Museums of Science and Technology as Dynamic Sites of Knowledge Production in Historical Perspective
A conference hosted by the Ignaz Lieben Society and the Technisches Museum Wien
12–13 November 2026, Technisches Museum Wien
Introduction
Museums of science and technology are at once enduring and dynamic sites of knowledge production. They organise, preserve, store, research, and interpret knowledge and objects—both physically and digitally. They serve as cultural and social meeting points where knowledge, objects (increasingly including media and interactive exhibits), and people from diverse social and professional backgrounds converge. Today, museums of science and technology act as centres for education and research, promoting scientific and technological knowledge, encouraging critical reflection on scientific and technological change, and fostering civic engagement and social responsibility.
The tasks and missions of these museums have changed over time. The history of museums of science and technology spans more than two centuries and may be described as a succession of several generations. Institutions of the first generation, such as the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers founded in Paris in 1794 and the Imperial-Royal National-Fabriksprodukten-Kabinett at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, emerged from cabinets of curiosities as well as scientific and commodity collections used for teaching.
These were primarily object-centred display collections designed to disseminate knowledge, with formalised public access and a strong emphasis on observing rather than hands-on engagement.
The second generation represented museums in the modern sense, such as the Deutsches Museum (1906) and the Technisches Museum Wien (1909). These museums explicitly targeted a broad public and sought to convey technological progress and the scientific and technical achievements of industrialisation. They often incorporated collections from first-generation predecessor institutions. For instance, the National-Fabriks-Produktenkabinett and the Technische Kabinett of the Vienna Polytechnic formed the foundation of the Technisches Museum Wien.
The emergence of a third generation of museums is linked to science centres, notably the Exploratorium in San Francisco (1969), which served as an international model. Concepts developed in the United States influenced further museum foundations such as the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris (1986) and the Technoseum in Mannheim (1990). These institutions shifted their focus away from the mere presentation of historical objects toward more interactive exhibitions designed to convey abstract principles through experiential learning.
More recently, scholars have proposed the concept of a fourth generation of science and technology museums, seeking to promote civic engagement, social responsibility, and critical engagement with scientific and technological topics.
Aim of the Conference
The aim of the conference is to deepen our understanding of how the emergence and development of museums of science and technology stimulated, presented, and preserved knowledge. We seek to examine museums as dynamic sites where knowledge about science and technology was established, displayed, negotiated, communicated, and at times silenced or rejected. We welcome contributions from the history of science and technology, cultural and social history, and science and technology studies.
Analyses should consider diverse historical, social, and cultural contexts and identify museums as sites of knowledge production within broader frameworks of scientific and technological education and research.
We particularly welcome studies that highlight how these museums historically represented forms of hegemonic knowledge and deprived marginalised communities of their objects and knowledge systems. We likewise welcome studies that explore the gender-specific dimensions of knowledge production and representation, such as the invisibility of women’s contributions to science and technology or gendered portrayals of technological change.
Methodological and Thematic Approaches
In the following, we outline possible methodological and thematic approaches through which we aim to analyse in greater depth the four generations or types of museums of science and technology mentioned above. This list is not exhaustive; contributions that address the overall theme of the conference using other methods or thematic perspectives are explicitly welcome.
Institutions, Networks, Stakeholders
We welcome contributions on the history of the foundations of science and technology museums and their affiliated research institutes, their missions, organisational structures, and functional profiles. Possible sources include founding documents, legal frameworks, funding records, job descriptions, self-representations, and both institutional and private correspondence. We particularly welcome network analyses and studies of the relationships between museums and universities, research institutes, schools, ministries, industries, trade associations, funding bodies, NGOs, and other communities or stakeholder groups. In the 19th century, museums of science and technology were closely intertwined with the emergence of the technical sciences (Klein 2016). The dominant discourse of progress was not supplemented or replaced by alternative narratives until the late 20th century. We welcome contributions that examine both the longevity of this progress narrative and the ruptures within it—within the institution itself as well as in its networks and interactions with various partners from politics, commerce and industry, universities, schools, and beyond.
Architecture, Exhibitions, Spaces
Museums of science and technology contribute, through their buildings and often iconic architectures, to the spatial anchoring of science and technology within the landscapes of cities and nations. Their exhibitions—with their specific assemblages of artefacts, images, interactives, and texts—constitute material stagings of science and technology through which meaning has been and continues to be assigned to the modern world (Bigg/Bergeron 2021). We welcome contributions that engage with the material, spatial, and experiential dimensions of representing science and technology, and that analyse exhibitions as embodied forms of knowledge production by drawing on catalogues, photographs, reports, and reviews (Fleming 2019, Lehmann-Brauns et al. 2010).
