Archive of technology, entertainment and everyday life
The collections and institutional history of the National Museum of Decorative Arts allow decoration to be examined as a matter of production, education, consumption and design, rather than merely a repertoire of exceptional objects.
Open storyA cautious reading of the changes that several museum and popular-history sources associate with Spanish toys in the 1970s: the expansion of plastic, battery- and wind-up mechanisms, broader consumption, and the continuity of figures and construction toys.
Open storyA documented tour of several decisive changes in board games from 1970 to 2009: Spanish editions of historical games, the so-called European school, the expansion of the 1990s, and a selection of titles whose chronology appears in the available sources.
Open storyRecipe books, tins, labels and archival documents make it possible to approach food as both tangible and intangible heritage. Drawing on documented Spanish cases and approaches, this analysis considers how to read such objects without mistaking nostalgia for historical proof.
Open storyThe collective catalogue of Spain’s State Archives preserves a long sequence of Historia y Vida issues from 1970 to 2009. This piece offers a cautious reading of that continuity: not as automatic proof of what the magazine published, but as an entry point for researching how everyday life is documented.
Open storyMuseum presence on the Internet did not begin as an immersive experience. Starting with documented cases at the Library of Congress in 1992 and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in 1994, this article examines what changed when collections and documentation moved online—and why accessibility cannot replace context.
Open storyToys do more than evoke an individual childhood: they make it possible to study crafts, materials, educational models, consumption and everyday life. Drawing on documented collections and exhibitions in Spain and Colombia, this analysis examines what changes when an object of play is preserved and interpreted as heritage.
Open storyA cautious reading of 1970s fashion from the available evidence: disco, Lycra, platform shoes, experimentation and diversity, without turning broad trends into a single story.
Open storyA critical reading of contemporary retro as a strategy of design, consumption and differentiation: it is not simply about repeating old objects, but about selecting recognizable features from the past and combining them with present-day uses.
Open storyA reading of Spanish toys through their materials, advertising circulation, and the ways museums and exhibitions place them within social and design history.
Open storyA cautious reading of the transformation attributed to board games since the 1990s: a broader offer, the popularisation of eurogames, new audiences, and the emergence of the board game as a field of cultural and industrial study.
Open storyMuseum archives are not merely administrative back-up. Institutional records, photographs, and collections linked to communities make it possible to study how the memory of everyday life is constructed, preserved, and interpreted—provided their limits and production contexts are taken into account.
Open story
