Margus Jurkatam has been the Director of the Estonian Health Care Museum in Tallinn for 6 years. The museum re-opened its doors in May 2014 after a thorough three-year restoration. Work on the top floor of the museum is still ongoing, and will be completed in April 2015.
KOKO Architects, the renowned group of Estonian architects whose work includes the design of the Museum of Puppet Arts in Tallinn, was responsible for the entire renovation project in cooperation with the design team of the multimedia company MOTOR/Produktsioonigrupp OÜ.
The Estonian Health Care Museum was an initiative of medical staff from the University of Tartu. The first steps towards its creation were taken in 1921, and the museum was opened in 1924. Dr. Voldemar Sumberg, the museum's first director, laid the foundation for its subsequent many-sided activities by his enthusiasm and his skills in recruiting the best curatorial staff and obtaining support from medical experts. The Health Care Museum has been operating as a foundation, under the aegis of the Estonian Ministry of Culture and Tallinn University of Technology, since the start of 2014. This new organisational set-up will make it easier for the museum to obtain objective scientific information directly from researchers at the University and to introduce their achievements to the museum's visitors.
The Health Care Museum, which welcomes some 3,000 visitors every month, is housed in two historic buildings in Tallinn's Old Town. The first director of the museum, Voldemar Sumberg, had a clear vision of the museum's mission: "Health museums are not just depositories for antiquities and historical artefacts," he said. "They are educational institutions, with the task of teaching people about healthcare issues."
The reconstruction of the museum as a whole and the creation of a new permanent exhibition began in 2011. All technical systems were updated in a way that preserved the original features of the building - for example, by hiding the necessary wiring and other systems n the walls, above the ceilings and below the floors. The museum is housed in two medieval buildings, which were given a complete face-lift (while still preserving as much of their original character as possible) during the three years when the museum was closed for renovation. "We opted for a very modern design in the medieval rooms," Margus Jurkatam explains. "KOKO Architects, who had won the competition for renovation of the museum in 2010, designed a kind of labyrinth through which visitors can walk as if they are passing through the organs of the human body. We have a dual aim for the new bulding. On the one hand it is a museum, on the other it is an educational establishmentthat aims to make a real contribution to medical science - especially from our perspective as medical historians. One of the special events in the museum's annual programme is a scientific competition, which was first held three years ago. This is one of the activities we use to increase secondary school students' awareness of anatomy and physiology, and indirectly to raise the level of healthcare in Estonia." The scientific competition encourages pupils to carry out independent research into problems in the medical and related fields. The number of participants has grown from 18 in 2011 to 52, from 27 schools across Estonia, in 2014."
The Estonian Health Care Museum has a permanent exhibition, called "A heart to heart about your body", which shows children and adults - who often come from Russia, Finland, Sweden and Latvia as well as Estonia - how their body and their internal organs work. The new permanent exhibition aims to give visitors a vivid and memorable experience of health, the history of healthcare and breakthrough discoveries in this field. Visitors are given the opportunity to enter the human world at a microscopic level and to tewst their senses. The structure of the exhibition follows the human life cycle, covering all vital functions from birth to death and making detours at each stage. The musem is also an educational facility that uses illustrative displays to explain healthcare topics in a visual and engaging manner. Children enjoy the virtual hair-style machine, which allows them to E-mail a photo of themselves with a simulated extravagant hair-do. The special gallstone collection is another highlight.
The museum has a variety of exhibition rooms devoted to separate topics in the field of healthcare. For example, the rooms on the second floor of the two buildings house themed exhibitions on individual organ systems and other biomedical issues. For example, there is one room for Dentistry and others for Blood Circulation, the Nervous System, Anatomy, DNA and Cell Biology, Scientific Research and Nutrition. The museum also pays ample attention to modern methods of medical diagnosis. Many displays incorporate hands-on interactive electronic and mechanical systems. All the interactive items in the museum are provided with red signs in Braille so that blind visitors can also find their way through the museum; trained guides are also available, who can explain the various exhibits and offer further support to blind visitors.
