THE COLLECTION

"The creation of the Museum of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, is a reality. This route was in fact initiated by each of the the previous responsibles for the different structural units of the Faculty, who, during decades, were joining scientific pieces that loosed topicality but not its intrinsic value, as symbols of medical science of a time. Gradually there were crystallized some small specialized museological nucleus, as the Study Centre Egas Moniz, alongside with other nucleus and separated pieces, waiting for the possibility of telling later its story." João Martins e Silva, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, in Passages - Exhibition guide, 2005.

The Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, founded in 1911, has a long history, dating back to the early sixteenth century with the foundation of the Hospital of All Saints, in Lisbon, and the nineteenth century with the creation of the Medical-Surgical School of Lisbon, and a rich historical and cultural heritage related with this history, made up of art works, techno-scientific pieces and others scattered for several structural units, which were preserved for centuries.

The Museum of Medicine project of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, comes in a ambient of renewal and innovation, as the inauguration of the Egas Moniz building, intended to house some of its main research units and the Institute of Molecular Medicine, so well symbolizes.

Considering the prestige of the institution, it was absolutely necessary to preserve and manage correctly its historic heritage, that is also a part of the portuguese culture, the direction of the Faculty decided to reorganize in September 2003, its Museological Nucleus and invited Manuel Valente Alves to direct and coordinate the work towards its implementation, the first step for the creation of the Museum of Medicine.

In February 2005, the direction of the Faculty approved the transformation of the Museological Nucleus in Museum of Medicine, and released a temporary space in the main building of the Faculty, until the construction of a new and definitive building.

O CONCEITO MUSEOLÓGICO

Como organizar hoje um museu de medicina? Qual o seu sentido? E qual o seu lugar na cultura contemporânea? Museu de ciência? Museu de arte?

Os museus de arte e os museus da ciência e da técnica são dois mundos diferentes, duas culturas, cada uma com o seu património, as suas especificidades, o seu público. Alguns responsáveis destes dois tipos de instituições culturais interrogam-se sobre a possibilidade de uma terceira via, e lançam questões.

Como criar pontes que façam a ligação entre estes dois grandes ramos da experiência e do conhecimento humanos, sem prejuízo das suas especificidades? Será possível reunir num mesmo lugar de exposição, sob um mesmo denominador comum, objectos de um e de outro universo? E, no caso afirmativo, não haverá o risco de reforçar um conhecimento estático ou de suscitar visões maniqueístas pré-existentes que reenviariam cada um desses objectos, privados dos respectivos contextos, a categorias em que se poderiam opor, de forma redutora, o belo e o verdadeiro, o imaginário e o concreto, o racional e o expressivo, a arte e a ciência? Como pensar uma tal iniciativa no contexto da medicina, não em termos de mera demonstração pedagógica e de ilustração, mas sim de complementaridade poética - implicando caminhos paralelos ou até mesmo divergentes - ou de contaminação - enriquecimento mútuo?

No projecto curatorial que agora se apresenta, o Museu de Medicina pretende ser um organismo híbrido, um museu e um laboratório em simultâneo, um centro de circulação de ideias e gerador conhecimentos, aberto à multiplicidade de ligações que, a partir das especificidades da arte e da ciência, a investigação interdisciplinar hoje em dia permite, que reforce as conexões entre o corpo humano, a medicina e a cidade."

Manuel Valente Alves, director do Museu de Medicina da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa, in Circulação/ Circulation, 2004

MUSEOLOGICAL CONCEPT

How to organize in nowadays a museum of medicine? What's direction to opt? And how to define its place in contemporary culture? Museum of science? Museum of art?

"Art museums and museums of science and technology are two different worlds, two cultures, each one with its heritage, its specificities, its audience. Some responsible for these two types of cultural institutions are wondering about the possibility of a third way, and they introduce some questions.

How to create bridges linking these two great branches of the human experience and knowledge, without prejudice to its specificities? Is it possible to bring together in a exhibition, under one common denominator, objects from one and the other universe? And if yes, there will be the risk of reinforcing a static knowledge or raise pre-existing Manichean visions that should remand each of these objects, deprived of their contexts, to categories in which they could oppose, in a reductive way, the beautiful and the true, the imaginary and concrete, the rational and the expressive, the art and the science? How to think such an initiative in the context of medicine, not in terms of mere pedagogical demonstration, of illustration, but of poeticcomplementarity - implying parallel or even divergent paths - or contamination - mutual enrichment?

In its curatorial project presented now, the Museum of Medicine aims to be a hybrid body, a museum and a laboratory, simultaneously, a center of circulation of ideas and of generation of knowledge, open to the multiplicity of links that, respecting the specificity of art and science, interdisciplinary research today allows to strengthen the connections between the human body, the medicine and the city. "

Manuel Valente Alves, director of the Museum of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, in Circulação/ Circulation, 2004

O LOGÓTIPO THE LOGO

Inspirado na representação gráfica da linguagem binária, o logotipo do Museu de Medicina procura harmonizar a relação entre dois pólos de comunicação, o passado e o presente, entre duas culturas, a arte e a ciência, entre duas experiências, a subjectividade e a objectividade, entre duas portas, o in e o out, utilizando duas cores, o amarelo e o cinzento, as cores do logotipo da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa. A ideia de complementaridade, de diálogo entre sistemas, como símbolo da própria dinâmica da vida e da comunicação interpessoal e institucional é sublinhada pelo jogo entre as formas curvilínea e recta dos dois arcos que sintetizam as iniciais do Museu de Medicina.

Inspired by the graphic representation of the binary language, the Museum of Medicine logo seeks to harmonize the relationship between two poles of communication, the past and the present, two cultures, art and science, two experiences, subjectivity and objectivity, two doors, in and out, using two colors, yellow andgray, the colors of the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon logo. The idea of complementarity, of dialogue between systems as a symbol of the dynamics of life and interpersonal and institutional communication is underlined by the play between the curvilinear shapes and straight of the two arches that synthesize the initials of the Museum of Medicine.

SOBRE O PROJECTO - PUBLICATIONS
ABOUT THE PROJECT - PUBLICATIONS

Manuel Valente Alves. "Projecto: O Museu de Medicina da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa/Project: Museum of Medicine of the Lisbon Faculty of Medicine" in Valente Alves M, Barbosa A (editores). Circulação/ Circulation. Lisboa: Museu de Medicina da FMUL, 2004, pp. 14-19. [português/english] > Artigo pdf

Manuel Valente Alves. "O Projecto Museu de Medicina da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa". Revista da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa (RFML) 2005; Série III; 11 (3): 151-156. > Artigo pdf

Manuel Valente Alves, "O Museu de Medicina e as passagens" in Passagens - Guia da exposição. [português/ english]. Lisboa: Museu de Medicina da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa/ Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, 2005.

Manuel Valente Alves. "Processos de inclusão de ideias, factos, modos de conhecimento" in Valente Alves M (editor). Passagens. Lisboa: Museu de Medicina da FMUL/ Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, 2005, pp. 191-193. > Artigo pdf

Manuel Valente Alves. "O projecto do Museu de Medicina, Faculdade de Medicina" in Lourenço MC, Neto MJ (coordenação). Património da Universidade de Lisboa - Ciência e Arte. Lisboa: Universidade de Lisboa e Edições Tinta-da-china, 2011, pp. 55-66. > Artigo pdf