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 Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.

The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature—both exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast that dominated the vaulted central hall before it was replaced in 2017 with the skeleton of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling. The Natural History Museum Library contains an extensive collection of books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork linked to the work and research of the scientific departments; access to the library is by appointment only. The museum is recognised as the pre-eminent centre of natural history and research of related fields in the world.

Although commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum, it was officially known as British Museum (Natural History) until 1992, despite legal separation from the British Museum itself in 1963. Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881 and later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.

Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not charge an admission fee. The museum is an exempt charity and a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Princess of Wales is a patron of the museum. There are approximately 850 staff at the museum. The two largest strategic groups are the Public Engagement Group and Science Group. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

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

Selected general article

Collections management involves the development, storage, and preservation of cultural property, as well as objects of contemporary culture (including contemporary art, literature, technology, and documents) in museums, libraries, archives and private collections. The primary goal of collections management is to meet the needs of the individual collector or collecting institution's mission statement , while also ensuring the long-term safety and sustainability of the cultural objects within the collector's care. Collections management, which consists primarily of the administrative responsibilities associated with collection development, is closely related to collections care, which is the physical preservation of cultural heritage. The professionals most influenced by collections management include collection managers, registrars, and archivists. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that the Huanaki Cultural Centre & Museum was destroyed by a cyclone?
... that the names of Harvey Meyerhoff, Elie Wiesel, and Bill Clinton are carved into the cornerstone of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, according to Meyerhoff's daughter?
... that the FBI set up temporary offices in a museum on an aircraft carrier while investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks?
... that Ukrainian artist Kateryna Antonovych worked at Prague's Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Independence before the US Army Air Forces bombed it?
... that the Springfield Science Museum is home to the oldest operating projection planetarium in the United States?
... that the Richard Childress Racing Museum is located in the former team workshop in which Richard Childress Racing won six NASCAR Cup Series championships and 58 races?

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 1Aerial 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 2A 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 3Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 4The Museum Island, Berlin
Image 5Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 6National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 7The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 8Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 9The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 10The 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 11The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 12The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 13Small 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 14The 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 15The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 16The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy
Image 17The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 18Paifang 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 19The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 20Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 21Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 22São 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 23The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 24The British Museum, London
Image 25The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 26The 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 27Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps
Image 28The National Art Center, Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, is an "empty museum", lacking its own collection, which hosts temporary exhibitions from other organisations.

Selected type of museum

A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the military use of the sea.

The great prize of a maritime museum is a historic ship (or a replica) made accessible as a museum ship, but as these are large and require a considerable budget to maintain, many museums preserve smaller or more fragile ships or partial ships within the museum buildings. Most museums exhibit interesting pieces of ships (such as a figurehead or cannon), ship models, and miscellaneous small items associated with ships and shipping, like cutlery, uniforms, and so forth. (Full article...)

In the news

12 May 2024 –: Forty-nine Vatican Museums employees start an unprecedented labor dispute over unfair and poor working conditions against the Vatican's Pontifical Commission. (Reuters)
6 May 2024 –: The 2024 Met Gala takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with the theme "The Garden of Time", celebrating the Met's exhibit Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. (Vanity Fair)