The origins of the National Museum of Science and Technology (MUNCYT) and the construction of scientific-technological heritage in Spain during the transition

Abstract

The Spanish National Museum of Science and Technology (Museo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, MUNCYT) was founded in 1980. The MUNCYT was established in the so-called transition from Franco’s dictatorship to democracy, in which science and technology were seen as crucial elements for the modernization of Spain. The study of how the MUNCYT was created allows exploration of some of the continuities and discontinuities between Franco’s regime and the democratic system established after the death of the dictator in 1975. Strangely, the MUNCYT was created with no collections, and it was only in 1982 that the first instruments arrived in the museum. As this paper shows, the acquisition of these instruments embedded a specific political rhetoric that can   be analyzed in the light of political uses of the history of science and the role played by science and technology museums in such practices.