The first interactive science museum in Peru: the origin and creation of TECNO-ITINTEC, 1975-1979<\/a>, Alejandra Ruiz-Leon, Ph.D. Student in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, analyzes how the museum resulted from the negotiation between its founder\u2019s motivation to popularize science and inspire future generations of scientists and the military government\u2019s interest in industrialization.<\/p>\nThe paper, published in the 2024 volume of HCS-Manguinhos, shows how scientists used their agency to create a science museum separate from the original plans of the ITINTEC, the institution that hosted the museum. This history demonstrates Latin America’s early contribution to this innovative means of science popularization and interactive science museums. The paper is the first effort to reconstruct the ITINTEC museum’s history, which was later closed in 1993.<\/p>\n
The TECNO-ITINTEC museum was overseen by the Institute of Industrial Technology Research and Technical Standards, the ITINTEC in TECNO-ITINTEC. The Institute\u2019s stated mission was to promote industrial research and establish the technical norms that were to be used in Peru. To do so, the Institute received direct funding from a portion of all Peruvian companies\u2019 taxes. As the paper shows, the museum was not initially part of ITINTEC\u2019s mission or functions; instead, it was the personal interest of Jorge Heraud, the president of the Institute\u2019s board of directors, and Jose Castro Mend\u00edvil, who became the museum\u2019s first director.<\/p>\n
Heraud and Castro Mend\u00edvil created the artifacts that constituted the museum’s exhibition of hands-on experiments and organized other activities such as workshops. The paper also reports the connections the promoters made to position TECNO-ITINTEC with museums abroad, how they aligned the museum\u2019s objectives to fit the Institute\u2019s, and how the museum was covered at the time (Castro Mend\u00edvil 1977; Aprile 1979). Sources include archival research in the ITINTEC archive, interviews with actors involved in the museum, and newspapers.<\/p>\n
The paper is the first publication dedicated solely to the history of the TECNO-ITINTEC museum, which remains an unknown chapter of the history of science museums, the history of science in Peru, and the history of science more generally. Moreover, it confirms the opening date of March 23, 1979, which makes TECNO-ITINTEC one of the first interactive science museums in Latin America (Expresso<\/em> 1979). The paper provides a more profound understanding of the museum\u2019s early years, which is crucial for future research on the museum\u2019s closure in 1993, when the ITINTEC dissolved as part of the economic measures of Alberto Fujimori\u2019s first mandate, once again beholden to political whim.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
References<\/p>\n
Aprile, Jorge C. 1979. \u201cMuestra de Ciencia, Tecnolog\u00eda e Industria Exhiben Desde Ma\u00f1ana.\u201d El Comercio<\/em>, April 15, 1979, sec. Locales. Biblioteca Nacional del Per\u00fa.<\/p>\nCastro Mend\u00edvil, Jos\u00e9. 1977. \u201cInforme Museo de Ciencia y Tecnolog\u00eda.\u201d Lima, Peru: ITINTEC. INDECOPI.<\/p>\n
Expresso<\/em>. 1979. \u201cMuseo Tecnol\u00f3gico Inaugura ITINTEC,\u201d March 19, 1979. Biblioteca Nacional del Per\u00fa.<\/p>\nPhoto: TECNO-ITINTEC museum that opened in Salaverry Avenue in Lima. Photo taken in private communication with Jorge Heraud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TECNO-ITINTEC, Peru’s first interactive science museum, was not part of government policy. It was instead the idea of Peruvian scientists Heraud and Castro Mend\u00edvil, who framed the museum to appeal to the military government\u2019s ideals of modernization and nationalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16013,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16007\/revisions\/16013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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