The museum is a kind of time machine. The oldest paintings, sculptures, installations presented in each of them connect us with bygone eras. This great cultural heritage cannot be overestimated, because it contains the memory, the history of our ancestors, our planet. Everyone wants to touch something truly “big” and beautiful, so it is not surprising that so many people around the world visit museums. We present to you top 10 most popular museums in the world.
10. Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums is a huge museum complex located on the territory of a miniatureVatican states... It was founded by Julius II in the early 16th century. Its main pride is a rich collection of paintings and artifacts collected by the Roman Catholic Church over many centuries, as well as works of art from the Renaissance.
9. Imperial Palace Museum, Taipei
The Imperial Palace Museum is located in Taipei, the capital of the Republic of China. Perhaps this is the richest "treasury", which contains the most amazing works of art and artifacts belonging to more than 8 thousand years of Chinese civilization.
At the moment, the Imperial Museum houses more than 93 thousand paintings, jewels and monuments of Chinese calligraphy. His visiting card is jade cabbage, which was part of the dowry of one of the concubines of the Qing dynasty.
8. London National Gallery
One of the largest galleries in the world. The museum is famous for its impressive collection of paintings by Western European artists from the twelfth to the twentieth century. It would seem that two thousand paintings are incomprehensible to the mind! However, the London Gallery is so meticulously ordered that moving from room to room is like traveling in time - each painting is arranged in chronological order.
7. Shanghai Science and Technology Museum
The building of the Shanghai Museum itself is already a landmark. A huge glass ball resembles an alien spaceship and immediately evokes associations with everyone films about alien invasion... Interactive exhibitions form the basis of the concept of this museum.
The target audience of all educational complexes is children, but adults do not get bored there either.
6. British Museum, London
The British Museum is the largest and most popular in the whole of Great Britain. It was founded back in 1753. The total collection of the museum has more than eight million works, making it the most "comprehensive" in the world. The task of its existence is to reflect the entire history of Human culture from the very moment of its inception to the present day.
5. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the main attractions in New York and is also considered one of the largest museums in the world. Its peculiarity is that the museum is financed not by the state, but by sponsors and donors.
The Metropolitan Museum also has a specific entrance system: you can enter the territory for absolutely any amount of money, even for one cent, or it can be completely free by simply asking for a ticket at the ticket office.
New York also has one of most beautiful subways in the world.
4. National Museum of Natural History, Washington
The Natural History Museum of Washington is a huge complex of themed museums. Even at the entrance to the museum, a person is immersed in an atmosphere of enigma and mystery. Subdued lighting plays an important role in this. Despite the fact that the building has several floors, this is often not enough: some of the exhibits are displayed in tiny halls or in corridors.
Most of the exhibits on display are stuffed animals or skeletons of animals that have become extinct or still exist. However, the highlight of the museum is the legendary Hope Diamond - an incredibly deep blue gemstone measuring almost 50 carats.
3. Louvre, Paris
The Louvre is arguably the most popular attraction in Paris after the Eiffel Tower. First of all, it is known as a museum, and only then - as an architectural monument that once served as the home of the French kings. The museum is divided into 8 sections, the most popular of which is "Denon", which contains paintings by Italian artists, including "Mona Lisa".
2. Museum of Aviation and Space, Washington
The Smithsonian Museum is the largest aerospace museum in the world. It is divided into two buildings: one is located in the center of Washington, the second is near the International Airport. The slope of these two parts is different: the central museum has a rocket and aviation theme, and the airport museum has an aviation theme. In total, the museum has more than fifty thousand exhibits, including rockets, airplanes and other equipment. Its first exhibits were Chinese kites.
1. National Museum of China
The National Museum of China is only 12 years old, but, nevertheless, in such a short time, it has collected more than a million artifacts and works of art. It is visited by 7.5 million people annually, which makes it the leader of our rating.
Its specificity lies in the fact that it is not popular with foreign tourists, but is the main goal of excursion groups from China itself. The building of the museum itself is a tourist attraction, as it is one of the "Ten Great Buildings" erected in honor of the 10th anniversary of the proclamation of the PRC.
The contribution of each museum to the cultural life of our civilization, be it a world-famous museum like the Louvre, or a small regional museum, is priceless. Each of them has great value, great potential and is an important social, tourism and infrastructural institution. But the most important thing is that the museum is a memory. A memory that must certainly be passed on to future generations.