Open up this treasure trove of wonders to visit 43 museums and 50 exhibits! Discover the most fascinating and mysterious objects found in museums, from star attractions to unsung exhibits. With Molly Oldfield, research elf of hit television show QI, unearth the astonishing stories of how these treasures were created, found and finally displayed.
As the guardians of the world's artistic heritage, museums have always played in important role in our culture. However, the buildings themselves are sometimes superb masterpieces and splendid examples of a vast array of styles. From the controversial Louvre Pyramid to the stylistic elegance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, this sophisticated work offers an overview of the architecture of the world's most famous museums. Giulia Camin, the author, has written a superb history of museums accompanied by architectural plans, detailed drawings and photographs of the interiors and façades. The visual images are interspersed with information about the architects and engineers who played a key role in the design and construction of these important buildings. The book focuses on a selection of museums scattered all over the world, including the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Prado in Madrid, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and the huge Smithsonian Complex in Washington DC. The volume takes the reader on a tour of several modern masterpieces, such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed by Daniel Libeskind, and the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao by Frank Gehry, considered by many to be the most important museum building of the 20th century. The photographs, commissioned specially for the book, show the innovative design of the interior of the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, where the different heights of the ceilings and varying intensity of the lighting of the mainly underground galleries create the ideal atmosphere for recalling the Holocaust. The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, in contrast, stands almost 1000 feet above sea level and is topped by a first-class restaurant that offers panoramic views over the principality and the coast. This book is an essential resource for students of architecture, professional architects and culture-loving travelers eager to visit some of the most famous museums in the world. 686 colour photographs
Ben's story takes place in 1977 and is told in words. Rose's story in 1927 is told entirely in pictures. Ever since his mother died, Ben feels lost. At home with her father, Rose feels alone. When Ben finds a mysterious clue hidden in his mother's room, both children risk everything to find what's missing.
Barron's best-selling Brick City was a study of the world's most famous buildings in LEGO form. Now, master modeler, and LEGO aficionado, Warren Elsmore, takes the humble LEGO brick on another global tour, this time to recreate the stunning wonders of the ancient, natural, and modern world. Inside Brick Wonders, Elsmore presents helpful tips for neophyte LEGO modelers (such as where to buy the most useful bricks and how to build to scale) along with plans for constructing specific models. Vivid photos of completed LEGO models are stunning to view and include: The Great Pyramid of Giza The Hanging Gardens of Babylon The International Space Station The Panama Canal The Grand Canyon The Great Barrier Reef Featuring helpful drawings of structural details to guide model builders, Brick Wonders presents a modeler's panorama of the world's most breathtaking wonders. More than 400 full-color instructional and inspirational images throughout. BONUS POSTERS: Enclosed with the book are two dramatic posters featuring LEGO® model photos of the Wonders of the World. The posters, which are suitable for framing, unfold to 17 1/2" x 24 3/4".
Presents an interactive history of the human imagination, separated by the seven stages of alchemical process, encouraging readers to question their understanding of life and the way in which imagination is quantified.
Surveying over thirty different positions in the museum profession, this is the essential guide for anyone considering entering the field, or a career change within it. From exhibition designer to shop manager, this comprehensive survey views the latest trends in museum work and the broad-ranging technological advances that have been made. For any professional in the field, this is a crucially useful book for how to prepare, look for and find jobs in the museum profession.
In 1500 few Europeans regarded nature as a subject worthy of inquiry. Yet fifty years later the first museums of natural history had appeared in Italy, dedicated to the marvels of nature. Italian patricians, their curiosity fueled by new voyages of exploration and the humanist rediscovery of nature, created vast collections as a means of knowing the world and used this knowledge to their greater glory. Drawing on extensive archives of visitors' books, letters, travel journals, memoirs, and pleas for patronage, Paula Findlen reconstructs the lost social world of Renaissance and Baroque museums. She follows the new study of natural history as it moved out of the universities and into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific societies, religious orders, and princely courts. Findlen argues convincingly that natural history as a discipline blurred the border between the ancients and the moderns, between collecting in order to recover ancient wisdom and the development of new textual and experimental scholarship. Her vivid account reveals how the scientific revolution grew from the constant mediation between the old forms of knowledge and the new.
A comprehensive bibliography and exhibition chronology of the world's greatest museum of the decorative arts and design. The Victoria and Albert Museum, or South Kensington Museum as it used to be known, was founded by the British Government in 1852, out of the proceeds from the Great Exhibition of 1851. Like the Exhibition, it aimed to improve the expertise of designers, and the taste of the public, by exposing them to examples of good design from all countries and periods. 2,500 publications have to date been produced by, for, or in association with the V&A. The National Art Library, which is part of the Museum, has prepared this detailed catalogue, supplemented by a secondary list of 500 other books closely related to the V&A. The 1,500 exhibitions and displays recorded include those held in the main Museum and at its branches, the Bethnal Green Museum (now the National Museum of Childhood) and the Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, and additionally those it has organized at external venues, in Great Britain and abroad. The exhibitions and publications are fully cross-referenced, and there are name, title and subject indexes to the whole work, as well as an explanatory introduction.
