Museums Archives ⋆ The Passenger

September 7, 2024September 28, 2024

Tate Britain

Staying at a capital city like London gives you the chance to have a look at the works of many international artists. But what about the local ones? If you want to see works of British artists the Tate Gallery of British Art (or short: Tate Britain) is your place to be. It contains the largest collection of British art since 1500. Sugar farmer Sir Henry Tate offered his 60 artworks to the British government as the foundation of a new museum at the end of the 19th century. Tate Britain opened in 1897 in a Neoclassicism-style building on the grounds of a former jail in Millbank.

July 4, 2024August 4, 2024

Royal BC

The Royal BC Museum is located at the inner harbour of Victoria. It was founded in 1886 and is one of the most important museums in Canada focusing on history, anthropology and natural history. Core of the museum and its archive are the collection of items belonging to the 198 tribes of the First Nations at British Columbia (BC). While these were sometimes bought and sometimes taken away in the past, the relationship of the First Nations and the museum of improved massively in the recent past and the items are reconnected to the tribes.

July 2, 2024August 4, 2024

Civic museum

Welcome to the oldest museum of Canada, dating back to 1894. The current building was designed in New Formalism style by architect Gerald Hamilton and I quite like this special architecture that looks like a crossover of an UFO and a circus tent. The museum itself focusses on the past, present and future of the city of Vancouver and the selection of topics is pretty broad: for example they connect the topic of empty publicly owned residential buildings at Taiwan with Vancouver, asking where the residents see vacancy in their city.

July 2, 2024August 3, 2024

First Nations

The city of Vancouver is located on the traditional land of the First Nations called xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh). Getting onto their unceded land is a very good reason to learn more about their traditions and the best place for that is the Museum of Anthropology quite a bit afar from downtown. It is part of the University of British Columbia (UBC) and located at their campus just a 20 minutes ride by car west along the coast.

July 1, 2024August 3, 2024

Science World

It is impossible to overlook Science World at the eastern end of False Creek: it is located in a large geodesic dome created for the world exhibition Expo 86. Since 2005 this dome contains a nice science museum with many experiments suitable for smaller kids and teenagers – but even adults can have a lot of fun there by experimenting with different natural phenomena.

June 1, 2024June 15, 2024

Le Parfum

Musée International de la Parfumerie, Grasse

When visiting Grasse you can stop at the historic perfume factories like Fragonard, Galimard and Molinard to learn about fragrance making, but you should definitely also have a look at the Musée International de la Parfumerie; a very unusual museum and a topic I had never explored before. As the small city of Grasse at the French Côte d’Azur is considered the world capital of perfume you can have a deep-dive here and fill your nose with lots of different scents.

June 1, 2024June 13, 2024

Musée Picasso

You can’t ignore the beauty of Antibes at the French Côte d’Azur, the charming old houses in the city center at the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Next to the cathédrale Notre-Dame de l’Immaculée Conception you’ll find the ancient fortress of the Grimaldi family from the 12th century. In 1608 it became owned by the French crown and since 1966 it houses the Musée Picasso, a nice art museum on Place Mariejol directly at the sea.

May 31, 2024June 15, 2024

Goats

Marc Chagall was a Russian-French painter born in Witebsk that today belongs to Belarus. He was travelling much and living at St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin; in Mexico and the USA. He is seen as an expressionist and you can easily recognize his works because of his special colorful style and the symbols he continuously uses; elements coming from his hometown, the circus world and the bible. One of these is the goat that you can discover in many of his works, sometimes just as a tiny additional element, sometimes in focus playing the violin.

May 31, 2024June 8, 2024

Musée Océanographique

What’s the most beautiful building at Monaco? The Cathédrale Notre-Dame-Immaculée, the Palais Princier or the Casino de Monte-Carlo? They’re all examples of beautiful architecture but I would rather nominate the Musée Océanographique, a historic museum building standing tall at the shore, high above the water in the city center of Monaco. It was created in 1889 by Albert I. of Monaco and inaugurated in 1910 in the presence of his German friend Wilhelm II.

May 11, 2024June 27, 2024

National Gallery

Throning above Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s Column you can find the National Gallery, a palace of art. Entrance is free of charge, on Friday evening the opening hours are especially long and you can loose yourself in the many rooms of this vast art museum. The exhibition contains more than 2,300 works from the 13th to the 19th century and was opened in 1824 which sounds early, but is rather later: while at Firenze, München and Paris large art collections were made available to the public the British royals kept their treasury for themselves for a longer time. These days the National Gallery of London could finally celebrate its 200th anniversary.