Portal:Museums

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The Museums Portal

The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile

A museum 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. Museums host a much wider range of objects than a library, and usually focus on a specific theme, such as the arts, science, natural history or local history. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world 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

Entrance to the Croatian Natural History Museum

The Croatian Natural History Museum (Croatian: Hrvatski prirodoslovni muzej) is the oldest and biggest natural history museum and the main body for natural history research, preservation and collection in Croatia. Located on Dimitrije Demeter Street in Gornji Grad, one of the oldest neighbourhoods of the Croatian capital Zagreb, it owns one of the biggest museum collections in Croatia, with over 2 million artefacts, including over 1.1 million animal specimens. It was founded in 1846 as the "National Museum". The National Museum was later split up into five museums, three of which were in 1986 merged as departments of the newly named Croatian Natural History Museum. The museum contains a large scientific library open to the public, and publishes the first Croatian natural history scientific journal, Natura Croatica.

The permanent display of the Croatian Natural History Museum consists of mineralogical, petrographical and zoological collections, as well as two permanent exhibits in the atrium: the Rock Map of Croatia and the Geological Pole. It is home to the remains of the Neanderthal from Krapina. As of 2021, the museum is closed pending the completion of reconstruction following the 2020 Zagreb earthquake. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

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

Selected general article

A conservator-restorer is a professional responsible for the preservation of artistic and cultural artifacts, also known as cultural heritage. Conservators possess the expertise to preserve cultural heritage in a way that retains the integrity of the object, building or site, including its historical significance, context and aesthetic or visual aspects. This kind of preservation is done by analyzing and assessing the condition of cultural property, understanding processes and evidence of deterioration, planning collections care or site management strategies that prevent damage, carrying out conservation treatments, and conducting research. A conservator's job is to ensure that the objects in a museum's collection are kept in the best possible condition, as well as to serve the museum's mission to bring art before the public. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... 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?
... that the British Museum's 2012 exhibition Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam included textiles from the Kaaba that were described as bringing "a visceral artistic buzz to the display"?
... that the Republican Palace Museum in Khartoum was originally a cathedral?
... that the Al Qarara Cultural Museum, housed in a former grain silo, contained 6000 years of history?
... that the site of the headquarters of the German colonization of Texas was converted into a museum?
... that the prison scenes in the film Plurality were shot in an archaeology museum?

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

Selected type of museum

The Russian *Aurora*, one of the few protected cruisers to be preserved, is one of the world's most visited vessels

A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small number of museum ships that are still operational and thus capable of regular movement.

Several hundred museum ships are kept around the world, with around 175 of them organised in the Historic Naval Ships Association though many are not naval museum ships, from general merchant ships to tugs and lightships. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum. (Full article...)

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