Collections and Objects
We welcome contributions that analyse the ongoing processes of knowledge production, negotiation, and erasure that take place through the collecting of objects in museums of science and technology. Similar to developments in art history, scholars of the history of technology have identified the emergence of two types of technological historiography: an object-centred history practiced in museums, and a predominantly text-based history conducted at universities. We particularly encourage contributions that seek to reconnect these two modes of writing the history of technology and that systematically use museum objects as prisms for a multifaceted history of technology (Ebert 2019, Boon et al. 2024).
Utopias, Visions, and Future Perspectives of Museums
One metaphor for the dynamic museum comes from technology: that of the paternoster lift—an open, continuous conveyor in which people, objects, and knowledge circulate without interruption and where no fixed hierarchy of top and bottom exists. Utopias and visions of what museums of science and technology should be, as well as calls for and warnings against particular directions in which these museums might develop, have accompanied their history. We welcome contributions on past utopias, visions, and controversies concerning the purpose and mission of science and technology museums. Within this framework, we explicitly invite presentations on the so-called fourth generation of science and technology museums and welcome examples of museums and exhibitions that foster community‑oriented scientific literacy, civic engagement, and social responsibility.
Keynote
Helmuth Trischler (Munich)
Submission Guidelines
The publication of the conference contributions in the journal 'Blätter für Technikgeschichte' is planned.
Please submit an abstract and a short CV by 15 March 2026 to: ILG_TMW_Tagung_2026@tmw.at
Travel and accommodation reimbursement is not possible or only possible in exceptional cases.
References
Bergeron, Andrée, Bigg, Charlotte. (2021). The spatial inscription of science in the twentieth century. History of Science, 59(2), 121-132. https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275320988399
Boon, Tim, Haines, Elizabeth, Dubois, Arnaud, Staubermann, Klaus. (2024). Understanding Use: objects in museums of science and technology. (Artefacts Studies in the History of Science and Technology, Volume 11). Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.25444927
Boyle, Alison, Hagmann, Johannes-Geert. (2017). Challenging Collections. Approaches to the heritage of recent science and technology. (Artefacts Studies in the History of Science and Technology, Volume 11). Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.9781944466121
Canadelli, Elena, Beretta, Marco, Ronzon, Laura (2019). Behind the Exhibit: Displaying Science and Technology at World's Fairs and Museums in the Twentieth Century (Artefacts Studies in the History of Science and Technology, Volume 12). Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. Book. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.9781944466237
Ebert, Anne-Katrin (2019). Ran an die Objekte! Ein Plädoyer für das gemeinsame Erforschen und Sammeln von Objekten in den technischen Museen. In: Heßler, Martina, Weber, Heike: Provokationen der Technikgeschichte. Zum Reflexionszwang historischer Forschung. 229-258. https://doi.org/10.30965/9783657792337_008
Fleming, Martha. (2019). Embodied ephemeralities: Methodologies and historiographies for investigating the display and spatialization of science and technology in the twentieth century. History of Science, 59(2), 197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275319858528
Friedman, Alan J. (2010). The evolution of the science museum. Physics Today, 63(10), 45. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3502548
Klein, Ursula (2016). Nützliches Wissen. Die Erfindung der Technikwissenschaften, Göttingen: Wallstein.
Lackner, Helmut, Jesswein, Katharina, Zuna-Kratky, Gabriele (2009), 100 Jahre Technisches Museum Wien, Wien: Verlag Carl Ueberreuter.
Mikoletzky, Juliane, Jiresch, Erich (1997). K.K. Polytechnisches Institut – Technische Hochschule – Technische Universität Wien, Wien: TU Wien.
Pedretti, Erminia, Iannini, Ana Maria Navas. (2023). Vers des musées scientifiques de quatrième génération: changer les objectifs, changer les rôles. Culture & Musées, 41, 151. https://doi.org/10.4000/culturemusees.10013
Rennie, Léonie J. (2021). Controversy and Critical Exhibitions: Envisioning a Fourth Generation of Science Museums. Canadian Journal of Science Mathematics and Technology Education, 21(1), 213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42330-021-00142-w
Lehmann-Brauns, Susanne, Sichau, Christian and Trischler, Helmuth (Hg.), 2010, The Exhibition as Product and Generator of Scholarship (Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte)
Trischler, Helmuth (2024). The research museum – a place of integrated knowledge production. In: Science Museum Group Journal 22,3. https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/242204
