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

The California Science Center (sometimes spelled California ScienCenter) is a state agency and museum located in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, next to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the University of Southern California. Billed as the West Coast's largest hands-on science center, the California Science Center is a public-private partnership between the State of California and the California Science Center Foundation. The California Natural Resources Agency oversees the California Science Center and the California African American Museum. Founded in 1951 as the "California Museum of Science and Industry", the Museum was remodeled and renamed in 1998 as the "California Science Center". The California Science Center hosts the California State Science Fair annually.

Admission is free for their permanent exhibition galleries, such as the Space Shuttle Endeavour and other prominent aircraft and spacecraft, and to various demonstrations. There are price charges for special exhibitions, educated films shown in their IMAX theater, and special activities that include a climbing wall, a motion simulator, and a high-wire bicycle. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

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

Selected general article

A curator (from Latin: cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular institution and its mission. The term "curator" may designate the head of any given division, not limited to museums. Curator roles include "community curators", "literary curators", "digital curators", and "biocurators". (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that the world's only museum devoted to American actor Phil Silvers is located in Coventry, England?
... that Daniel Sickles's leg is a popular museum display?
... that Ukrainian museum director Horpyna Vatchenko forced the Hermitage Museum to abide by its agreement and return the Kernosovskiy idol after a loan?
... that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh from his residence in Dhaka before his arrest by the Pakistan Army?
... that despite plans to restore the Sam H. Harris Theatre in the 1990s, it became an entrance to a wax museum?
... that the only known copies of the oyster dress designed by Alexander McQueen for his collection Irere are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Kim Kardashian?

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 1Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 2Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 3The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 4Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 5Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps
Image 6Small 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 7The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy
Image 8The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 9Aerial 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 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 11The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 12The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 13The Museum Island, Berlin
Image 14A 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 15The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 16The 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 17National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 18The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 19Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 20The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 21Paifang 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 22The 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 23The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 24Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 25The British Museum, London
Image 26The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 27The 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 28São 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