NEW EXHIBIT CHIEF 

 OUTLINES GOALS 



Better communication through imaginative museum exhib- 

 its is the goal of Lothar P. VVitteborg, new Chief of Exhibition 

 for Field Museum. 



In the past 20 years, Witteborg has travelled to nearly 

 every part of the world as a museum exhibition consultant, 

 and has often been disturbed by what he regards as static 

 and unimaginative use of display areas in many museums. 



Although he originally 

 graduated from college 

 with a degree in civil en- 

 gineering, the field did not 

 hold his interest and he 

 returned to school where 

 he earned a' degree in art 

 history and minored in 

 anthropology. Interest in 

 the latter field led to grad- 

 uate study in anthropol- 

 ogy, to which he added 

 courses in drawing, paint- 

 ing, sculpture and design. 



As an undergraduate, VVitteborg worked at the Detroit 

 Children's Miiseiuii and the Museum of Anthropology at 

 the University of Michigan, but he became permanently 

 intrigued with the challenges presented by the problems of 

 visual communication when he became curator of the Uni- 

 versity Museum at Florida State University. 



He later served as an exhibition consultant for the Newark 

 Museum and as assistant chief of art and exhibition and then 

 department chief at the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory in New York City. While at the American Museum, 

 VVitteborg was often "on loan" as a consultant to other in- 

 stitutions which included the British Museum in London, 

 the Department of Antiquities in Turkey, and the School of 

 Classical Studies in Athens. He helped in the development 

 of the new National Museum in India. 



Witteborg later joined the Museums and Monuments 

 Division of UNESCO and helped set up the National Mu- 

 seum of Malaysia and acted as consultant for other institu- 

 tions in Southeast Asia. 



In 1960, he opened a private design firm, Witteborg and 

 Williams, Inc., with L. A. Williams, who had been chief of 

 exhibition at the American Museum after Witteborg. The 

 firm's clients included museums in the continental United 

 States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Canada. 



Throughout his involvement in museum exhibition work, 

 he has stressed his belief that "an exhibition is more than 

 just a collection of interesting objects and things. It is a 

 way of organizing material to convey information, and of 

 organizing traffic flow to achieve optimum comnmnication. 



He has expressed these views in several articles, includ- 

 ing a paper, "Museum Design, A Logical Approach," which 

 he read at the annual meeting of the American Association 



of Museiuns in 1964, later published in the .*\.\M journal. 

 Museum J^'ews. 



In that article, VVitteborg said, "Besides its role as a re- 

 search and social center, the main function of a museum 

 should be education through the interpretation of its col- 

 lections. Interpretation, the most important aspect of any 

 museum, is achieved through scholarly monographs, popu- 

 lar publications, guided tours, adult education programs, 

 and all-day programs; but, primarily it is achieved through 

 exhibits, because it is through them that the largest number 

 of people is affected. 



"What to do with objects in a museiun sounds like an 

 easy problem. You either hang them from the wall, set 

 them on the floor, or build a case aroimd them. Actually, 

 it may be simple if the designer is simply asked to create a 

 context for objects taken out of their natural environment. 

 It is unfortimate, but this has been the case rather than the 

 exception. Most museums are dull, static, dead, three- 

 dimensional text books. But what about the explanatory 

 exhibit, the exhibit of ideas rather than of things? This 

 type of exhibit is becoming more popular as a few museums 

 discover that teaching involves more than arranging objects 

 in a glass case. Within the explanatory exhibit the design 

 possibilities are endless. Soimd, animation, models, charts, 

 and supplementary graphic materials, or any method the 

 designer may use, will aid in putting across ideas or con- 

 cepts in the exhibit. 



"The designer has many useful tools, for example : in the 

 combination of simple use of structure with well-thought-out 

 use of color, the designer has at his disposal one of the strong- 

 est of response-producing techniques. Above all, it should 

 be the duty of the designer to free us from the fixations of 

 tradition and symbolism usually associated with color and 

 form by emphasizing the direct sensuous perceptual impact 

 of color and form as well as motion upon the spectator. The 

 exhibition visitor should be made to feel that his trip to the 

 museum was a spatial and visual experience in which the 

 process of learning came through an unconscious eflfort on 

 his part. The careful use of color, motion, sound, and light- 

 ing can be used to lead the exhibition visitor along a pre- 

 determined path. Another consideration, usually forgotten, 

 is that empty space can be lUilized to afford the visitor a 

 visual and physical rest, a point that is extremely important 

 in our larger museums. In exhibition design, where the 

 transmission of a story, a concept, or facts is the immediate 

 and explicit pmpose, ideas can be communicated by visual 

 symbols: color, form, lighting, and motion, which act as 

 subsitutes for words, thereby increasing their effectiveness as 

 meaning-carriers. It is, therefore, important in conceptual 

 planning that structure, space (both negative and positive), 

 form, color, motion, and light be dealt with together, not as 

 unrelated elements." 



As chief of exhibition for Field Museum, he is interested 

 in the challenge offered in the muse\im's potential for devel- 

 opment of increasingly effective displays. VVitteborg re- 

 gards the Field Museum building, with its classic lines and 

 spacious galleries, as one of the finest in the world. 



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