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Narrative Museum and Spatial Editing

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 Narrative museum and spatial editing
Fig.1: Planimetry elaborated by the author based on Daniel Buren's photographs and satellite images; ”Affichages sauvages Ralph Appelbaum's exhibition design experiences in Brazil
recouvrant cinq panneaux publicitaires”, Daniel Buren Official Website, Accessed July 15, 2020.
https://danielburen.com/images/exhibit/35?ref=search&q=affichage
Fig.2: Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenirs, 1965-1988 (Villeurbanne: Art Edition, 1988). Photo souvenir no. 2; Daniel Buren, Photo- Lupo, Bianca Manzon1
souvenir: Le Bureau de Daniel Buren, Paris, 1987. Photograph by Daniel Buren. © Daniel Buren. 1 São Paulo State University (USP), São Paulo, Brazil, bianca.lupo@usp.br

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Fig.3: Planimetry elaborated by the author based on photographs by Billy Name, Stephen Shore, and Nat Filkelstein, the sketch
by Billy Linich in the book The Factory Made, Warhol and the sixties by Steven Watson on page 124, and satellite images; Andy
Warhol at work on a large flower painting, New York, 1965. Photograph by David McCabe. Abstract
Fig.4: Various notes by the author on different photographs of The Silver Factory.
Fig.5: Extract from BMPT, Poster for Manifestation 3, 1967; Andy Warhol, Studio Portrait, 1966. Photograph by Schatzberg. Discussions about museum architecture and exhibition design have been widely developed in recent
decades, considering the broadening of the musealization phenomenon and the insertion of the
Ábalos, Iñaki. The Good Life: A guided visit to the houses of modernity. Zurich: Park Books, 2007. museum in the cultural tourism industry. The “narrative museum” (Crespi 2020) is a concept able to
Baudelaire, Charles. “The Life and Work of Eugène Delacroix”, in Selected Writings on Art and Literature. London: Penguin approach museum architecture and communication technologies, creating new spaces with
Classics, 1972. multimedia resources. This concept opens the opportunity of giving spatial significance to architecture
Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life and other Essays, trans. Jonathan Mayne. London and New York: Phaidon, through the synthesis established with multimedia technologies. The “spatial editing” is a concept
1965. transposed by the cinema universe which considers the multimedia narrative as a composition of
Bérard, Serge. “Daniel Buren and Robert Smithson. A comparative study”. Ph.D. diss., University of British Columbia, Vancouver, controlled sequences, structured through different times and rhythms (Dzikean 2012). This concept,
1999. however, differs from the modern understanding of the museum architecture as a container for
Berg, Gretchen. “Nothing to Lose, An Interview With Andy Warhol”, in Michael O’pray, (ed.) Andy Warhol Film Factory. London:
changing exhibition designs, contributing to the creation of a neutral envelope for a flexible interior
British Film Institute, 1989.
Bourdon, David. Warhol. New York: Harry N. Abrams Incorporated, 1989.
space (Montaner 2003). It is true that the multimedia museum opens not only the possibility to bring
Buren, Daniel. À force de descendre dans la rue, L’art peut-il enfin y monter? Paris: Sens & Tonka, 1998. new themes to the museum space, but also to include a great amount of digital content at the exhibit
Buren, Daniel. Les Écrits (1965-1990). Tome I: 1965-1976, ed. Daniel Buren and Jean-Marc Poinsot. Bordeaux: CAPC Musée displays. However, the narrative museum often contributes to the plastering the exhibition design,
d´art contemporain de Bordeaux, 1991. which commonly face difficulties to incorporate new analytical perspectives to its original conception.
