered building as composite work?
The chapter's "symbiosis" claims mutual benefit (museum, nation, building, narrative each gain) — but who is muted by the harmony narrative? (Connects to mutedness and Ardener's asymmetry-concealing orderings.)
Is the directed path's linearity (progress, "time traveling," upward exit) a property of national museums in postcolonial states specifically, or of the museum as a narrative-machine as such?
Stokes-Rees observed only "a handful of visitors in detail" — what would a fuller reception study of spatial narration show, and does the exhibitionary complex survive contact with actual visitor behavior?