Museums
Bob Edwards was a man who has played so many parts in creating and re-creating museums....
"He was responsible for the new concept of the Museum of Victoria; he played a central role in redeveloping the Museum of South Australia, the Museum of Western Australia, the Hong Kong Museum of History. He was the founding chairman of the National Museum of Australia and the founding chairman of the National Portrait Gallery.
I don't think there can be in any other country a man who has played so many parts in creating and re-creating museums....done by building those alliances and the friendships, persuading and encouraging people to work together."
From: Neil MacGregor, A tribute to Bob Edwards. National Museum of Australia, March 2011
His influential Edwards Report for the South Australian Museum (commissioned in 1979, final report 1981) provided a detailed blueprint for the modernization and articulation of South Australia's cultural precinct, leading directly to the establishment of a new Science Centre and the State Centre for the Restoration of Cultural Property (Art Lab).
The report is considered an “extraordinarily futuristic document even now” and “still remarkably current.”
It saw the History Trust established which in 1986 opened the South Australian Maritime Museum and the Migration and Settlement Museum (a world first predating the Immigration Museum in Melbourne and Ellis Island Museum in the United States). The Trust took over the management of the Constitutional Museum and Birdwood Mill Motor Museum and took responsibility for the accreditation or evaluation of museums.
1982-1996 Advisor, Hong Kong Museum of History. Robert Edwards affirmed the roles of the history museum to preserve Hong Kong's "disappearing" past and foster a Hong Kong identity...
His foundational directorship of Museum Victoria (1984–90) transformed the institution. Edwards announced this transformation: “The dry and dusty institutions of the past to which reluctant school children were dutifully marched have given away to dynamic centres of learning and experience which offer fresh insight into the nature of human society, the delicate balance of ecology, the lives and habitats of insects, birds, mammals and fishes, the wonders of scientific and technological achievement, etc.”
By holding major exhibitions, he raised visitor numbers from 300,000 to one million, securing government commitment for a new building.
Edwards was a pioneer of major cultural institutions, notably serving as Founding Chairman of the National Museum of Australia (1990-1996) and the National Portrait Gallery (1997-2000), setting the direction and Collection Development policy for the latter. He was also the Chair of the Council of Australian Museum Directors (1985-1987) and the National Cultural Heritage Committee (1988-1991).