Buren, Daniel. Photo-souvenirs, 1965-1988. Villeurbanne: Art Edition, 1988. In Brazil, this model was mainly incorporated through the worldwide known American exhibit designer
Buren, Daniel. “Fonction de l´Atelier”. In: Les Écrits (1965-1990). Tome I: 1965-1976, ed. Daniel Buren and Jean-Marc Poinsot. Ralph Appelbaum, who had previous designed the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Newseum,
Bordeaux: CAPC Musée d´art contemporain de Bordeaux, 1991. both in Washington. In Brazil, his main work is the Portuguese Language Museum, despite of other
Buren, Daniel. “The Function of the Studio”, trans. Thomas Repensek, October 10 (1979): 51-59. smaller contributions. This model reverberated in other exhibition design projects, often developed by
Buren, Daniel. “The Function of the Studio Revisited: Daniel Buren in conversation”, in Hoffmann, Jens, and Christina Kennedy. Brazilian architects and designers, such as the Football Museum and the Museum of Tomorrow. This
The Studio. Dublin: Dublin City Gallery Hugh Lane, 2007, 103-106. study will be based on the analyses of these main cases, contributing to the problematization of the
Chanson, Marion. L'atelier de Daniel Buren. Paris: Thalia, 2007. proposed theoretical counterpart from the empirical analysis, investigating the relation between
Crone, Rainer. Andy Warhol. New York: Praeger, 1970.
Cruz, Pedro Alberto. Daniel Buren. Donostia: Editorial Nerea, 2013.
architects and designers in these cases.
Davidts, Wouter, and Kim Paice. The Fall of the Studio: Artists at Work. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2009.
Esner, Rachel, et. al. Hiding Making Showing Creation. The Studio from Turner to Tacita Dean. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press, 2012. Key words: Museum (architecture), Narrative Museum, Communication Technologies, Exhibition
Gielen, Pascal. Creativity and other Fundamentalisms. Breda: Jap Sam Books, 2013. Design, Ralph Appelbaum.
Goldsmith, Kenneth (ed.), I´ll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews. 1962-1987. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004.
Hernando, Javier. Daniel Buren, La postpintura en el campo expandido. Murcia: Cendeac, 2007.
Hoffmann, Jens, and Christina Kennedy. The Studio. Dublin: Dublin City Gallery Hugh Lane, 2007.
Jones, Caroline. Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1997.
Krauss, Rosalind. “Sculpture in the expanded field”, October 8 (1979): 30-44.
Millet, Catherine. L´art contemporain en France. Paris: Flammarion, D.L. 1987.
Warhol, Andy, and Pat Hackett. POPism: The Warhol Sixties. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006.
Warhol, Andy, Kasper König, Pontus Hultén, Olle Granath and (eds.), Andy Warhol. Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 1968.
Watson, Steven. The Factory Made. Warhol and the sixties. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
Zuromskis, Catherine. “Photographic Relations”. In: The Factory: Photography and the Warhol Community, ed. Alberto Anaut.
Madrid: La Fábrica Editorial, 2012, 9-31.

(b. 1985 / Salto, Uruguay) is a graduated architect from ORT University Uruguay. Master’s Degree in
Advanced Architectural Design (MPAA) at ETSA-Madrid where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate. Within the teaching field, he
was a professor at ORT University and collaborated at Iñaki Ábalos Unit in the Master of Architecture at ETSAM. Also, he was an
invited Lecturer and mid-term design jury at Universidad Científica del Sur in Lima. Currently, he is a Design Fellow at the School
of Architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans. He has published articles on workspaces, studios and post-studio, and is
editorial assistant of the book PhD Cult #01, a guide to ongoing research on architectural design. He dedicates his professional
activity to residential-work and social focus projects. Presently, he works as an independent architect in permanent collaboration
with other professionals and studios of Madrid, Guadalajara, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Lima.

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 1. Introduction.
The “narrative museum” seems a fundamental concept to understand contemporary experiences of
exhibition design focused on the visitor´s experience. For this purpose, museum architecture emerges
as an important element for the creation of impacting spatial narratives mediated by technological
resources. The creation of these exhibition environments needs integrated collaboration between
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architect, curator, exhibition designer and scientific consultants – what is commonly called “integrative
design” (Migliore 2020). New building materials, communication technologies, lighting design and
interactivity become summary elements used for the creation of narrative spaces based on modular
sequences.
The notion of “spatial editing”, which is a concept transposed from the world of cinema, demands strict
control of the paths to be taken by the visitor, with the aim of enhancing the emotional effect of the
experience. In this sense, the inclusion of interactive devices allows the visitors to deepen their
knowledge in some contents of their interest, guaranteeing the personalization of the experience. The
museal narrative must build a stimulating path of discovery. The designer acts like a film director,
creating a kind of “interactive multimedia diorama”. This perspective gets closer to the concept of
“multimedia museum” (Dzikean 2012). The museum space can be understood as a product of the
integration between virtual and physical elements in space. The exhibition designers intend to create
new kinds of relationships between space, collections, and people, incorporating the potential
narrative qualities of the places to increase its possibilities of spatial significance. It becomes possible
to involve diverse audiences in terms of age, personal preferences, and educational levels.
