I ADORE museums!
Grew up in Chicago with the amazing Museum of Science & Industry - crawled through a German submarine; looked up at a NIKE missile; fell in love forever with Colleen Moore's incomparable Cinderella's Fairy Tale Castle (I have both out-of-print photo books as well as Ms. Moore's wonderful autobiography which talks about Hollywood's Silent Screen era as well as what amazing engineering - and valuable jewels! - went into her dollhouse).
My mother once walked us completely through the Field Museum of Natural History - all four floors of it, from the minute they opened until the final close. Even at that I'm sure we missed a few corners. I loved their old-fashioned dioramas.
A very wealthy man bought AND MOVED a small castle from Scotland to Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. He had an eclectic collection of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern antiques, displayed on the ground floor and Great Hall. You could visit for free on certain days - I spent many hours there after school. He had a mummy case that opened once an hour (with a mummy inside); quite a scary sight for a 6 yr old! In the Great Hall, there were three life-sized statues of galloping horses and knights, wearing armor and holding lances - a truly stunning sight. Very sadly, when he died, his family sold off the collection in pieces and closed the castle to make it a private residence.
The San Francisco Bay Area doesn't have notable "big" museums, although there are many remarkable smaller ones. The Berkeley Art Museum has some wonderful shows, and I will always remember their display of the "Executive Order 9066" exhibit, which created a sensation in the Japanese-American community. For many families it was the first time parents and grandparents discussed with the Sansei generation (of which I'm one) how they felt about the relocation camps.
A unique SF experience is the SF Exploratorium, a museum of science, technology, and arts combined into what could be called a "scientific funhouse". It's full of interactive exhibits for adults and kids of all ages. Located downtown on SF Bay, it's central to public transit and should not be missed.
The de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor in SF are officially associated with one another (for years they were competitors). The outstanding Louis Comfort Tiffany show back in the 1970's was beautifully mounted. It was amazing to get a really close-up front-and-back look at his massive "Magnolia Window" panels.
De Young generally gets the "big" shows, traveling exhibits like King Tut etc. The Legion has a lesser quality European painting, but can boast the prestigious Achenbach Foundation of drawings and photographs, including rare Rembrandt drawings.
The Asian Arts Museum is based on the gift of Avery Brundage (former head of the Olympics), who gave his complete collection to the de Young. Added to what they already had, it was finally broken off into its own separate museum, taking over the building that formerly housed the SF Public Library. There are paintings, sculpture, furniture, textiles, and arms/armor. Most importantly, Brundage owned one of the finest private jade carving collections extant.
I'm not a fan of modern art but I did love the original Mario Botta architecture of the SFMOMA. It had the kind of design proportions and angle views one sees in classic Japanese design.
Los Angeles has the "big" $$$$$ museums. The Getty Museum, for example; its endowment is so big, they charge for parking, not admission. It's an authentic reproduction of a classic Roman villa. There are now two campuses, as they went on a massive buying spree in the '80's and '90's. They are renowned for their photography collection, considered one of the finest in the world.
LA's Natural History Museum shouldn't be missed. It's well designed and not so large, so it can be easily managed as a day trip. The unique La Brea Tar Pits Museum is another, altho I confess the smell of tar gives me a headache! Art museums include the Norton Simon, the Broad, and the Contemporary Art Museum, as well as the Hammer, the Autry American West, California African-American, and the gracious Huntington Library with its magnificent grounds.
For car lovers Los Angeles has the Petersen Automotive Museum, one of the stranger pieces of architecture you'll ever see. Its collection is small, however; only 300 cars although many are one-of-a-kind.
The BEST auto museum ever was the original Harrah's Auto Museum in Reno, NV. Bill Harrah, of Harrah Casinos, owned over 1400 cars that spanned the very beginning of car making, all the way up to the latest 1970's models. They were housed in five warehouses and every single one of them was in running condition - even the very oldest, an 1880-something carriage with a tiny engine mounted on the front deck. There is still a small collection left, but the rare Bughatti Royale Type R, the massive Duesenbergs, as well as the stunning 1929 Isotta Fraschini coupe with mohair upholstery I fell in love with - all were auctioned off by Holiday Inn Corp. after Harrah died. Sigh. I visited five times and am only sorry I didn't make it back for a sixth visit before the collection was broken up.
Our visit to Boston was short so we only had time for the Boston Fine Arts Museum - lovely! - and the Isabella Gardner Museum - loved the building architecture, loathed the collections.
Alas, the wonderful Higgins Armory Museum was sold to the Worcester Art Museum in 2013. We saw it in the original Higgins Armory building, which was much superior for display purposes (Worcester, Massachusetts).
CT has a wonderful museum we can heartily recommend:
- Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, located inside the casino. My spouse and I are NOT interested much in American Indian history or arts, but we were fascinated by the exhibits here. They are interactive, life-sized, and extremely well-done, with interesting videos. We gave ourselves 90 minutes at the end of the day, but afterwards truly regretted we hadn't planned on at least a full two hours, maybe even a little more.
Although not strictly a museum, we can also recommend visiting the unique Lan Su Chinese Gardens in Portland, OR. Artisans from Mainland China came over with their hand tools and created the buildings, the exquisite walkways, pools, gardens and stone sculpture area. Much is made of Portland's Japanese Garden, which is lovely but frankly, those exist in quite a few cities. But the classic Chinese garden is rarely found in the Western Hemisphere. It is a stunning place!