"Our main focus is to show how our body works," says Margus Jurkatam. "One of the museum's strong points is the educational facilities provided. We want to teach the people about various aspects of the functioning of the human body, including nutrition and sexuality. And we have special facilities for blind people in a separate room. These serve two purposes: they give blind visitors hands-on contact with various exhibits, and they allow us to study how blind people perceive the world. We are also planning to hold 2-3 tours during a year for deaf people. In this way, we help a wide range of different visitors to become acquainted with the human body. We believe that this information about how the organs inside our body work will help to overcome fear about medical interventions if they are called for."
Interior architect Raili Paling of Koko Architects was one of the three specialists involved in the restoration work. She found it a very interesting experience. "Refurbishing the interior of the two buildings taught me a lot about the contents of the museum and hence about anatomy and how the human body works. We performed our work in accordance with the requirements the National Heritage Board of Estonia, because the buildings in Tallinn's Old Town are on the UNESCO Heritage List. The whole propject will be finished in April 2015. We still have to refurbish the top floor, which deals with topics such as alcohol and narcotics, and the effects they have on the human body. The will also be an exhibition on pregnancy and the history of medicine. Our main objective was to introduce colour into the museum. Most museum curators want a white background everywhere, but we persuaded them that colour can often be a real improvement. For example the Blood Room is painted red, to reflect the theme of the exhibits there. And the walls and ceiling of the Vision Room arte covered with mirrors, because the exhibits here are about how we see things and how optical illusions are created."
The Mirror Room is designed to challenge visitors' understanding of how the brain processes visual stimuli presented to it. The glass-fronted showcases in this room are in the shape of people, and have pictures of people mounted inside them. Visitors entering the room see both these showcases and their own images reflected in the walls, and have to decide which of the images they see are of real people.
Raili Paling of Koko Architects found the renovation of the Health Care Museum a real challenge, but not beyond the team's capabilities. "We have been involved in several previous projects in Tallinn Old Town, for example the design of the Museum of Puppet Arts that was opened in 2010. We are experienced in handling old buildings with the care and respect they deserve. One of the first steps in the museum renovation is to inventory all exhibits and ensure that each one has the appropriate place. You cannot just demolish everything. Once you know what exhibits will be on display, you need to design the interior to provide a suitable setting for them. In the case of a listed building like the Health Care Museum, you have to limit the changes you make to interior features. We have the skills needed to do this in a fitting manner. For example, we kept the basic structure of the staircases, but gave them new ceramic cladding to create a contemporary effect. The banisters are also new. The renovation of old interiors using modern materials must be done with great care to achieve an authentic look. You must avoid that it will look kitschy. We also redesigned most of the furniture in the museum, taking care to make it the right size to blend in with the interior."
Margus Jurkatam , manager of the museum, is showing what sizes and lifetimes different human cells have.
Margus Jurkatam is delighted with the refurbished Health Care Museum. Thanks to the dedicated work of KOKO Architects and in particular, perhaps, their inspiring use of colour, the interior has been given a completely new look and now comes across as much more lively and modern. "There are many medical museums around the world," says Margus, "but most concentrate on medical history or pathological anatomy. Very few focus on current medical practice and health care. Our museum is one of them. We do devote some space to medical history and anatomy, but our main aim is to help visitors to understand what is going on in the health care field today. As far as I know there is only one museum quite like ours, the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden. We are trying to shape our new permanent exhibition to present information in a variety of different ways such as hands-on exhibits, realistic models of body organs and highly sophisticated special graphics. We also pay attention to diseases such as HIV, explaining how it is caused, how it establishes itself in the human body and how you can build up resistance to it. This is a very good form of education for children."
Health Care Museum of Estonia: Ülle Kask, Kärt Mikli, Margus Jurkatam, Kai Merilain, Karina York, Helena Orle.
Interior architecture by KOKO architects: Liis Lindvere, Raili Paling and Kadri Kaldam. Consultant of exhibition solutions: Andrus Kõresaar.
MOTOR/Produktsioonigrupp OÜ. Project lead: Teele Laats. Designers: Marko Ausma, Maris Kaskmann, Joosep Maripuu.
Multimedia, animations, hands-on: Siim Vinter, Mark Baranin, Sander Põldsaar. Displays (exhibits): Villu Plink, Kristiina Laurits.