Digital technologies are fundamental elements of the exhibition design, given their adaptability to the
construction of varied exhibition environments, focused on the exploration of multimedia resources,
performance, and interactivity (Tallon and Walker 2008). This new thought of museum design
emerges, by one hand, from the search for the expansion and democratization of access to
knowledge. On the other hand, it is also related to the promotion of brands, recovering strategies
commonly used at commercial spaces. For example, the BMW Museum, designed by Atelier Brückner
(Munich, 2008), aims to guarantee the visitor´s engagement for remembering the brand by the fusion
of architecture and communication technologies.
The American designer Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA) is a professional worldwide known for
developing the narrative museum concept by the creation of impacting exhibition spaces, tourist
attractions and educational environments. Appelbaum usually works together with a multidisciplinary
team that includes architects, designers, sculptors, filmmakers, historians, educators, technologists,
media specialists and researchers. These professionals are involved in creating “highly architectural
processes” (Hall 2001). The RAA´s office opened in 1978, drawing on the experience gained by
Appelbaum over the years working with the industrial designer Raymond Loewy, creator of the Coca-
Cola bottle and the Greyhound bus. After that, RAA started to open new branches in London,
Moscow, Berlin, Beijing, and Dubai. Both historical research and space architecture are factors that
influence the exhibition design. According to Appelbaum:
It all starts with a lot of research, collaboration of specialists, in short, search for information.
What we do is turn that information into a narrative and then that narrative into an immersive
experience. The museum's architecture and design are fundamental to provoke this experience.
Contemporary museums, most of the time, are museums of interpretation, they need a context,
an environment. They are more like a play, with the difference that you can walk around the
stage (Appelbaum en Cavalcante 2020).
The RAA's exhibition language incorporates high doses of drama, darkened environments, theatrical
lighting, and sound installations. Appelbaum defends the importance of bringing new communication
gadgets into the exhibition space whereas contemporary museums “do not bring objects together,
they bring people together” (Solomon 1999). The following excerpt explains important aspects of the
firm's global approach:
It is difficult to exaggerate the company's power in the world of international museum
exhibitions. RAA has large state-of-the-art offices in New York, London, and Beijing, and is the
first possibility for any museum with a sensitive topic to be developed and a large budget. RAA
is a global brand that projects museographic designs focused mainly on issues related to
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trauma and human rights, and its aesthetics is deeply invested in the use of new technologies
and interactive exhibitions (Wood 2013, 343).
The museum experience demands to “extend the language of domesticity” throughout the building
(Solomon 1999). So, we can understand the widespread use of television monitors, touch screens and
other common contemporary domestic devices. According to Appelbaum, “design and communication
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technologies make visitors feel like they are living in the past. It's like leaving the audience and going
on stage, with the difference that the show is real” (Appelbaum en Cavalcante 2016). Therefore, this
perspective is opposed to the modern conception of the “white cube” and also to the thinking of
museum architecture as a flexible space, ordered by the conception of a free plan, where the visitors
can freely self-determine their routes and what they want to see. However, it is important to sign that
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the highly scenic exhibition design might minimize the possibilities of understanding aesthetic and
artistic values of the collections.
The narrative museum deals with a new challenge that is the dramatic quantitative expansion of
museums in the last decades and “the lack of collections to fill them” (Saad 2007, 9). Appelbaum is
used to work more often with social history museums than with art museums, less common in the
USA4. So, RAA generally develops “interpretive museums, that is, museums that help people to
understand human history. Didactically, theatricalization is important. These spaces require mediation
between the exposed objects and the visitors” (Appelbaum en Cypriano 2001). Even when designing
exhibition displays for material collections, Appelbaum says that “objects need to be contextualized.
Museums can be about bigger things than just objects in sight. People want stories” (Appelbaum en
Solomon 1999). The exhibition space approaches to the cinema experience, intending to cause strong
emotions by controlling the public's sensations. Appelbaum even explores the possibility of converting
everyday objects into collections, which can be used not only to tell stories of strong moral gravity, as
the Holocaust Memorial (1993), but also for creating light environments that mix everyday life and
technology, as the Newseum (1997).
