Houston Museum of Natural Sciences (Houston, USA) – expositions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.
One of the best natural science museums in the States, the Natural Science Museum of Houston is the place to come for a full day. The number of exhibits in it exceeds several thousand, and the collections illustrate the most extensive range of human knowledge – from paleontology and mineralogy to history and zoology. More than 2 million Americans and foreign tourists visit the museum every year to see dinosaur skeletons and Egyptian mummies, watch the Foucault pendulum and admire the 2000-carat blue topaz, walk in the Butterfly Center and look at the planets and stars of the solar system in the state-of-the-art planetarium. The special pride of the museum is temporary exhibitions, they are equipped with the latest technology and present to visitors the rarest exhibits from the best museums in the world.
With the Houston Pass guest card, admission to the main exhibition of the museum is free. See topschoolsoflaw for brief history of Missouri.
A bit of history
The ideological inspirer and creator of the Museum of Natural Sciences is the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, organized in 1909. The first collections included a collection of stones and minerals and fossils of prehistoric animals – they were placed in the Houston City Hall, and then in the city library. In the 1930s-60s. the museum was located on the territory of the Houston Zoo, until in 1969 it moved to a building specially built for it in Herman Park. In the 1990s the museum has significantly expanded its exhibition space, in particular, the Butterfly Center has appeared here. The latest addition is a new collection of dinosaurs, which was presented to the public in 2012.
The pearl of the collection is 60 dinosaur skeletons, including a giant tyrannosaurus rex.
What to watch
The permanent exhibition of the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences consists of 15 collections arranged thematically and chronologically. The most ancient history of the Earth is presented in the halls of mineralogy, paleontology and malacology (the study of mollusks). The remains of prehistoric animals, including giant dinosaurs, demonstrate what life was like on the planet about 65 million years ago. In the hall of mineralogy, you can look into the bowels of the Earth and admire the abundance of multi-colored stones and minerals – “Rembrandts and Picassos of nature.” Pay special attention to the rarest 2000 carat blue topaz and the unique gold nugget.
How have people’s perceptions of the world around them changed? In the hall of the Foucault pendulum there is visual evidence that the Earth rotates.
The hall of philanthropist Alfred Glassell introduces 40 species of large marine life – from groupers to whales, and in the halls of Africa and the Americas you will see stuffed animals, aboriginal dwellings and their household items. Separate expositions are dedicated to the state of Texas.
You should definitely visit the Butterfly Center – in the rainforest with a waterfall, representatives of more than 30 species of butterflies flutter over the heads of visitors.
Practical Information
Address: 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston. Website.
Opening hours: from 9:00 to 18:00, seven days a week.
Buy a ticket to the museum online.
Entrance – 25 USD, children, students and pensioners – 16 USD. Children under 2 years old enter free of charge. On Thursdays from 15:00 to 18:00 admission is free for all visitors. A visit to the planetarium, the Butterfly Center and the cinema is paid extra. The prices on the page are for December 2021.
Museum of Fine Arts in Houston
Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (Houston, USA) – expositions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.
63 thousand exhibits, including paintings by Rembrandt and Degas, Monet and Manet, Renoir and Van Gogh, as well as the work of a galaxy of American artists, a variety of temporary exhibitions and state-of-the-art presentation of information – all this is the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, one of the largest art museums in the States. The museum was founded in 1900, and has recently undergone extensive renovation: some of the exhibits are located in a new building, which can be accessed from the first through an underground passage. After visiting the main exhibition and, if you’re lucky, temporary exhibitions, be sure to head to the nearby Cullen Sculpture Garden to admire the creations of Rodin and Matisse.
For Houston Pass guest card holders, admission to the museum is free.
A bit of history
The Houston Museum of Fine Arts is the oldest art museum in Texas: collections began in 1917, and it opened to visitors in 1924. The museum was housed in the historic Watkin Building, and modest collections of American and European paintings, antiquities and avant-garde prints were exhibited in the halls and drawings. In the 1940s the collection was replenished with collections of patrons – from Renaissance paintings to African art and the art of pre-Columbian America. By 1970, the funds numbered about 12 thousand exhibits, and the collection was constantly growing.
Today, the Houston Museum is the sixth largest in the United States.
What to watch
The basis of the museum’s collection is the work of the Renaissance and French Impressionists, photographs, American and European decorative arts, paintings and sculpture from the period after World War II, as well as a rich collection of gold items from Africa and pre-Columbian America.
The collection of European art contains canvases from the 13th-20th centuries. Here you should see paintings by Fra Angelico, Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden, Rembrandt. A brilliant collection of impressionists – painting by Corot, Courbet, Monet, Manet, Signac, Cezanne, Rousseau. Be sure to discover the artists of the Americas of the 18th and 20th centuries – from the romantic Thomas Cole to the realist Frederick Remington.
The oldest collection of the museum – the collection of antiquities – contains ancient Roman mosaics and marble tombstones, Greek masks and amphorae, as well as several colorful ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. The art halls of Africa, America and Oceania immerse you in the cycle of mysterious symbols and frightening ritual masks created from the 5th century BC. BC e. up to the present. In the collection of Asian art, look out for Chinese painted screens, jadeite carvings, Indian bronze sculptures, and pottery from Korea.
Contemporary art is represented by the controversial works of artists and sculptors from six continents – more than 1,400 exhibits in total.
In the Bayou Bend Mansion, a branch of the museum, you can see furniture and interior items from the early 20th century, and in Villa Rienzi, a private collection of decorative art from the 17th-20th centuries.
Practical Information
Address: Houston, Bissonnet street, 1001. Website.
Opening hours: Tuesday, Wednesday – from 10:00 to 17:00, Thursday – until 21:00, Friday, Saturday – until 19:00. On Sunday the museum is open from 12:15 to 19:00. Day off is Monday.
Entrance – 19 USD, children under 12 years old admission is free. The prices on the page are for June 2021.
