On the Evolution of Scientific Display and New Exhibition Design: Learning and Communication in the Museum Environment through Times

A vast array of transformations have inundated the scientific exhibition world in the past fifty years, bringing considerable challenges to museum professionals who had to ride with difficulty the wave of change from object-based professional practice to reconsiderations of social purpose and communicative efficiency. Spatial and sensory factors that make up the holistic embodied experience of the visitor may emerge as increasingly relevant in the future - especially with regards to recent ‘experientially-based’ approaches to practice – affirming a role at the very core of communicative and learning processes. This paper illustrates the revolution with the learning, communication in museum environment through times, argues that the understanding of the scientific exhibition as a medium ‘unique to itself’, but also play a significant part in the learning process, as a constant and complex series of experiences. Strengthening reflection on the place of the embodied experience in communication and learning may thus encourage practitioners in the future to imagine new roles for science museums, with a more complex understanding of ‘what it does the best through times’ and ‘how to move it forward’.