A Museum without Walls

by Helena Friman

Helena Friman obtained her M.A. in history, literature and Scandinavian languages in 1967.
She has been manager of the Stockholm Education project since 1999. She has also been a
member of the Swedish Urban Environment Council since 2001.

A museum is part of society’s collective memory.

A museum acquires, documents, preserves and
communicates objects and other evidence of human culture
and environment. It develops and promotes knowledge and
offers experiences appealing to all our senses.
It is open to the public and contributes to the
development of society.
The purpose of the museum is knowledge for the
citizens.
(Swedish museum definition, 1994)

Swedish cultural policy is based on an

old tradition in the Nordic countries of adult
education or ‘people’s education’, folkbildning in
Swedish. Culture is thus perceived as an
instrument for achieving social change, and equal
access to culture has been regarded as a right.

Since 2005, free entrance to the national

museums has increased the number of visitors by
more than 160 per cent. Several other museums
have followed, including the City Museum of
Stockholm.

I consider that one of the most important

issues for the future of European museums is their
relationship with the public. Competition for
people’s attention has become extreme and today
museums must compete for visitors with many
different attractions, from the commercial
entertainment industry to enterprises selling

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MUSEUM OF THE CITY VERSUS MUSEUM REPRESENTING THE CITY
8. The Stockholm City Libraries constructed by the architect Gunnar Asplund.
clothes, gifts and furniture. For most museums, it
is not enough to open well-designed exhibitions
and employ talented marketing staff; they must
adapt a new strategy and use their resources with
the public in a more creative way.
The museum and the city
I worked for many years as an educator in the
Stockholm City Museum. A source of inspiration
for our work was the philosophy behind eco-
museums, which asserts that a place or a district
56 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA)
ª Helena Friman
8
together with all its objects is a kind of cultural
property, property that has nothing to do with
property in its legal meaning.
George Henri Rivière, together with
Hugues de Varines, perhaps the most important
museologists behind the idea of eco-museums,
wrote, in 1985, that the eco-museum could work
as a mirror in which the local population views
itself to discover its own image, a mirror in which
it seeks an explanation of the territory to which it
is attached, and of the populations that have

