The concept of time is valuable not because of how long you live, but because of what you elect to do with the time you have in your life. Everything that happens allows you to explore yourself. The people you meet and the places you see are a pretext to discover yourself. What occurs, the events in your life, can be viewed as fluid confessions of your own thoughts in an attempt at reinvention. If out of these elements a story is born, then it means that your time has begun losing its patience. It is a sign that, for the first time, you have to cross its threshold. Glimpse through Chronos’ mantle of celestial bodies at your own story, unraveling, flowing, and carrying with it the joy that comes with a new beginning. There were people who wished for such journeys, and used mirrors to undertake them. This is because a mirror’s surface has the power to reveal the time that is left, capturing an entity which can hide and lose itself in expectations and desires. This very Palace was built around a mirror, a window through which the people of the past can look at us, follow what we have become and where we are heading.
This story-driven journey is about time. Not necessarily about what it contains, but about how it unexpectedly slips through the grasp of events occurring over the span of 500 years. Your time is also here. It is what we begin our travel with. This palace was once gifted with a clock meant to show the passing of time in reverse. Like a perpetual return to the past, but a present always visible when reflected by a mirror. A clock of the past, showing a present that can only be viewed when mirrored.
Starting with this unique piece of the museum, the reverse running clock made by Collin House of Paris, the permanent exhibition is a journey started in the present and heading for the past. It allows us to remember our parents, our grand-parents, the children we once were, and, especially, what we thought had escaped our grasp, as we advance further and further into the past.
This pilgrimage through the past is segmented, allowing each space to represent a historical period of reference on the city’s evolution and the events which occurred on its territory. It is possible to retreat into the past, while also keeping the option to return to the present open.
This timeline is represented through a graphic panel, marking its inverted chronology, through dates, important moments, characters, patrimony objects, buildings and key words, depending on the period crossed in this journey for the past.
The panel’s graphics visually communicate the historical aspects related to the evolution of the city of Bucharest, and the exhibited objects, as well as contribute to the ambiance of this time travel.
Interactive and media elements are featured, meant to point out the frailty of the time we live in as well as actively involve the visitor in the discovery of stories from a different time.
Dr. Adrian Majuru