The research and cataloguing methodology of the rooms of the Rui Barbosa Historic House Museum

Abstract

This article shows the results of the study “Development of methodology for cataloging the rooms of a historic house museum, understood as museum objects”, developed within the scope of the Incentive Program for the Production of Technical and Scientific Knowledge in the Culture Area of the House of Rui Barbosa Foundation. The study methodology included a literature review and application of questionnaires. Firstly, we discussed the historic house museum category and the relevance of studying domestic interiors in this context; then, we discussed the understanding of the rooms as museum objects and the importance of recording the social trajectory of museological artifacts. In the fourth section of this article, we present and reflect on the collection of object rooms of the Rui Barbosa Historic House, which is located in a construction built in 1850 that served as residence to Rui Barbosa and his family between 1895 and 1923. The field research included questionnaires with professionals of the historic house museum and with the public of the Rui Barbosa Historic House Museum. In the first case, the objective was to investigate the methodologies adopted for elaborating the museum documentation; the research with the public sought to include the visitors’ demands and perceptions regarding the house museum. After such reflections and investigations, elaborating the cataloguing methodology for the rooms was possible, which includes the steps of observation and reading of the house compartments, the analysis of their properties, and the filling of the catalogue records. Up until now, the research has demonstrated the possible novelty of this methodology, which has potential to be adapted to the realities of other historic house museums.