Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

The aim of this FED-tWIN project is to provide a thorough investigation of the origin, historical evolution and current challenges of the Meunier Museum as a small-scale house museum and a satellite of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB), and to develop a plan for the future in terms of the museum’s architecture, collection conservation and management, accessibility and visitor service.

Small-scale (house) museums that are part of a larger museum group are often not a priority as far as strategic management is concerned. Although suited for experiencing heritage in an intimate and authentic setting, and thus offering much potential for visitor interaction and tourism, such museums face gigantic challenges. The geographical distance to the mother institution creates a mental gap that helps to understand why these ‘satellite museums’ generally lack resources, are short in personnel, have problems with their buildings, and even have difficulties to offer the adequate material conditions for the preservation of artworks.

This project addresses the historical evolution, contemporary challenges and future potential of small-scale museums such as the Meunier Museum. Situated at the intersection of several scholarly disciplines (art and cultural history, conservation-restoration science [of both immovable and movable heritage], museology, critical heritage studies, cultural policy, tourism studies and cultural management sciences), and executed in close collaboration with the Antwerp Cultural Heritage Sciences research group (ARCHES) at the University of Antwerp, the project will mobilize an important amount of scholarly resources and will generate new insights that are relevant and innovating in museology, heritage sciences and practices as well as academic teaching.

ABBEY RD. REVISITED is a FED-tWIN project supported by BELSPO.

• 

  The sculptor’s studio in the Meunier Museum, before 1936
  © RMFAB, ACAB, Brussels

• 

  The sculptor’s studio in the Meunier Museum, 2021
  © RMFAB, Brussels, photo: Cedric Verhelst