Portal:Museums

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The Museums Portal

The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile

A museum (/mjuːˈziːəm/ mew-ZEE-əm) is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Compared to a library, a museum hosts a much wider range of objects and usually focus around a specific theme such as the arts, science, natural history, local history, and other topics. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often considered to be tourist attractions, and many museums attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world regularly attracting millions of visitors annually.

Since the establishment of the earliest known museum in ancient times, museums have been associated with academia and the preservation of rare items. Museums originated as private collections of interesting items, and not until much later did the emphasis on educating the public take root. (Full article...)

Selected museum

Location within Washington, D.C.

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States dedicated to human flight and space exploration.

Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, its main building opened on the National Mall near L'Enfant Plaza in 1976. In 2023, the museum welcomed 3.1 million visitors, making it eleventh in the List of most-visited museums in the world, and the fourth in the list of most-visited museums in the United States.

The museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all of its spacecraft and aircraft on display are original primary or backup craft (rather than facsimiles). Its collection includes the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the Friendship 7 capsule which was flown by John Glenn, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell X-1 which broke the sound barrier, the model of the starship Enterprise used in the science fiction television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and the Wright brothers' Wright Flyer airplane near the entrance.

The museum operates a 760,000-square-foot (71,000 m²) annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at Dulles International Airport. It includes the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, which houses the museum's restoration and archival activities. Other preservation and restoration efforts take place at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

Image 1The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, showing some of its collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities
Image 2The Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, has the world's largest stained-glass ceiling, designed by Leonard French.
Image 3Entrance hall of the Vienna Technical Museum, one of the largest technology museums in Europe
Image 4Panoramic view of the library of the Guimet Museum, Paris, an art museum specialising in Asian art
Image 5Iron bed in torture room at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh
Image 6The Industrial Gallery, housed in the original part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, designed by Yeoville Thomason and opened in 1885
Image 7Storage gallery of the Larco Museum, Lima, Peru, a museum of pre-Columbian art
Image 8Triangular prism-shaped display cases in the Red Dot Design Museum, Essen
Image 9An early 18th-century German Schrank with a traditional display of corals, from the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin
Image 10The Dinosaur Hall of the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin, showing the skeleton of Giraffatitan brancai, among the largest mounted skeletons in the world
Image 11The Galerie des Glaces of the Palace of Versailles
Image 12Display cases in Altena Castle
Image 13The South Hall of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, an aerospace museum, showing the Enola Gay bomber and other aeroplanes
Image 14Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
Image 15The queen's chamber of the Petit Trianon, Versailles, the former residence of Marie Antoinette
Image 16Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, an archaeology and anthropology museum
Image 17Exhibit in Indonesia Museum, Jakarta, displaying the traditional costumes of Indonesian ethnic groups
Image 18Antique cuckoo clocks displayed at Cuckooland Museum, Tabley, an example of a specialised museum
Image 19Floating Heads by Sophie Cave (2006), installed in the East Court of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Image 20A museum in Verkhniye Mandrogi, Leningrad Oblast, specialising in vodka
Image 21The Tower of Faces at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
Image 22Old Dutch display case in Branderszaal Lange Haven 97, Schiedam

Selected general article

Heritage science is the interdisciplinary domain of scientific study of cultural and natural heritage. Heritage science draws on diverse humanities, sciences and engineering disciplines. It focuses on enhancing the understanding, care and sustainable use of heritage so it can enrich people's lives, both today and in the future. Heritage science is an umbrella term encompassing all forms of scientific enquiry into human works and the combined works of nature and humans, of value to people.

The above definition was developed though a community consultation organised by ICCROM and the European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science in 2019. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that the Springfield Science Museum is home to the oldest operating projection planetarium in the United States?
... that during its run of screenings at the Whitney Museum, the 1979 film Asparagus was shown rear-projected onto a set that appears in the film itself?
... that Gracie Mansion became New York City's mayoral residence after serving as a public toilet and a museum?
... that the Deutsches Romantik-Museum in Frankfurt, the only museum dedicated to the entire era of German Romanticism, looks like three houses and features blue elements?
... that the Jersey Maritime Museum displays a 7.5-million-stitch tapestry depicting life under Nazi occupation that was worked on by thousands of islanders?
... that Boston's World's Museum was a theatre, an aquarium, a menagerie, and a freak show?

Get involved

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

Selected exterior image

Image 1The British Museum, London
Image 2The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 3The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 4Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps
Image 5The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 6São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, a 1968 concrete-and-glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, considered a landmark of the city and a major example of modern Brazilian architecture
Image 7Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 8Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 9The Lower Castle of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, one of the earliest buildings constructed specifically for use as a museum; it remains a museum displaying its original collections
Image 10The National Art Center, Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, is an "empty museum", lacking its own collection, which hosts temporary exhibitions from other organisations.
Image 11Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 12The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 13The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 14National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 15The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 16The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy
Image 17Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 18The Louvre, Paris, showing the glass-and-metal Pyramid, designed by I. M. Pei to act as the museum's main entrance, and completed in 1989
Image 19A maritime museum located in the village of Bolungarvík, Vestfirðir, Iceland, showing a 19th-century fishing base with a typical boat of the period and associated industrial buildings: an example of a very small museum
Image 20The Dalí Theatre and Museum, commemorating Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, Catalonia, has a geodesic dome and is decorated with giant eggs.
Image 21Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 22The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 23The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 24The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 25Small cloister of the charterhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian; part of the National Roman Museum of Rome
Image 26Aerial view of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel's Holocaust memorial; the museum, designed by Moshe Safdie, opened in 2005 and tells the personal stories of ninety Holocaust victims and survivors
Image 27Paifang or arched entrance of the Northern Branch of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, whose collection covers 8,000 years of the history of Chinese art
Image 28The Museum Island, Berlin

Selected type of museum

An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art, art museums are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, jewelry, performance arts, music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections. (Full article...)