Race hall
The so-called race Hall was a controversial exhibition area in the Natural History Museum in Vienna . It existed between 1978 and 1996 as part of the anthropological display collection.
Emergence
In 1952, on the occasion of an international congress of anthropologists, an exhibition was set up in the Natural History Museum in Vienna , which showed the development of Homo erectus up to the Celts . From 1959, however, the collection was no longer accessible to the public. Twenty years later, on June 27, 1978, Johann Szilvássy, the then head of the anthropological department at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, opened a newly designed “permanent anthropological exhibition”. Two newly renovated museum halls were now open to visitors: "Hall 16" presented an overview of the knowledge of human history at that time in 17 showcases under the title Human Development and Development . Room 17 was given the name Die Today Leben Menschheit ( Race Studies) and revealed distinctive photos of the race in question , distribution and racial characteristics in 18 showcases . The Austrian population soon spoke of the so-called “race hall” in connection with hall 17. In the previous scientific-historical work-up, this designation was adopted, which speaks for the general awareness of this designation.
Public criticism of the race hall
In August 1993 public attention was directed to the anthropological department of the Natural History Museum Vienna, but above all to the race hall. The reason for this was a critical letter from the British anthropologist Adam Kuper to the British journal Nature . Kuper condemned the showroom as a manifestation of “Nazi-like racial research”.
At around the same time, the then head of the anthropological department and exhibition designer of the race hall, Johann Szilvássy, came under fire. In the Austrian daily Kurier , he had warned Austrians against “mixed marriages” with migrants, as this could lead to “changes in the genetic material”. The Austrian party Die Grünen then directed a parliamentary question to the then responsible Minister of Science, Erhard Busek . In response to this question, the minister agreed with the party; despite everything, nothing was changed about the controversial race show.
Due to the increasing public criticism of the Rassensaal, a board was put up in the mid-1990s that announced a redesign of the anthropological showrooms, in which the latest findings in molecular biology will be incorporated. Instead of a new installation, however, the controversial Hall 17 was closed in 1996, and in 1999 Hall 16 in the Natural History Museum Vienna was also closed.
Exhibition review
The clashes around the race facilities are to be considered against the background that the division of humanity into races towards the end of the 20th century in science increasingly questions was. Today only a minority of anthropologists consider the concept of race theory to be useful.
The main focus of the criticism of the race hall was the logic of the arrangement of the races on display. The exhibition had two endpoints, depending on which side the tour of the hall was started from: At one end there was a blonde, according to the accompanying text, a Swedish man in a shirt and jacket, at the other end a Stone Age Tasmanian . In the accompanying texts, a Eurocentric view of the world and the superiority of a "Nordic ideal type" were expressed subliminally .
The hierarchizing handling of attributes in the descriptions of the individual races was also frequently criticized. So the breed of the Nordide was described with the following racial characteristics: high, narrow face; high straight nose; strong chin. Australids, on the other hand, have rough facial features. The gallery gives the impression, according to the critics, that there are differences between races and that people can be classified in relation to them.
Another point of criticism was the presentation of different skulls as proof of breed. Many critics were reminded of the time when it was believed that different levels of intelligence could be proven by measuring the skull .
literature
- Fuchs, Brigitte: “Race”, “People”, gender. Anthropological discourses in Austria 1850-1960. Frankfurt am Main 2003.
- Kohn, Marek: The Race Gallery. The Return of Racial Science . London 1995, pp. 9-27.
- Kuper, Adam: Racial Science. Letter to the Editor, in: Nature 364, Aug. 26, 1993, p. 754.
- Mayer, Andreas; Taschwer, Klaus: Long, high skull , in: Falter 17 (29/1995), pp. 16-17.
- Mayer, Andreas; Taschwer, Klaus: "Racism in the Museum". On the popularization of anthropological knowledge in the Vienna Natural History Museum , in: FORVM , June 1995, pp. 76–81.
- Muttenthaler, Roswitha; Wonisch, Regina: gestures of pointing. On the representation of gender and race in exhibitions , Bielefeld 2006.
- Szilvássy, Johann: Anthropology. Guide through the anthropological collection , Vienna 1978.