What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

When I was younger, I didn't like museums all that much. Then I grew up a bit, paid a bit more attention and actually started going to some really good ones!!

I really don't agree with having to pay to enter national museums though. Having been in Stockholm and Vienna this year, I was so interested in so many museums in both cities and it's great to have such a wide variety of museums but the cost of admission adds up! I bought the Stockholm card, so it wasn't a problem there (though it was expensive, 70 euros for 3 days, I think! I ran myself ragged getting my value for money :lol:)

It seems to me that it's often English speaking countries that have free museums - Britain, The USA and Ireland come to mind (though I prefer the system of dropping your donation into a large urn in the British museum over giving your donation to a cashier in the MET and having to start at the "recommended" donations sign as you do so) Korea and Japan also have free museums which is great and the Prado in Madrid was free for me as an EU citizen.

My favourites are:
1. The Louvre, Paris
2. The MET, NYC
3. The British Museum, London
4. The Pergamon Museum, Berlin
5. The Dokumentationszentrum, Nuremberg
6. The Istanbul Archaeological Museum
7. The Natural History Museum, Dublin
8. The Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow
9. The National Museum of Korea, Seoul
10. Tokyo National Museum
11. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
12. The Vasa Museum, Stockholm
13. The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
14. The Vatican Museums
15. The Uffizi, Florence
16. The Prado, Madrid
17. The Museum of Natural History, NYC
18. Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
19. The Museum of Civilizations, Singapore
20. Shanghai Museum

Honourable mentions to:
The museums in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.
The National Museum of Archaeology, Dublin (my friend works there!)
The Bode Museum, Berlin
The National Museum of Korea, Gyeongju
The Musée D'Orsay, Paris
The Mary Baker Eddy Museum of Christian Science, Boston (it has a maparium!)
The National Museum of Vietnam, Hanoi
The Ephesus Museum, Selcuk
The Museum of Edinburgh
Liberty Bell Centre, Philadelphia
Stockholm National Museum
Gustav III Museum of Antiquities, Stockholm

Dishonourable mentions to:
The National Palace Museum, Taipei
The National Folk Museum, Seoul
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
The National Museum of Archaeology, Athens (too much was closed off!)
Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence (why do you have to pay 15 euros to see David and very little else!?)
The Museum of Science and Technology, Milan

Museums I'm kicking myself for not visiting when I had the chance:
The Doge's Palace Museum, Venice
The Smithsonian, Washington D.C.
The Guggenheim, NYC
The Ephesos Museum, Vienna
The Kunstorisches Museum, Vienna
The Beaux-Artes Museum/gallery, Brussels
Never even bothered to really look into museums in Beijing and HK for some reason!
Madam Tussauds, London
The Capitoline Museum, Rome
The Doria Pamphili Museum, Rome

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

The Pergamon Museum

Pergamon Altar by keithmaguire, on Flickr


Antinous by keithmaguire, on Flickr


High Art by keithmaguire, on Flickr


Hermes by keithmaguire, on Flickr


The Pergamon Museum by keithmaguire, on Flickr


Ishtar Gate by keithmaguire, on Flickr

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

The Pergamon is absolutely stunning, and after 7 visits to Berlin, it's still the only museum I've been to there. I went to the C/O gallery when they had the Helmut Newton exhibit. It was nice.

My favorite is still the MET here in NYC. I love that I can go for $1 and just spend my day walking around.

Kelvingrove in Glasgow is pretty stellar. The national gallery in Dublin, while super tiny, is a great place to check out if you want to take 45 minutes off the day and just see some great art. I was there like three weeks ago. It's nice.

LOVE the Leopold in Vienna. Egon Schiele is one of my most favorite, favorite artists of all time so I always make a point to go there. (I've only been twice; the first time, I almost cried.)

Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna is also magnificent. And it's about to get drop-dead gorgeous in the spring when they open up a new wing dedicated to Hapsburg treasures!!

The Vatican Museum is great; the Van Gogh museum is awesome; I love all three of the big museums in Madrid (though I don't like the city): Thyssens, Prado, Reina Sofia. I also really like Serralves in Porto. The National Gallery in both Oslo and Zurich are great, too. I love going there for the works of Munch and Chagall, respectively.

