Research and training for the palace museum of tomorrow
PALAMUSTO ETN, a network of leading European universities, heritage institutions and palace-museums, investigates the court residence or palace as a phenomenon of cultural exchange, not only in the past but also today and in the future. A new history of the palace is indeed needed in order to define its relevance for present-day Europe. 

The palace’s status as heritage, as prime touristic attraction and as part of the experience economy offers a continuous challenge to society in a global context, considering that the heritage industry is gradually replacing many traditional sectors of European economy. PALAMUSTO ETN offers multidisciplinary, trans-sectoral training to early career researchers who will become the first exponents of a new professional profile capable of meeting these challenges. Training through individual research on the palace, shored up by specific methodology modules, will run parallel with teaching the palace as heritage in all its complexity. PALAMUSTO researchers will learn to conserve, curate and manage the palace-museum on-site, interacting with professionals. They will learn to explain the palace’s societal relevance to all stakeholders and audiences engaged with this heritage.

Together the PALAMUSTO researchers will establish a new history of the palace, based on the insight they gain in the material culture and architecture of the courts which constitute the case-studies of their doctoral research. They will map the patterns of diffusion of specified movable objects with representational value in the world of European courts, paying special attention to location and display; some of these define the palace as functional machine. In parallel, they will map specific representational architectural spaces of the palace, their functioning, placing, and routing to/from. The overlay of patterns of diffusion, realized through digital means based on a GIS platform, is expected to generate a new understanding of the court residence.