So you're the owner of an eighteenth century house with a great historical story attached to it. What do you do to bring that story to life?
The traditional answer would be to fit out the building with period furniture, bring in some interpretation panels and turn it into a museum. The trustees of Benjamin Franklin's former home decided to do something different. "The house was completely empty when they acquired it" says administrator Rowena Tee "and so they decided to create a piece of theatre."
 |  | Renovating the house. It opened for the first time in January 2006, on the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth. Courtesy of Benjamin Franklin House. |
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A visit to the house beings with a short film about Franklin's time, and his stay in London. Then visitors are led through the empty rooms by an actress dressed as his landlady's daughter Polly Stevenson. She both tells the story of the house direct to the audience, and converses with the voices of unseen people who talk about Franklin's life in London. Projections on the walls of the room show objects and images from Franklin's life, especially covering the sixteen years he spent in London as the representative for Pennsylvania.
The result is to mingle the domestic and personal with his achievements as a public figure. Alongside his work as a scientist and statesman, we learn that he published an in house newspaper, chronicaling life at 36 Craven Street.
He was inventor of a 'glass armonica' - a musicial instrument that never really took off in England, but achieved popularity in Germany. He also had access to the highest levels of the British government - keeping diplomatic relations open between the country and colony. But relations deteriorated, and he was forced to flee England in early 1775. By the time he arrived in America, the War of Independence had already begun.
Detail of the grate. One of Franklin's many inventions was a fire that diffused heat evenly throughout the whole room. Courtesy of Benjamin Franklin House. | |  |
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There's an alternative, more interactive, version of the tour for primary school parties, and upstairs an opportunity for them to participate in experiments first created by Franklin himself, and play the glass armonica.
For someone visiting the museum without much prior knowledge of Franklin, the result may be an impression rather than a clear knowledge of the facts of Franklin's life. It's possible that the museum could develop their audiovisuals more ambitiously over time. But the innovative choice made by the owners of the house is a good one: it engages with the visitor and gives a more vivid sense of Franklin's personality than a conventional display could achieve.
In Franklin's day the first museums were beginning to lay out carefully labelled objects in row after row of glass cases. A man who lamented that he had been born too soon would appreciate having his life addressed in this innovative way by a novel kind of museum.
 | | Exterior of 36 Craven Street. Courtesy of Benjamin Franklin House. |
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Other museums in London that are not really museums
Denis Severs' House in Spitalfields. An inventive reconstruction of an eighteenth century family home - with food on the table, a fire in the grate - and a used pisspot in the bedroom. The impression is of walking into a private space with the owners just out of sight in the next room.
19 Princelet Street. Former synagogue and Huguenot Weavers house, the building is mostly empty, but still has great atmosphere. Closed for the rest of 2006, they are still taking enquiries for private tours
Dorich House in Kingston. The former home of Eastern European sculptor Dora Gordine, it is open once a month.
