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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

Southeast entrance to HMNS.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science (abbreviated as HMNS) is a natural history museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston focusing on education and science. The museum complex consists of a central facility with four floors of natural science halls and exhibits, the Burke Baker Planetarium, the Cockrell Butterfly Center, and the Wortham Giant Screen Theatre (formerly known as the Wortham IMAX Theatre). In 2022, the museum received 1,520,000 visitors, making it seventh on the List of most-visited museums in the United States, and was the third most-visited U.S. science museum. Much of the museum's popularity is attributed to its large number of special or guest exhibits. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

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

Selected general article

A display case (also called a showcase, display cabinet, shadow box, or vitrine) is a cabinet with one or often more transparent tempered glass (or plastic, normally acrylic for strength) surfaces, used to display objects for viewing. A display case may appear in an exhibition, museum, retail store, restaurant, or house. Often, labels are included with the displayed objects, providing information such as descriptions or prices. In a museum, the displayed cultural artifacts are normally part of the museum's collection, or are part of a temporary exhibition. In retail or a restaurant, the items are normally being offered for sale. A trophy case is used to display sports trophies or other awards. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated part of his royal collection to the new National Jewellery Museum?
... that when the National Museum of Vanuatu opened its new building in 1995, a specially selected pig was sacrificed?
... that the 2024 inductees to the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame include a man with Down syndrome who has lifted 425 pounds (193 kg), an "average gymnast" turned Olympics judge, a "preeminent sportswriter", the state's "greatest high hurdler", the "inventor" of the modern sports mascot, a record-setting 10-year-old, a champion gymnast, an Olympic field hockey player, and a pro baseball player in five countries?
... 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?
... 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 James Norman Hall Museum is where the The Bounty Trilogy was written?

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

Selected type of museum

A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of subject matter and introduced many interactive exhibits. Modern science museums, increasingly referred to as 'science centres' or 'discovery centres', also feature technology.

While the mission statements of science centres and modern museums may vary, they are commonly places that make science accessible and encourage the excitement of discovery. (Full article...)