Immersion, dramatization, and historical heritage become the signature of RAA's interventions,
including lots of exhibitions focused on traumatic events. Some authors point to the “ethical
discussion” about the dangers of a single American office monopolizing the construction of traumatic
narratives around the world, especially when they evoke “cultural fantasies” that crystallize the
construction of the museal fiction. Another problematic aspect is the potential of a museal discourse
conceived in these conditions to stifle critical thinking, tending to present unilateral and persuasive
versions of the themes addressed by the museums (McKee 2002). Wood (2013) also indicates the
need to reflect on what was not shown by touch screens or light shows.
In spite of the critical aspects mentioned, the narrative museum was a concept widely applied to the
Brazilian exhibition space mainly through the hiring of RAA by Rede Globo, the largest media
conglomerate in the country, and Roberto Marinho Foundation (FRM), a private non-profit institution
linked to Grupo Globo. In Brazil, Appelbaum´s main work is the Portuguese Language Museum (MLP)
(São Paulo, 2006), despite of other smaller, but not less important contributions. This model
reverberated in other exhibition design experiences, often developed by Brazilian architects and
designers, such as the Football Museum (São Paulo, 2008) and the Museum of Tomorrow (Rio de
Janeiro, 2015). So, the first part of this article aims to situate the concepts of narrative museum and
spatial editing, including the main Appelbaum´s experiences that called the FRM´s attention:
Holocaust Memorial and Newseum. After that, we will analyze the main Brazilian experiences
associated with this design approach, investigating the relation established between architectural
space and communication technologies.
2. Narrative museums in the United States and Ralph Appelbaum
American art and science museums coexist with thousands of learning centres, visitation, and
corporate displays. The American exhibition design is originated from the experiences of Universal
Exhibitions, commonly developed to sell nation and corporate products. For example, we can
remember the work of James Gardner, a British army officer who was also dedicated to the exhibition
design. His first exhibition, “Britain can make it”, at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1946),
was created to “lift the spirits of a war-damaged nation” (Hall, 2001). Even though, his most popular
project was the Evolution Technological Museum (Eindhoven 1966), an interactive Science Centre
financed by Philips. In the United States, the projects of Charles and Ray Eames for the creation of
exhibitions commissioned by IBM in the 1960s became famous. Since the 1970s, Edwin Schlossberg
has been creating interactive environments that dialogue with the scope of his own company, the
Sony Wonder Technology Lab (1993). In general, companies focused on electronics sectors have
commonly promoted the creation of interactive exhibitions, with the aim of showing and selling their
products.
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The entrance of commercially trained designers at the museums was quite conflicting because of the
different perspectives evoked by designers and curators. However, the boundaries between
educational goals and selling products seems fragile due to the overlaps of historical facts and
amusement parks. For example, we can see the Kalamazzo Air Zoo and Science Museums
(Michigan, 2003). The exhibition, designed by the American office DMCD, includes a “solo coaster for
visitors to fly around the collection of warplanes and a simulated World War II bombing run over
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 Germany, where they have a 50% chance of being shot down” (Hall, 2001). Another DMCD´s project
is the Science Centre located at the base of Petronas Twin Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), which
aims to educate visitors about oil drilling “through dioramas, games and a simulated helicopter ride to
a replica oil rig” (Hall 2001). In both cases, the “education” is directly associated with the spread of the
expansionist American nationalism or the sale of products.
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In this context, we can consider most of the Appelbaum´s interventions for the creation of civic
memorials, commercial spaces, and science museums2. The Rose Center for Earth and Space (New
York, 2000) has become a famous intervention due to the great opening show inside the spherical
planetarium at the beginning of the museum path. During the spectacle, the visitor is welcomed by the
voice of Tom Hanks, a well-known Hollywood star. According to the designer, the visitor's entrance is
the most important moment for guaranteeing his engagement to the museum narrative, as it happens
in cinema. For this reason, the beginning of the museum experience should present an introductory
film or show. Another important issue is the flow inside museums, which must “keep people moving,
without losing attention” (Hall, 2001). Given the emotional density of the narratives proposed, often the
visit ends in an open space, creating a relaxing moment for the visitor.
