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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 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

Exterior of the Piquette Avenue Plant

The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is a former factory located within the Milwaukee Junction area of Detroit, Michigan, in the United States. Built in 1904, it was the second center of automobile production for the Ford Motor Company, after the Ford Mack Avenue Plant. At the Piquette Avenue Plant, the company created and first produced the Ford Model T, the car credited with initiating the mass use of automobiles in the United States. Prior to the Model T, several other car models were assembled at the factory. Early experiments using a moving assembly line to make cars were also conducted there. It was also the first factory where more than 100 cars were assembled in one day. While it was headquartered at the Piquette Avenue Plant, Ford Motor Company became the biggest U.S.-based automaker, and it would remain so until the mid-1920s. The factory was used by the company until 1910, when its car production activity was relocated to the new, bigger Highland Park Ford Plant.

Studebaker bought the factory in 1911, using it to assemble cars until 1933. The building was sold in 1936, going through a series of owners for the rest of the 20th century before becoming a museum in 2001. The Piquette Avenue Plant is the oldest purpose-built automotive factory building open to the public. The museum, which was visited by over 31,000 people in 2018, has exhibits that primarily focus on the beginning of the United States automotive industry. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, became a Michigan State Historic Site in 2003, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

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

Selected general article

Museum architecture has been of increasing importance over the centuries, especially more recently.

A challenge for museum architecture is the differing purposes of the building. The museum collection must be preserved, but it also needs to be made accessible to the public. Climate control may be very important for the objects in the collection. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that a major Asian collection was donated to the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History by Jewish benefactor Albert Bender while the museum was headed by Adolf Mahr, head of the Dublin Nazi chapter?
... that when the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum was burned during the recent Battle of Ivankiv, artworks by Hanna Veres and Maria Prymachenko were destroyed?
... that the Springfield Science Museum is home to the oldest operating projection planetarium in the United States?
... that King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated part of his royal collection to the new National Jewellery Museum?
... that museum director Alena Aladava rebuilt the Belarusian national art collection in the aftermath of the Second World War?
... 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?

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

Selected type of museum

A ceramics museum is a museum wholly or largely devoted to ceramics, usually ceramic art. Its collections may also include glass and enamel, but typically concentrate on pottery, including porcelain. Most national collections are in a more general museum covering all of the arts, or just the decorative arts. However, there are a number of specialized ceramics museums, with some focusing on the ceramics of just one country, region or manufacturer. Others have international collections, which may be centered on ceramics from Europe or East Asia or have a more global emphasis.

Outstanding major ceramics collections in general museums include The Palace Museum, Beijing, with 340,000 pieces, and the National Palace Museum in Taipei city, Taiwan (25,000 pieces); both are mostly derived from the Chinese Imperial collection, and are almost entirely of pieces from China. In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum (over 75,000 pieces, mostly after 1400 CE) and British Museum (mostly before 1400 CE) have very strong international collections. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC (12,000, all East Asian) have perhaps the best of the many fine collections in the large city museums of the United States. The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, has more than 45,000 glass objects. (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)