Museums for the Environment and for Territorial Areas. From Museum as Cultural Identity to Museum as a driving force for Socio-Economic Development – Experiences and results in Northern Italy (1989-2009)

by A. Maahsen-Milan The end of the first decade of the Third Millennium provides an appropriate moment for reconsidering the far-reaching debate about museum institutions which began and was developed in Italy from the mid-1950s to the end of the century, and to assess its outcome. The experiences were developed on the basis of a long period of theoretical and professional investigation into questions involving the museum environment and its territorial area. This brief presentation – prepared jointly with Professor Architect Agostino Magnaghi, of Turin Polytechnic – is based on subsequent evaluations of three museums dedicated to the Italian environment and to the local area. These are the Museo della Montagna (Mountain Museum, from. A. Magnaghi, at the Fortress at Exilles), the Museo Civico della Laguna Sud (Civic Museum of the Southern Lagoon, from A. Maahen-Milan, in the city of Chioggia) and the Museo A come Ambiente (“E for Environment” Museum, from. A. Magnaghi, in the city of Turin). The three cases studied, developed and completed over a twenty year period, though different in terms of geographical position and purpose, are similar in their cultural basis and their aims in terms of education and research. In keeping with the guidelines established with the local authorities and regional administrations, these in fact, promote a concept of “cultural territory” which today seems abstract and poorly identified in its essential purposes.