Promenading in the Museum of Emptiness

[TIL #33] sometimes the exhibition is the museum

Aug 15, 2024

Hey there,

Welcome back to another issue of the Tales. I’d like you to know that i enjoy having you here and that i am grateful that you take the time to read my articles.

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Here in Lisbon, the recent reopening of the Museum of Design has been making some noise. When I found myself with a couple of hours on my hands, i headed downtown for a visit.

The building is currently empty. If there is no exhibition, it is because the museum is the exhibition: for a couple of months, they are celebrating the end of the renovation works by putting the building itself on stage.

Now, this huge construction in Baixa (downtown) certainly deserves the attention and i enjoyed discovering the perspectives, the lights and the textures on every floor. As i entered, the fact that i was about to walk through an empty museum made me pause: wouldn’t a museum of emptiness make perfect sense? There would be no collection, nothing to capture the attention, no indigestible text heavy with the pretence of expertise to tell you what to think — just space.

This idea generated a sense of freedom. In a space unencumbered from all things, there would be no army of noisy notification-demons to assault the visitor, no self-proclaimed prophets to control thoughts, no strict teacher to measure achievements. There would be none of these pressing demands that constantly compete for each minute of your time. Just peace.

Feet on the ground: forget that silly notion of emptiness — i love discovering art works, especially photographs. On most days, i still marvel at how technology empowers human beings. A perfect void liberated from all agitation does resemble an afterlife kind of place, and i’m in absolutely no hurry to get there. Let me have all of the daily confusion of life.

This said, as i promenaded in the museum, marvelling at the vast spaces of an open floor and taking in all the details, the sense of peace that had emerged from the vision of a museum of emptiness stayed with me. It was nurtured by the pleasure of exploring the building.

In the 19^th century, the edifice was owned by a bank that provided financial services in relation to the then colonies. From the model presented in a vitrine on the ground floor to the vault with the thick door and the shiny metallic walls lined with safes, everything reminded me of the Spanish show la casa de papel (‘the money heist’, i believe, is how it is titled in English) — i did not wear the Dali mask during my visit.

Since the museum is the exhibition, no effort has been spared in telling the story of the building, from the creative use of concrete by the architect in charge of works in the early 20th century to stories told by employees who worked there in the end of the same century (for instance, a severe segregation was organised between staff and members of the board through the design of separate channels of circulation, and an employee who accidentally crossed paths with a director could be sanctioned with the loss of a couple of days of their wages).

I strived to read the panels and follow the explanations kindly offered by a proactive staff, but my attention was captured by the building. At any time, it seemed that the spaces around me were on the verge of turning into a steampunk universe: when i reached the roof terrace, i almost expected steam-powered vehicles to cross the sky over the hills and honk in the busy streets of downtown geometry.

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