What's your Favorite Museum?

Mine's the Cairo Museum at the moment.

Nominate your Fave museum here!

I will have to say the Met - followed closely by the Smithsonian

It has to be The British Museum

Oh, my goodness, there are so many! I love the Art Institute of Chicago, of course.

But how about small museums? We've all mentioned some biggies, but I like to seek out those little jewels.

Here is Chicago, one of my favorites is the National Museum of Mexican Art. In New York, I always recommmend the Tenement Museum. In Venice, I found the Museo della Musica, inside the Chiesa San Maurizio.

I love the Israel Museum in Jerusalem - one of the exhibits is actually reconstructions of synagogues from all over the world (China, India, etc.) using the parts of buildings that have been destroyed or otherwise fallen into disuse! Plus, they have the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The British Museum is awesome, but ethically unsound. They stole most of their displays from colonised nations.

The Hermitage.

For a smaller museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. is a real gem.

The Archaeological Museum of Olympia goes on the top of my list for having the Hermes of Praxiteles.

I love The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago-My favorite City.

The Field Museum in Chicago (my favorite city, too) has to be at the top of my list.

#4 My fave small museum is the Mauritshuis in Den Haag. Not only did it have my #1 all time favorite painting, Girl with Pearl Earring by Vermeer (fantastic book by the way), but it also had a great selection of other Dutch works. Definitely a must see if you're ever in the Amsterdam region!

#6: You're right, but of course they argue if they hadn't taken what they did it would have been destroyed. Thankfully one doesn't have to pay to get in.

I, however, particularly loved the Victoria and Albert Museum (the shoes!). While on the subject of London, the Bramah Tea and Coffee Museum was worth a visit. Though it's not as expansive as I'd hoped it would be, every tea lover needs to see this if they are in London.

Philly Museum of Art, but that's just because a portrait of my sister once hung in there and they display the pottery of one of my ancestors.

> 15

I once went to Philadelphia specifically to visit the Museum of Art, to see an exhibit of works by Hon'ami Koetsu. It's a fine museum.

I have been to a number of them and don't know that I have a favorite, but the Smithsonian would be in the top ten.

We have a new art museum in Denver. The architect evidently decided to be artistic with the building itself, and some of the walls are not perpendicular to the floor.

Some people have difficulty handling this variation; as a result the building has had as much or more discussion than the collection.

Interesting how these things develop.

Doré

I am not too much into Art, but more into History. So my favourite museums of the last years were the British Naval History Museum in Greenwich, London (UK), and the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Halle (Germany).
The former has all sorts of information about ships and maritime transport in all its forms and usually one or two brilliant temporary exhibitions. The latter is a regional museum for Prehistory and Early History. Their 2005 exhibition of the Sky Disc of Nebra (it's being kept there) was something!

A great small museum I went to in London was the Sir John Soane Museum. It's an historic house, but Soane was a major collector, and had ecclectic collections, so it's really fascinating.

The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is magnificent - and has been recently enlarged in a dramatic, controversial style - http://www.rom.on.ca/

I appreciate that it's now possible to tour famous museums and art galleries in a limited way on the Internet. Excellent examples include The Fine Arts Museum Of San Francisco (with a searchable image base and zoom-to-enlarge capabilities), Museum Of Fine Arts Boston, Guggenheim New York, and the Sistine Chapel.

Gardner Museum in Boston

Obviously:
British Museum
MET

Technically a museum now:
Aya Sofya/Haghia Sophia/Sancta Sophia
Kariye Camii (St. Savior of in Chora)

I think my soon to be favorite museum will the the Nomadic Museum that travels to show Colbert's Ashes and Snow photography. I'm going to Mexico City to see it when it opens there in January. It just left Tokyo. See www.ashesandsnow.org for more details.

> 23

I saw that when it was in New York. You have a treat in store!

So many wonderful museums. Has anyone been to the Imperial War Museum? I would dearly love to see it, but not likley that I will. Oh, well.

My favorite is the Cloisters, which houses most of the Met's medieval art and architecture collection. It's way up in Fort Tryon Park on the northern end of Manhattan.

The collection is amazing, and the building itself incorporates medieval architecture and statuary. But what I love most about the museum is that it's a great place to read. As a graduate student I did a lot of my reading and writing there, just sitting on benches around the cloisters. It's a great place for true peace and quiet--one of the few spots in New York where you can forget about the city.

They also hold early music concerts in the chapel, where the acoustics are supurb.

I would vote for the Detroit Institute of Art. I visted this museum more often when I lived in Detroit, then any museum now that I live in the New York area. It is famous for the murals of Rivera, done in the 1930's by this Mexican artist.

Another favorite in my family is the Gardner Museum in Boston. It is designed like an Italian villa and very refreshing to visit.

A museum I really do dig in the New York area is the Frick Collection. I found it fun to figure out why a given painting was hung where it was, besides appreciating the art.

Louvre, British Museum, Met, Imperial War Museum, Hagia Sophia- i think it counts as a museum!
btw tell me what major museum didnt 'steal' a portion of its collection? get over it! most of it would have been destroyed by man in innumerable ways without it being collected and cared for.

*British Museum
*Gardner Museum (Boston)
*Quinta da Regaleira (Sintra, Portugal) - My photos, http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/photos/regaleira/
*Antakya Mosaic Museum
*Vatican Museum
*Istanbul Archaeological Museum

If they count:
*Ephesus
*National Zoo
*Hagia Sophia (Istanbul)
*Baltimore Aquarium
*Disney World

The Museu Picasso in Barcelona, and

The Hakone Open Air Sculpture Museum in Japan, which also has a fantastic collection of Picasso ceramics.

ephesus for sure. have been there maybe 4 times since 1996 and the last time was 2007, when they had opened the houses, amazing!

I second the Sir John Soane Museum, for what it shows and the history behind it. I can highly recommend it, and if there is a line to get in (and there probably is), it is worth the wait. While we waited one of the volunteers told us some of the history of the museum (how some objects were built into the building, and how the Canadian embassy was a few doors down during the war, so things were rough)...

I also love the British Museum, and the Cloisters (the whole Met actually).

It is hard to choose just a few, I love so many museums! Some because they are so good, some because they are so bad...

Oh, one other recommendation that probably none of you ever get to see... In Steyl, a small monastery-village in The Netherlands (near Venlo) there is the Missiemuseum. The museum was built in the 1930s by one of the priests who collected stuff on his missions (mostly Asiatic). The museum has a few displays of ethnographic objects (not that old, but original). However, what I like best are the animals. They have displays that are positively stuffed with animals, in all kinds of positions. The museum has not changed since it was first opened, so it is interesting not just for it's objects, but also in itself, as it is a perfect example of early twentieth century museum display styles. The website of the museum itself is a bit disappointing (as it is still an active monastery and mission organization), but if you search on Flickr you can see some pictures of the museum... Highly recommended!

I, too, love the Cloisters in upper Mahattan. Another favoriite of mine is the Museum of the American West (aka The Autry), located in Los Angeles' Griffith Park. In addition to the excellent exhibits, The Autry has a terrific research library, family events, scholarly lectures & discussions, music, movies, live theater, food ... love it all!