?The museum burning in Rio?

[Lynn Allen]

I hope its not the one with the warbirds in it. Can someone confirm this?

[JohnTerrell]

No, the aviation museum located in Rio (actually on the very outer edge), which has some warbirds, the "Museu Aeroespacial", is housed in hangars on the location of Afonsos AFB, and is not related to the 200 year old National Museum which went up in flames overnight.

(There was also of course, the now closed, TAM Museum (Museu Asas de um Sonho), which also housed warbirds, that was located in São Carlos, but even more unrelated.)

[Tony C]

There was also of course, the now closed, TAM Museum (Museu Asas de um Sonho), which also housed warbirds, that was located in São Carlos, but even more unrelated.

What happened to the collection, was it sold or moved elsewhere?

[Lynn Allen]

John, thank you for clarifying that for me, even though its a painful loss, no warbirds were lost.

[k5083]

I've been reading about this. What an incredible loss to history. Every warbird in the world is trivial compared to what was lost this weekend in Rio. It happens periodically, of course, that a country's cultural treasures are sacrificed to war, or theocracy, or in this case corruption and poverty. That's why so little stuff that's several hundred, or a few thousand, years old survives, even when its value is recognized.

August

[marine air]

Well said , August.

[Invader26]

Hundreds of millions of dollars for sporting events and nothing for cultural issues. From what I've read and I meet yesterday with a senior Embraer official who grew up in Rio people for years have been demanding funding to repair the decaying building AND install fire safety systems including sprinklers but t no avail.

There is a big lesson here for all of us! One match [or faulty wiring] and your history and assets are gone for today's and future generations.

[bdk]

From what I've read and I meet yesterday with a senior Embraer official who grew up in Rio people for years have been demanding funding to repair the decaying building AND install fire safety systems including sprinklers but t no avail.

There is a big lesson here for all of us! One match [or faulty wiring] and your history and assets are gone for today's and future generations.

There is something to be said for private ownership of artifacts. When value is established the owners take great care in protecting their investment. With greater dispersal of artifacts, a single event is unlikely to be so devastating. On the flipside, access to the artifacts is likely more limited, though in a museum situation (artifacts on loan) insurance would be more likely to mandate up to date protection like security and sprinklers.

[k5083]

The really important artifacts like the remains of Luzia or the Egyptian sarcophagi need to be kept available for study, as scholars come back to them again and again with new ideas and technologies. It is not enough that they merely continue to exist.

Where information can be duplicated and preserved, it should be. I think natural history museums trade casts of their important dinosaur bones. One can only hope that the museum's audio recordings of otherwise extinct languages were copied somewhere, but it looks like they weren't; the last traces of several indigenous languages may have disappeared forever.

August

[p51]

There's a lesson for a lot of museums here, but I doubt it'll be heeded ("That can't possible happen here," they'll say).
In may, I went through the British museum in London. I noticed a lot of maintenance issues if you stopped and looked. Paint peeling off the tops of walls, displays that hadn’t been changed (or even touched maybe) in decades, security people at every room (which made me wonder if they have cameras). I wasn't too sure if portions even had fire suppression. I got to wondering how secure or safe that place was.
Sure, some of their stuff wouldn't be too damaged in a fire (the pottery and stone stuff, anyway), but there's a priceless amount of human history there, so much so that it staggered my imagination. Losing that place would be like the fires at the library of Alexandria.
Remember when the Taliban declared they'll destroy every monument on Earth of they can, because it offends their brand of religion? I think that really made a lot of curators in Egypt especially nervous...

[k5083]

I'm sure the clay pottery would be at risk in a big fire, maybe the stone objects too. About the only thing intact in the burned portions of the Rio museum, from what I understand, is a 5-ton meteorite that already survived entry through the atmosphere and so can shrug off a mere building inferno as no big deal.

We are not accustomed to thinking of the preservation of vintage aircraft over periods like 1,000 years. The likelihood is that few, if any, of them will survive. It's a difficult world to imagine. World War II may be remembered as a short but ferocious, but otherwise ordinary war, maybe earning an extra footnote for being the first use of nuclear weapons. The "United States of America," "Great Britain," and so on may challenge students to remember when and where they were, just as most of us are hazy on the extent of the Habsburg Empire in 1400 today. Students raised on Mars and Europa may wonder why they have to learn Earth history at all. The treasures of DC, London and Berlin may all have been nuked centuries ago. Any artifact from our time, however humble, may be as rare and treasured as dishware from ancient Rome is today, with the possible exception of those plastic Poland Spring water bottles that apparently will still be bobbing around in the oceans. Airplanes are large, fragile, and difficult to preserve. If any is left, it won't make much difference whether it is a P-51 or a Cessna 172. Nobody will much care whether the plane was built in 1945 but then extensively restored in 2005, any more than we worry today about whether a suit of armor made in 1000 A.D. was reworked in 1050. It will have great significance either way, as an example of 20th century (give or take a few years) aviation technology. The nationalistic and military significance we today attach to it will dwindle almost to nothing.

If you take the long view, preserving any one artifact is a crap shoot with very long odds. If you preserve enough information, at least the thing can be recreated someday. With enough drawings and data, anyone in 3000 A.D. could build a new P-51, just as, if Luzia's bones were properly 3D and CAT scanned, a good replica can be printed when they rebuild the museum.

August

[p51]

World War II may be remembered as a short but ferocious, but otherwise ordinary war, maybe earning an extra footnote for being the first use of nuclear weapons. The "United States of America," "Great Britain," and so on may challenge students to remember when and where they were, just as most of us are hazy on the extent of the Habsburg Empire in 1400 today.

I've been saying that for years. My Dad is convinced that in a century or two, WW2 might be known as the war to free the people from the concentration camps.
Once all the 9/11 memorials started springing up, I seriously questioned the longevity of that. Who's really going to remember (or care about) that in a few decades?
Look at how we've remembered our Civil War of the 1860s. Once the vets passed away, the perception changed almost overnight. Then, it did again through the 60s to today. Now you can't even have a statue of a CSA solider anywhere (even though there are plenty of German memorials in the formerly occupied nations, with plenty of people today who still remember that time).

[bdk]

Students raised on Mars and Europa may wonder why they have to learn Earth history at all. The treasures of DC, London and Berlin may all have been nuked centuries ago. Any artifact from our time, however humble, may be as rare and treasured as dishware from ancient Rome is today, with the possible exception of those plastic Poland Spring water bottles that apparently will still be bobbing around in the oceans. Airplanes are large, fragile, and difficult to preserve. If any is left, it won't make much difference whether it is a P-51 or a Cessna 172.

August, I always appreciate your upbeat and positive outlook on matters!

There are many technologies that are fleeting in the scheme of history. Phonograph records and dial phones for instance. Both things that I held in high importance during my life that my son will never need to use, and of course my parents never got air conditioning for their house until AFTER I moved away for college.

Many artifacts/technologies have a predictable life curve. Popular, then obsolete followed by mature people pining for remembrances of their youth. That last part probably keeps many things from being lost for good.

[seagull61785]

There are a lot of excellent comments and insightful views being expressed in this thread.

Well done WIXers.

Barry