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

Love this topic. I was thinking about creating it but haven't had a chance.

-Louvre
-Uffizi
-British Museum
-Hermitage - Cats!
-Tretyakov Gallery - best of Russian art
-Galleria Borghese
-Vatican Museums
-Capitoline Museum in Rome - they had the Lux in Arcana exhibition when I went, it was amazing
-Art Gallery of NSW - only because I've had art classes there. Not bad.

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

If you're interested in music history especially operas and ballets, La Scala in Milan has a very good museum also.

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

No Forbidden City?:awww:

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

Out of curiosity, why don't you like the National Palace in Taipei?

I love the Met and MoMA. :hearts: Guggenheim, not so much.
I also like the Getty because it makes for a wonderful day trip. I find the Denver Art Museum pretty underrated.

ETA: Smithsonian holds a special place in my heart for being the first museum I fell in love with.

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

The Louvre was absolutely amazing, I've also been to El Prado in Madrid which was nice too, but apart from that, nothing really :shrug:

I so wanna visit the MET and the Pergamon :sobbing: Oh and the Smithsonian too

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

Smithsonian - Washington DC: National Museum of Natural History, National Gallery of Art, National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of American History

Salvadore Dali Museum - St. Petersburg, Florida

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

You can't get a better deal in the world than the British Museum...exceptional pieces of world history from all around the world for free (sacking the Greeks and Egyptians, though :facepalm:)

Apart from the BM my three favourite museums are:

*Louisiana Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhaghen, in the middle of the forest with works exhibited outdoors next to the cliffs :hearts:
*Dalí Museum in Figueres, north of Barcelona and hometown of the surrealist genious. Totally insane museum :lol:
*Imperial War Museum, London. Probably the most interesting museum I have ever visited. So much information and really well documented. Spent like 6 hours there :oh: A must for history lovers. And free, as well.

On another note, Auschwitz-Birkenau museums in Poland were something surreal. Truly shocking and once in a life experience. You have to be really strong not too shed a tear or two there :tears:
I mean, a room full of the original shoes the prisoners left before entering "the shower", another room full of their original hair, another one full of their suitcases...

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

My favorites are the Prado (Madrid) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Next I love the Louvre, National Gallery in Washington, DC, and in London, the Victoria and Albert, the Getty, the Smithsonian, the Cloisters, the national museum in Athens, and the Vatican museum.

Basically any museum at all!

Definitely the Prado and the Metropolitan Museum are my favorites and I've spent more time in those places.

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

Agree with "any museum at all" above. Some of the most interesting museums I have been to I have found by accident and haven't really showcased anything considered "culturally significant".

That said, I find it's best to get a taste of as wide a variety of cultures as possible when visiting museums. So my top list would be according to "culture-spread".

#1 The British Museum in London for British culture and Classical early Western culture. It also has some of the most diverse and high-profile exhibitions from all over the globe.
#2 The Lourve and Uffizi tied for European/Pre-Modern-Western culture
#3 The National History Museum in Beijing for Chinese Culture
#4 The National History Museum in Lima for Pre-Coloumbian South American Culture
#5 The Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo for Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East (yes, Egypt is being treated more and more by academics as part of the sphere of ancient near-eastern cultural dynamics and it is a lot more accessible than the museums in Iran and Iraq to say the least)
#6 The National Museum of India in Delhi for Indian culture.

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

Can't answer for him but you really need a strong interest in Chinese culture to appreciate Chinese museums, it's pretty underwhelming for the average visitor. The National Palace is pretty cool from the outside though.

They say the Shanghai museum is a must, and I was totally BORED the whole time. :help:

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

MOMA is GOAT. I love that place. I could never get tired of crazy modern art :hearts:

Re: What are your favourite museums/art galleries?
 

I loved Galleria Borghese in Rome.
Peggy Guggenheim's collection in Venice was also great.
Others I really enjoyed: Gemaldegalerie and O2 in Berlin, Musee d'Orsay, Stadel in Frankfurt, Vatican Museum.

And my worst experiences (outside of Poland) were probably Bode Museum (way too much sculputures) and Grand Palais in Paris (they just had no idea how to handle the crowds)