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A characteristic trait of the maritime museums is that they are often located in a contemporary and/or historical environment from which the collections and narratives originate. The museum can thereby be directly linked to the site and its history. It is therefore vital to investigate the maritime museums in terms of relationships between landscape, architecture, museum and collections. This volume unravels the kinds of worlds and realities the Nordic maritime museums stage, which identities and national myths they depict, and how they make use of both the surrounding maritime environments and the architectural properties of the museum buildings.

Hur förhåller sig museibyggnaders arkitektoniskautformning till utställningarnas narrativ? Museologen Annika Bünz diskuterar detta i en jämförelse mellan maritima museer i Norge och Finland. Bünz identifierar både arkitektoniska uttryck för människans dominans och exempel som uttrycker ömsesidighet och beroende-förhållande mellan människa och hav. Intressant är ocksåatt uställningsdesign och arkitektur ibland kommunicerarolika berättelser – i ett och samma museum. Bünz analys visar att museibyggnader rymmer viktiga berättelser som dock sällan lyfts fram i ljuset.

Scholars within a range of disciplines have shown that both museum exhibitions and the archaeological discipline to a great extent lean on the grand narratives of evolution, progress, development, and the rise of the West. In these narratives, the white Western man, physically and symbolically, heads the evolution from nature (woman) to culture (man). This chapter analyses the exhibition Prehistories 1 at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm, Sweden and particularly focuses on two parts of the exhibition, which are of specific significance for understanding the relation between Prehistories 1 and the representation of diversity. Museum exhibitions are created to communicate knowledge. The exhibition Prehistories 1 is displayed at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. The journey throughout the history made in Prehistories 1 starts with a female character represented as blending with nature and ends with a male character sitting on a throne.