MUSING ON HOUSE MUSEUMS

One of the things Smith examines is the word “heritage.” She states: “a truth universally acknowledged [is] that heritage is intimately concerned with the expression, construction and representation of ‘identity’.”  We aspire to understand ourselves in some way represented within the heritage sites we visit, whether that representation is confirmation that we belong there, or proof that we don’t.   Why is it that we want to see how the elite has lived – a lifestyle not available to most people? Does the visitor who doesn’t see themselves in the museum interpret the site with awe or with some kind of disdain?  

Smith speaks of the idea of “heritage” as a doing rather than being, an action, not a place, or perhaps more simply, a verb not a noun. While re-imagining Lougheed House’s permanent exhibits, it is important to realize that history is a living, breathing entity; it is constantly changing and evolving as the world changes around us. If we only accept history as a static thing, then our exhibits have no meaning for our changing audiences. Looking back on a fixed representation of a moment in time tends to suggest “a past reconstructed as more gentle and elegant than the present [and more desirable?] – a sense of elegance apparently personified by the country house.”  

The notion of doing heritage also relates to questions of performing identities. Visitors are both audience and performer at heritage sites. Smith states: “The performativity of the visit is also about remembering – specifically about remembering your social place in English society.” She speaks about the country house as a ‘theatre of memory’ in which the performance of remembering is about the past but also about the creation of new memories on site.  

It is common for house museums to have formal gardens as part of them, which provide an introductory ambience prior to entering the home. Smith speaks of it as “expressing control over nature and a sense of social orderliness,” which sets the stage for “the inequities of the social relations between the different classes” that are further emphasized within the house itself. As they approach the site “Visitors may be invited to view the façade of the house and wander through the gardens and terraces that surround the house and imbibe the … delights of the botanical collections. They may enter the house, usually through a side, lower or trade entrance, which itself sends a message of social place and social exclusion…” Gardens are often spaces that all may enjoy, even if it is just from afar or walking by. In a modern era, visitors get the added experience of being able to enter the house, but we still do not get to enter through a grand main entrance as important visitors would have in the past. Even at Lougheed House, the front entrance is rarely used, and guests enter through a west side basement door.