Construction of the museal space: science, education and sociality in the genesis of the Goeldi Museum’s Zoobotanical Park (1895-1914)

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the construction of the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi during the administration of its idealizers, Emilio Goeldi (1895-1907) and Jacques Huber (1907-1914). Although the park is now an organic area and spreads across a whole block in the center of Belem (PA), Brazil, it was conceived as two distinct annexes of the museum, the zoo and the botanical garden, each located on opposite sides of the institution’s main building. These annexes were created from the expropriation, transformation, and resignification of lands, buildings and vegetables that already existed in the place. Having as starting points the concept of museality and the issues underlying the creation and functioning of museums, the text is developed in four narratives - communicational and educational, scientific, leisure and sociality, domestic -, which we understand as matrices that shaped and organized the museal space. These narratives allowed us to study the genesis of institutional identity, which, in its essence, is perpetuated to the present day.

KEYWORDS:
Living collection; Botanic Garden; Museums of nature; Musealization