Our Lord in the Attic: A Case Study

Additional teaching resources

We would like to give you access to the GCI/CN 2006 assessment which gives our findings and initial recommendations to the museum (refer to the column on the right).

As mentioned before, much of the data in the case study is in a raw format. It is up to the teacher's discretion to make processed data available to the students. For this purpose, the processed data is made available on the right hand side. In addition we have made available the climate assessment and the condition assessment component of the GCI/ICN research, as well as a published joint article on visitor impact (Museum Microclimates, The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen 2007). This article and the link to its online publication are included in the bibliographic resources on the case study web site.

Not all information is complete, relevant, up-to-date or even correct. Please find here a list:

• On the web page describing the museum's organization and staff tasks, there is a deliberate discrepancy in the organigram and the text. The organigram is outdated, which can be seen by the use of the old museum logo. Any document with the logo of 'Amstelkring' is at least 3 years old.
• The 'hidden' pulpit in the church is considered by the museum to be too fragile to use and it is only shown on Christmas. The measure to reduce the handling of the pulpit is appropriate, but for a different reason. The oak and mahogany pulpit is relatively strong and it is actually the cupboard in which it is stored that is much more fragile and shows signs of wear and tear from handling.
• The climate data recorded by the outside climate sensor is not correct - the sensor was exposed to sunlight and produced unreliable data.
• The water damage caused in the church by the baptism can be interpreted in different ways. Some experts expressed that this kind of damage related to the use of the church should be accepted as a consequence of living history, others however stated that the baptism font should not have been placed so close to the altar according to Catholic practice and as such this damage should not have happened.
• Maximum number of visitors based on CO₂ data: from the CO₂ build-up consideration, our analysis indicated that the maximum number of visitors can be nearly 600 per day in winter. It can be increased to twice the current maximum daily visitor number during the summer, especially when opening the entrance door and a window in the attic for increased natural ventilation. However, it is incorrect to base the maximum number of visitors solely on this data. Other aspects, such as fire regulations, the physical strength of the house (the weakest elements being the galleries in the church), visitors' safety and the enjoyment of the visitation should also be considered.
• It is misleading to focus on the increasing number of visitors to the museum, thereby forgetting the large number of churchgoers who frequented the church on a daily basis for mass over several centuries, before the building became a museum. The estimated number of churchgoers and the museum visitation numbers have been put together in the Processed church and museum visitation numbers (1660-2006)
• A comment to the current visitation and visitor behavior - it was found that analyzing visitor behavior could not be properly done by actually being present in the room. Visitors walking paths would change because of two main reasons; the assessors need space to stand or sit and visitors like to ask questions about what they are doing. This is why this observation was done by using CCTV recordings.