Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 29-30/2. (2010)

Mueum pedagogy

THE EUROPA NOSTRA 2010 EDUCATION AWARD - EUROPEAN ADDED VALUE

Dana Roxana HRIB

Muzeul National Brukenthal Sibiu, Sectia de Educade, Marketing $i Comunicare Piata Mare nr. 4-5, RO-550163 Sibiu, Románia

Abstract: In the year 2010, the Brukenthal National Museum was the first museum in Romania to receive a European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage, namely the Europa Nostra Awards, the 4th category: Education, Training and Awareness-raising; the awarded programme was a museum pedagogy one, entitled “Discovering the Museum”.

The programme was launched at the beginning of school year 2008/2009 (15th of September 2009 - 15th of June 2008). At present, its second year is running for 2009/2010.

The audience of the project was considerable under the respect of participants, all paying more than one visit to the Museum, while the community response to the Museum’s youth educational project equaled the audience in schools. The main patterns of the project were set during the school year 2008/2009 in which concern the activity types, publication concepts, establishment of relations with schools and other institutions education-related through the means of written agreements. There were also established rules of participation, means of information, and means of popularizing the results. As far as we know, the Brukenthal National Museum was the first in Romania to publish a guide to the exhibition for students, the first to issue museumapplied activity books for children and the first to publish a catalogue on students’ exhibition.

Keywords: Brukenthal National Museum, Europa Nostra Award.

The Brukenthal National Museum of Sibiu, Romania, was opened to the public in 1817, being the first museum on the today’s Romanian territories. The Museum was named after its founder - Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803), who built an impressive Baroque palace in Sibiu, in which location the Museum established its beginnings. Initially presenting von Brukenthal’s collection of European Painting in one single building, today the Museum shelters a large diversity of valuable collections in 9 buildings. During the period between 2006 and 2008, the Museum was subjected to a spectacular transformation, all the buildings in its administration being renovated while about 85% of the exhibitions were reconsidered.

Before 2006 Museum’s education activities were random. Because of the renovation process paralleled by the events of Sibiu European Capital of Culture in 2007, an articulate educational programme was possible to be run only starting with school year 2008/2009.

The education rooms in the Museum were opened in 2007 at the Museum of Natural History and in 2008 at the Brukenthal Palace (Art Galleries) and the Museum of History (Fig. 1). The Brukenthal National Museum comprises the Brukenthal Palace (European Art Galleries), the Romanian Art Gallery, the Contemporary Art Gallery, the Brukenthal Library, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Pharmacy, the Museum of Hunting, the Museum of History and the Restoration Laboratories.

M A R I S I A, XXIX-XXX, p. 163-168