2.1. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Holocaust Museum is a turning point in Appelbaum's career that contributed to make the office
worldwide known. The Memorial should remember a tragic European genocide incorporating the
American view of the event to ensure that this tragedy will never happen again. The Museum narrative
was based “on the preamble of the United States Constitution” (Vandecarr 2012). Interpreting this
sensitive topic is “further complicated when the event occurred in another country, in another time, and
with no structures to preserve at the location where the event is being depicted” (Venno 2005). The
large number of museums and memorials dedicated to the Holocaust in the United States shows a
growing phenomenon of the late twentieth century: the tourist interest in death, disaster and atrocity,
also called “fatal attractions” (Rojek en Lennon & Foley 2000, 3).
The building, designed by the architect James Ingo Freed, includes areas for main and temporary
exhibitions, memory spaces, library, archives, learning centre, classrooms and computer access
points. The architecture is a main factor to enhance the visitor's emotional connection to the museum,
so that “[the building] provides far more than a neutral background for the tale that must be told. The
building calls for interpretation but confounds analyses. Its monumental forms appear to be shaped
not by architecture but by history” (Muschamp en Venno 2005, 33). The museum narrative is
structured as a theatre play in three acts: Hall of Witness, Hall of Learning and Hall of Remembrance.
The three floors are integrated by the Tower of Faces, a vertical element that displays photos of
Nazism´ victims (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1
The architectural design intends to raise immersion by using materials and dim lighting to evoke the
feeling of being in a concentration camp. The building's language presents harsh forms that interpret
“images of confinement, observation, atrocity and denial” (Muschamp en Venno 2005, 40). Suggesting
the disorientation experienced by the victims of Nazism, the Museum's internal route do not present
clear paths and there are few stopping options, what causes physical and emotional discomfort. The
museum experience begins with the delivery of an identification card to visitors, which describes what
happened to the victimized people. The visit starts inside an elevator with a sound installation (Dernie
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2006, 192). Then, the door opens, signing the beginning of a controlled path that must be
progressively followed. Alison Landsberg affirms that:
The visitor is at the mercy of the museum and must submit oneself to its pace and its logic.
There is no way out short of going through the entire exhibit […] The architecture and exhibition
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design conspire to force each visitor to confront images and objects that might, in other
museums, be wilfully ignored (Landsberg en Venno 2005, 47-48).
The relationship between material collection3 and architecture creates a powerful experience which
does not depend on the self determination of the visitor. The rout is ended by the presence of
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computer terminals. The museum also shows movies about the Holocaust and interviews with
survivors. Lastly, the Hall of Remembrance is the last space presented, trying to encourage reflection.
The creation of the Holocaust Museum was permeated by disputes. Shaike Winberg, the founder
director, said that "the design was not going to lead the exhibition" (Farr en McKee 2002). According
to the author, Appelbaum would have felt prejudiced because the architectural design started before
the exhibition one. Freed "wanted his building to be the memorial, which it is, and he didn't want an
exhibition to confuse him" (Farr en McKee 2002). Despite the quarrel, the Museum seems to have
achieved the goal of personalizing the Holocaust experience so that the visitor takes on the role of a
person victimized by Nazism. As Appelbaum explains:
Of course, it is impossible to convey the experience of a prisoner in a concentration camp. But
we can bring the visitor closer to everything that happened. We travelled to Auschwitz with the
challenge of transporting this experience in time and space, bringing evidence of what
happened. Photographs, prisoners' shoes, and the museum's physical environment help with
this immersion (Cavalcante 2016).
For some authors, the Holocaust Museum can be considered a “powerful instrument to encourage
empathy and reflection” (Venno 2005). However, others highlight “the reckless overlap of devices that
stimulate emotions under the banner of empathy” (Migliore 2000). Scrolling through the exhibition may
become a terrifying experience. Although Appelbaum says to be concerned with the need to establish
a balance point, allowing "people to look into the face of evil without a conscience so strong that it
would incapacitate them from absorbing a survey of evidence" (Appelbaum en Dernie 2006, 29); Elisa
Colepicolo points out that “it is common to find people crying on the way out” (Colepicolo n.d.).
