Museum Renovation as Retranslation: A Space Syntax Analysis

This article investigates the renovation of a museum exhibition through a Translation Studies lens, arguing that if a museum translates historical events into exhibitionary material, then a renovation functions as a retranslation of that history, responding to changing societal norms and expectations in the ways that historical events are presented. The article focuses on changes in the exhibition’s layout, applying space syntax as an analytical framework to answer the research question: how does spatial reconfiguration function as a tool of retranslation, allowing the post-renovation exhibition to enact shifting attitudes towards local historical narratives? The case study of a Taiwanese local history exhibition found that changes to the layout of the post-renovation exhibition constructed a different representation, and therefore a retranslation, of that history when comparted to the pre-renovation exhibition layout.