Museum of Anthropology to Receive Facelift
A team of five interns completed a project in fall 2005 that will guide remodeling of the Utah State University Museum of Anthropology over the next decade. The project, “Museum of Anthropology: 2015,” yielded three different blueprints detailing how the museum could be enhanced to provide an even more interesting and interactive environment for visitors.
Museum personnel encourage Cache Valley kids and adults to visit the museum, view the redesign options and vote on which of the three blueprints the museum should adopt to guide its “facelift.”
The redesign team, led by graduate student April Phillips, who is receiving her master’s degree in human dimensions of ecosystems science, also included undergraduate students Coralee Lewis and Temina Lawley, both anthropology majors, and interior design majors Jessica Crandall and Janelle Fairbanks.
“The most exciting part of this project was the role that our designs could play in the museum in the future,” Phillips said. “We wanted each of the three designs to provide a thematic connection to tie together all the exhibits in the museum. We hope that visitors will leave with an understanding of the ‘whole’ of anthropology and its importance in understanding humanity.”
Added Fairbanks, “a goal of all three plans was to show visitors how exciting the field of anthropology is, so they leave the museum wanting to learn more.”
The first of the three proposed redesigns is titled “Discovering Anthropology.” This plan divides the museum into three sections, one for each of the sub-fields of anthropology: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology and archaeology. Exhibits include, among many others, displays of the tools-of-the-trade used by anthropologists in each of the three sub-fields; a large wall map with an anthropological timeline; and an archeological “pit” that would interactively demonstrate how archaeologists excavate sites.
The second design, “Geography: Global Trekking,” gives visitors the chance to be explorers traveling to seven major regions of the world in a geographically organized museum. Displays focus on locations such as Egypt, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and each display features an interactive map and music from cultures of that region. The design calls for aesthetic improvements such as new carpeting everywhere and painting of existing columns to look like Polynesian trees in the Pacific-Island exhibit area.
The design team refers to its third proposed blueprint as “Cultural Connections: A Day in the Life.” This plan organizes the museum’s space and exhibits according to elements of daily life common to people all around the world. Clothing, food, music and housing are examples of the “daily life” features that are cross-culturally compared and contrasted. Special features of this approach include a full-sized wickiup living structure like those made by prehistoric people of the Great Basin and an interactive rock-art cave.
The design team focused on keeping the exhibits educational for both children and adults.
“Our goals in overhauling the look of our museum are to instill new excitement in our visitors and to enhance learning,” Pitblado said. “We think our exhibits are pretty cool as they are, but we believe that a unifying thematic organization and new colors and sounds could even more effectively showcase the dynamic field of anthropology.”
The Museum of Anthropology is on the USU campus in Old Main 252 and is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. The museum is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Terrace Parking lot, and the museum provides free parking validation stickers upon request. For group or school tours or for more information, contact museum coordinator Sara Lundberg at (435) 797-7545 or by e-mail: anthmuse@cc.usu.edu.
The three blueprints will remain on display at the entrance to the museum through the end of the summer, giving USU students, staff and the citizens of Logan plenty of time to visit and provide input on how they would like to see the museum change over the next decade.
Contact: Bonnie Pitblado, bpitblado@hass.usu.edu
Writer: Laura Newton, laurakn@cc.usu.edu
Three designs have been developed for the Museum of Anthropology. Vote for your favorite.
A visitor looks at one of the current exhibit cases at the Museum of Anthropology.
Display areas will be redesigned and visitors can pick a favorite from three options.
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