"We are not among the dead": reading and interpreting Winterthur's rooms as constructed spaces

Abstract

This thesis centers on a close study of three house rooms in the Winterthur Museum, to argue for a more expansive and transparent interpretation of period room spaces. This interpretation acknowledges their long histories of purposeful construction and change up to the present, a history which takes physical form in the space and can be shown, not just described. I read the physical rooms of Winterthur as material culture objects, in conjunction with their archival record, interviews with current and former staff, and comparisons to other historic homes and museums. I consider Winterthur’s rooms as relational spaces in which their inhabitants and visitors help create and complicate their meaning, using Stephen Eddy Snow’s concept of the backstage to clarify this relationship between people and space. Building off contemporary conversations on the utility and relevance of period rooms and historic homes as well as visitor research at Winterthur, I argue that interpretation which embraces a transparent and playful approach to explaining a room, its purposeful assemblage, staging, and artifice, and an institution’s complex history helps us tell fuller, more engaging stories of a place and its actors.