Despite the position adopted by the Museum's website, which is clearly against the genocide (United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum n.d.), this kind of exhibit approach may transmit some excitement
in experiencing the “emotions” of the Holocaust. The visitor obviously knows that he is not in danger
inside a museum. In this sense, the visitor is elevated to a position of “semi-God”, as if exercising a
certain vigilance over the victims (Wood 2013), what can damage the critical approach necessary to
deal with the related problem.
2.2. Newseum
The second analysed case is the Newseum, created by the Freedom Forum, an American Foundation
composed of media conglomerates that works for press freedom. The Newseum was thought to
create a "totally interactive place that, when addressing the subject of individual freedom, would lead
the visitor to be 'contaminated' by journalism" (Tessler 2019). The initiative was conceived as a
reaction to the discredit of journalism in the USA2, seeking to make the public aware of the
responsibilities of journalistic work. The museum's speech is based on the United States Constitution,
showing forty-five words from the "First Amendment" on its façade.
Designed by the architect James Stewart Polshek, the Newseum is located at a prime area of
Washington, between the White House and the Capitol. This strategic location creates a symbolic
narrative that visually connects the ideals of "free press" and "democratic government". The façade
presents a large television screen (Fig. 2). The architectural program includes a big television studio,
theater, food court, restaurants, shops, administrative offices, and classrooms. The Newseum can be
considered almost a hybrid between museum, shopping mall, and recording studio (Pagano 1997).
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Fig. 2
The collection displayed at the Newseum included news, prints, photographs, and other objects
related to the news memory. In addition, there was an extensive audiovisual collection with videos,
interactive stations, high-definition theaters, and galleries. The museum narrative intends to answer
five fundamental questions about the journalism world: “who, what, where, when, and why” (Holden
1998). Spatially, it is divided into the following areas: Berlin Wall, Pulitzer Prize Winners Gallery, News
History Gallery, News Wall, and interactive displays at the end. According to the author, “the
Newseum is a mix of the collective experience of Americans” (Holden 1998).
Inside, the visitor can see movie clips, historical episodes from television, radio broadcasts and print
newspapers. There are some interactive games, in which the visitors can play the role of an editor-in-
chief, preside a meeting with editors of the newspaper's newsroom, assume the role of a television
anchor, make weather reports and read news from a teleprompter. It also includes the Journalists
Memorial, in honor to professionals killed “in the line of duty” (Holden 1998). In Appelbaum's opinion,
the Newseum was a challenging project because of the technological difficulty of updating content at
the exhibit displays in real time.
According to Ouroussof (2008), the museum's architecture encourages speeding up the flow of
crowds, not inciting the patient analysis of the information exposed. For him, "if the building reveals
something about the state of journalism today, it conveys the sector's anxieties about the diminishing
attention span of the average American" (Ourossof 2008). The architecture design is excessively
literal when evoking the shape of a television. The effect obtained is surprising, but it alludes to the
nationalism as a foreign policy in an aggressive manner. As we know, the Newseum was closed in
2019, due to a conjuncture of factors, including the loss of interest from investors and the high price of
land in its privileged region. When closed, the Newseum faced serious problems with the data
updating of exhibits.
3. Appelbaum in Brazil: some experiences
The narrative museum is also associated to the so-called “edutainment boom”, developed by a new
generation of “exhibition designers, visionaries and pragmatists, with technology intelligence and
theatrical mentality specialized in bringing objects, ideas and even corporate philosophies to life. His
eminence on this theme is Ralph Appelbaum” (Hall 2001). The approach to the “edutainment” – or
“educatainment”, in its Brazilian version – can be considered one of the reasons why Rede Globo/
FRM became interested in Appelbaum (Finguerut & Sukman 2008, 256). This book also signaled the
FRM´s interest at the Holocaust Museum and the Newseum. Both cases proposed the creation of
persuasive narratives by using a wide variety of sensory and material resources. The Holocaust
Museum was the most known Appelbaum´s project. In its turn, the Newseum proposed the potential
relation between museums and media conglomerates, which may have interested Rede Globo,
looking for internationalization.
Appelbaum's introduction in Brazil was related to the FRM´s initiatives to create “educational
museums” and to promote a new “typology of museums brought to Brazil by FRM, so that the
inaugural case was the Portuguese Language Museum. They are museums that focus on narrative
and creating experiences” (Graça 2019). At that time, however, RAA was already an old partner of
Rede Globo, having also collaborated with the projects of the Memorial of Rio Grande do Sul and the
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exhibition “50 years of TV and +” (Fig. 3).
