Reality as illusion, the historic houses that become museums

Abstract

A linear museological approach is only partially satisfactory when studying historic house museums. The complexity of the historic house as museum requires that the observer learn how to ‘read’ it both as object and as museum. House museums combine history and dream, suggests Mónica Risnicoff de Gorgas, who is director of the Virrey Liniers Casa Museo Histórico Nacional in Alta Gracia, Córdoba, Argentina. She is a deputy member of the Argentine Committee of ICOM, and as an active member of ICOFOM has participated in symposia and congresses, both in Argentina and abroad. She has worked as co‐ordinator of the Organization of American States (OAS) Project for setting up workshops for children in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was responsible for the museum department of the Cultural Heritage Authority of the Province of CÃrdoba, directed the rehabilitation of the museums of the Province of Córdoba and provided technical assistance on many occasions to museums in Argentina. She has given numerous lectures and classes and her published works include Importancia del Museo en la Educación; El museo como recurso didáctico en la Educación Sistemática (The museum as a didactic recourse in systematic education); Museos de hoy para el mundo de mañana (Museums of today for the world of tomorrow); Los museos y la crisis de los pueblos de identidad concurrente (Museums and the Crisis of Peoples with Plural Identities); Museos a la b%uacute;squeda de la memoria perdida (Museums in Search of Lost Memory).