Researchers on display: moving the laboratory into the museum

An intriguing development is taking place in several European science museums: the move of university research laboratories into the space accessible to visitors. Seen as a means to encourage the public understanding of research and to render research practice more accessible to visitors, such laboratories-in-the-museum have been set up in museums in Munich, Berlin, Milan and Gothenburg. This paper is concerned with the changes that the laboratory undergoes through this relocation - namely a transformation of its social and material architecture; an extension of its object-world; and a change in, and multiplication of, the roles of researchers. The laboratory-in-the-museum not only represents, displays and explains a particular kind of space - the laboratory - but it is also designed to create space for dialogue and discussion between researchers and visitors.