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Fig. 3
In the first case, it was a discreet intervention in a historic building that created a great Timeline and
proposed displays around the building structure (Filho 2010). The second case was a larger project
held at the Oca´s building in Ibirapuera´s Park, which intended to create an exhibition-show entirely
composed by virtual collections (Tognoni 2000). The exhibition brought full-size images depicting
important personalities of Brazilian television, which were projected on the building's supporting pillars.
Television documentaries could be seen on big screens. The Oca´s dome received a multimedia
projection that could be watched from reclining chairs with individual speakers.
3.1. The Portuguese Language Museum
The MLP was an intervention at the historical building of the Luz Station designed by the architects
Pedro and Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The museum's creator, Antônio Risério, asked Appelbaum to
propose “an amusement park of language” (Cohn 2009) that should resemble to the Rose Center for
Earth and Space. So, Appelbaum faced the project as a “Brazilian Portuguese Linguatarium” (Cohn
2009). The integrative design perspective seems to have been achieved by this project. According to
the architect´s following report:
The exhibition design suggested that the route should start with an auditorium, in which there
would be a kind of “introductory class” on the subject, which would function as the prologue of a
book. The idea was to ensure that visitors had a minimum content base to follow the rout. Then,
the “Language Square” was conceived as a planetarium. It is the heart of the Museum. It is a
space to listen from the greatest poets, the greatest writers of the Portuguese language, to
orality. It is a museum of the spoken language, not of the learned norm. All who attend are
experts on the subject. [...] On the lower floor, the section “Crosswords” would use the building
structure as a metaphor of the language´s pillars, showing the influences suffered by the
Portuguese language. The “Timeline” presented the idea of exhibiting the three main matrices
that formed the language (Rocha 2015).
As we can see, the strategies developed by Appelbaum in so many other previous experiences were
applied to the MLP: the ascent by an elevator accompanied by a sound installation, the creation of a
vertical circulation axis integrating the building's floors, the exhibition of a film as a strategy to
guarantee the visitor´s engagement, the creation of a multimedia spectacle at the Language Plaza
(Fig. 4), the proposition of a Timeline, the distribution of exhibitors around the building structure, the
use of interactive gadgets. The architectural program, despite being considered too invasive
concerning to the heritage preservation (Kühl 2008), included the presence of image editing rooms,
such as the Newseum.
Fig. 4
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The MLP was a quite impressive intervention, both for the aesthetic quality of the spaces and the
possibility of seeing “everything working perfectly, as it does not happen in most Brazilian museums”
(Taddei s.d.). Based on Appelbaum´s model, it became possible to insert voices of Brazilian
personalities into the narrative, including actors from Rede Globo and anonymous people. This
solution was also adopted at the New York Rose Center. As a result, viewers were often distracted by
familiar voices of television famous artists (Braga 2019, 112).
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 On the other hand, several authors address that the MLP´s narrative contributes to erasing social 4. Final considerations
conflicts. According to Sobrinho (2011), Pfeiffer (2013), Pereira (2019) and Santos (2019), the The Brazilian experiences of narrative museums analyzed are originated by the application of a
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museum narrative considers the Portuguese language as an element of national unity and do not worldwide know model in some cultural initiatives developed by Rede Globo/FRM, that got interested
properly exhibit the role assumed by indigenous languages, African languages and immigration to the edutainment perspective and to the creation of audiovisual collections. At the time of MLP's
languages practiced in Brazil. Referring to the MLP, Wood affirms that “some of the great new opening, however, Brazilian people in general and even Brazilian architects did not know much about

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museum exhibition projects of the RAA seem to demonstrate a desire to close certain difficult and
painful areas of memory in favor of nationalistic celebratory agendas” (Wood 2013, 343).
3.2. The Football Museum
At the beginning of the century, RAA agreed with the government of Rio de Janeiro to design a
Football Museum in Maracanã. For this purpose, he visited the city in 2000 (O Globo 2000). However,
this proposal was abandoned due to the high costs involved (Rangel 2002). After that, FRM continued
to develop this project, which was finally implanted under the grandstands of the Pacaembu Stadium
in São Paulo, designed by Daniela Thomas and Felipe Tassara. The museum creation seems to have
developed the notion of integrative design. According to Tassara, “there was no predominance of
curatorship, architecture or scenography. Everything was designed together. The multidisciplinary
meeting was very enriching” (Tassara 2018).