ª Hans Nordlinder
9 We therefore used the museum as a base
9. A group of park-workers and street cleaners in a district of
Stockholm built in the 1990s with post-modern architecture.
preceded: a mirror that the local population holds
up in front of visitors.
In 1991, I met Kenneth Hudson, a man
who loves museums, but who challenged,
provoked and upset museum professionals with
irritating questions of museum practice, the
culture of the élite, and the occasional misuse of
public money. In an article entitled ‘The Great
European Museum’ (1993) he wrote: ‘From a
museum point of view, I see every town, village,
landscape, country and even continent as a Great
Museum in which everyone can discover their own
roots and see how they fit into the chain of human
activities which stretches back over the centuries.
Scattered over the Great Museum are the
institutions which we have chosen to call
museums. The real reason for a museum’s
existence is to make life more interesting and more
rewarding for its customers.’ This statement
echoed my own understanding of the museum’s
role. I worked many years at the City Museum of
Stockholm with the same idea: that the museum’s
A Museum without Walls
Helena Friman
main task and arena are the city itself; and that
the museum must take part in the discussion
about changes in the built environment and the
social life of the city. The museum should achieve
this role, not just by collecting and reflecting
objects and actions, but through the exchange of
ideas, communication, and confrontation. The
museum was there mainly to make the citizens
curious about the city and the world outside its
walls.
for exploration of the city and introduced new
methods for museum education. The predominant
model of guided tours for school classes was
abandoned in favour of more varied forms and
longer visits. Visits were always combined with
outdoor explorations of parts of the city; either led
by a museum educator or, for the teenagers, on
their own, in small groups. This combination of
the close study of the exhibitions, and all the
movement, concreteness and reality out in the city,
had a powerful effect on the children and young
people. We started to work with adults in a similar
way.
Stockholm Education
In the 1990s, after many years at the Stockholm
City Museum and some years at the Open Air
Museum at Skansen, I had the opportunity to
realize a dream: to leave the traditional museum
world and build something new, a museum
without walls in the streets of Stockholm. The
project got off to a flying start thanks to the culture
ministers of Europe who chose Stockholm as
the cultural capital of Europe in 1998. Within
the context of Stockholm’98, I was able to launch
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MUSEUM OF THE CITY VERSUS MUSEUM REPRESENTING THE CITY
the project in autumn 1996, and start to reach
people in new ways. I wished for a cultural project
with a minimum of administration, premises,
meetings and equipment, and a maximum of
flexibility and closeness to the participants and to
the partner institutions.
The development of a city has much to do
with the people who work in it. Many of those who
work in the transport system, in public cleaning or
in the parks wear uniforms and are thereby
automatically regarded as representatives of the
city, a role that they share with front-of-house
staff of public libraries, conveniences, hotels,
museums and other cultural and public
institutions. They are asked all kinds of questions,
and thus, in addition to their own duties, their
work has an educational and a social component,
which often involves a great strain. It can be
tiresome to be a representative of the authorities,
as a uniformed person automatically always
becomes, particularly for those coming from
outlying areas of Sweden, or from distant
countries. If their work situation is full of stress
and conflict at the same time, it is rather easy for
them to regard the general public and visiting
tourists as a troublesome element rather than the
most important part of their work.
‘Stockholm Education’ has been created for
these occupational groups and is tailored to meet
their different needs and interests. The target
group was and still is the city’s front-of-house staff,
all the people who, in various ways, work in and
around the streets of Stockholm, within its
infrastructure. Police officers, bus drivers, the
street cleaners or traffic wardens are not frequent
museum visitors. We might conclude that they are
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not interested in the history of Stockholm, the arts,
architecture or town planning. I wish to question
this. Why should they not be interested in history,
their workplace. And what if the museums met
them where they are: in the streets of the city?
What if the museum showed interest in them,
not only as visitors, but because they do an
important service for the city. City museums need
to change in order to address this approach which
applied to our project, with the desire to break
down cultural and institutional barriers, and
challenge common museum prejudices about who
is interested and who is not. Perhaps it is
traditional museums that are excluded by those
who choose not to visit them.
Partners
We consider that the partners for Stockholm
Education are all those who are responsible for the
in-service training and education of staff in the
participating institutions, companies and
enterprises. We approach, for example, directors of
bus companies and try to convince them of the
value to the company of drivers’ knowing more
about the city and the streets they drive along.
Other partners for the project are the cultural
institutions, museums, theatres, libraries, schools,
churches, restaurants, and also – in order to gain
access to interesting places and buildings – a large
network of individuals.
However, Stockholm Education’s main
partner, also the starting point for every visit, is the
Stockholm City Museum, located in a seventeenth-
century building. At the museum, participants
study the history and development of the city, from
its foundation in the thirteenth century, up to the

present day, using exhibitions, paintings, maps,
the library and the archives. The group then moves
on to the streets. The main method is the
exploration of the city as it is the source, the
archive and the instrument.
A city can be a great educational instrument
in itself. It is free of charge and in constant
evolution. It is confusing, full of knowledge, and
adventure. We explore it together. We hunt for
traces of those who lived there before us.
It’s your town
Another important motive for the project is to
open up the city for the participants so that they
increasingly come to regard Stockholm as a place
that belongs to them. We are able to enter old
amusement palaces and cinemas, now transformed
into Free Churches or computer shops. We use
churches, parish houses, restaurants and libraries
as informal seminar rooms. We study sketches of
well-known public sculptures and monuments.
The ‘students’ are not trained to become
guides. That is not the point. The idea is that if
they have a basic knowledge of the history and
development of the city, if they are at home in their
own parts of town, then they will feel bolder and
become ready to meet the general public and
tourists in a more responsive way. Contact with
history and culture has that effect on people.
Sometimes the first meeting in the museum
is not easy. The participants’ can have a wait-and-
see attitude, and, especially when there are only
men in the group, the attitude can almost be
considered hostile. But they develop confidence
A Museum without Walls
Helena Friman
and a growing interest. This new attitude and
competence certainly influences their perception
of their own role in the city, and this is of course
valuable, both for the employers and the
companies, as well as for the city. Their reactions
and viewpoints are documented in evaluations,
questionnaires, and interviews. Many of them
stated afterwards that their working days became
more entertaining and ‘fun’. They say that they do
not know much about the city, but that is not true.
They know a considerable amount and they know
different things. There is also a deeper meaning
behind Stockholm Education. It is the idea of the
good, open society, where one feels secure, is met
with knowledge and respect, and the intellect is
activated. It is a question of democracy.
‘I find my job more entertaining now.
The more you know about your city, the more
interested you get. Now I look around all the time,
see how the houses are built, talk about architects
and styles. I’ve become stimulated.’
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