The museum circulation is predefined and based on the idea of spatial editing. The Great Entrance
Hall remembers the Tower of Faces. In its turn, the Exaltation Room is an audiovisual show. The final
section incorporates interactive games. However, the director of the Football Museum, Daniela
Alfonsi, admits that “the exhibition´s narrative softens conflicts and contradictions about the Brazilian
football” (Azevedo e Alfonsi 2010, 282). Despite the institution's committed efforts to promote other
debates about football practices in Brazil (including, for example, women's and lowland football), the
exhibition design makes the creation of new speeches difficult. The only big update in the main
exhibition took place in 2015.
3.3. The Museum of Tomorrow
The most recent collaboration of Appelbaum in Brazil was the concept for the Museum of Tomorrow,
which architecture was designed by Santiago Calatrava. In this case, the perspective of integrative
design did not occur at all, and the contact between designer and architect was limited to a meeting at
the beginning of the project (Malicheski 2019). As Calatrava pointed out, “they already knew what they
wanted. […] I just supplemented the content with a building” (Calatrava en Martín 2015). Appelbaum
proposed that the museum narrative should present five questions, just like the Newseum: Where did
we come from? Who we are? Where are we? Where are we going? How do we want to go? (Fig. 5).
Ralph Appelbaum, except that he was a foreign designer that explored the use of new technologies.
Although his solutions seemed innovative, they had already been widely applied in other international
cases. Maybe the novelty factor and the high-quality of Appelbaum's interventions have contributed to
the large audiences to these exhibitions, including people who had never visited a museum before.
The “RAA´s model” quickly spread in the Brazilian context with the creation of new technological
exhibition spaces developed by the integrative design perspective, such as other FRM´s experiences:
Paço do Frevo (Recife, 2014) and the Museum of Image and Sound (Rio de Janeiro, not completed).
The multimedia museum brought great expectations about new possibilities of choice and self-
determination at the museum space. However, some of the proposed approaches contributed to the
crystallization of hegemonic views aligned with specific sectorial interests, capable of articulating
“sensitive topics” to “big budgets". The discourses including “interactivity” and “learning” allude to a
universe of values associated with a wish of freedom inside the museum space.
By the analyzed examples, we can point out that the integrative design effectively contributed to better
results for the exhibition spaces. On the other hand, when the multimedia museum is articulated with
rigids circulation schemes, emotional controlling designs and enormous exhibit devices – which are
difficult to rearrange – it becomes hard to update and even to change the original narratives. The only
case in which a free-plan architecture was proposed, the Museum of Tomorrow, was completely
modified by the exhibition design that tried to control the visitor´s route. In addition, the “highly
architectural” exhibition may help to the plastering of some specific narratives. According to Hugo
Sukman, curator of the Museum of Image and Sound, in these museums, “the examples can change,
but the narrative remains the same” (Sukman en Menezes 2011, 76). As we can see, both narrative
museum and spatial editing can become a great problem for the contemporary musealization
processes, especially considering a de-colonial perspective.

Fig. 5

In fact, several elements already used at other previous projects were incorporated into the Museum
of Tomorrow: the delivery of a card to the visitor at the entrance, the beginning of the experience with
the multimedia spectacle “Cosmos”, the “Anthropocene” show, the interactive games and the open
ending space overlooking the Guanabara Bay. However, the museum narrative did not match the
architectural project. Calatrava had originally designed the beginning´s path with the view of the Bay,
but the exhibition design wanted this place to end the journey. It was decided to invert the circulation
scheme initially planned for the building. As we know, this decision caused several problems of
internal circulation.

The high fees charged by Appelbaum5 led the project to the Brazilian office Artíficio Arquitetura e
Expografia. According to the architect Vasco Caldeira, “there was no conversation, they [RAA] handed
over the notebook and left. We had technical challenges for the development of the project proposed
by Appelbaum, and so we needed to change the original concept” (Caldeira 2018). As a result, the

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critic | all

original idea was not implemented, and that is why this project is not available at RAA´s website.

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