Naturhistorisches Museum Bern | |
Established | 1832 |
---|---|
Location | Bernastrasse 15, 3005 Berne, Switzerland |
Type | Natural history museum |
Visitors | 131,000 (2016) [1] |
Director | Dr. Christopher Beer |
Owner | Bürgergemeinde Bern |
Website | www |
The Natural History Museum of Bern (German : Naturhistorisches Museum Bern) is a museum in Bern, Switzerland. In its teaching and research it cooperates closely with the University of Bern. [2] It is visited by around 131,000 people yearly.
The museum is owned by the Burgergemeinde of Bern, so it is also known as Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern. It was officially founded in 1832. It is located on Bernastrasse, in the Kirchenfeld quarter, in a building that was erected between 1932 and 1934, opened in 1936 and expanded several times since then. Previously the exhibits were kept in a building on Hodlerstrasse built from 1878 to 1881 and demolished in 1936; and earlier still, in the library gallery of a former college building. In 2016, the museum was visited by around 131,000 people. [1]
The museum is known for its set of over 220 life-sized dioramas, featuring preserved animals from Switzerland, Africa and Asia; it also owns a collection of minerals from the Alpine region, samples of gold discovered at various locations in Switzerland, meteorites, a large stock of invertebrates, [2] and Switzerland's largest collection of animal skeletons and bones.
The dioramas originate from a collection of big game animals from Africa, bagged by the London-based Bernese painter and game hunter Bernhard von Wattenwyl (together with his daughter Vivienne) during an expedition in 1923–24. [2] A total of 130 of these animals are on display, in 33 dioramas along two darkened corridors. The dioramas are designed and furnished according to the animals' natural habitat.
There is a further section displaying native birds and mammals, with over 600 animals in 164 dioramas. This section was previously on display in the Heimatmuseum, opened around the outbreak of World War II.
The upper basement contains five dioramas of Asian animals threatened with extinction: snow leopards, orangutans, giant pandas, Indian rhinoceroses, and tigers.
A fourth section called "Nordic Animals" features stuffed bears, muskoxen, seals, moose and birds, in nine dioramas containing 66 individual animals.
One of the museum's biggest attractions is the stuffed hide of Barry, the St. Bernard who is said to have saved the lives of over 40 people. A special exhibit dedicated to him was held in 2001. [3] [4] [5]
The museum's largest exhibit draws on the four million items to explore the biological and psychological facets of life. Visitors are invited to use sight, smell and sound to discover the world's tremendous biodiversity and its greater implications in human existence. Films, tactile and audio installations attempt to not only present scientific answers to these basic questions, but illustrate philosophy into the metaphysics of studying life.
The exhibit's first section repeats the phrase "There is no life without death." Part of the exhibition's definition of life is that all living things die, and through their decomposition stimulate more life. This section presents the life inside a pig carcass (paradisaically living off of the pig's demise), the oldest living animal (the Antarctic glass sponge) and the human fascination with death (featuring many art installations including H.R. Geiger's original mask for the film Alien .) The museum is, in essence, a repository for dead animals, and this section pays homage to their collectors and exhibits. Visitors look onto treasures through a transparent floor in somewhat of a meta-mission: the museum too was founded on a fascination with the death of the world around us.
The second section discusses gender and sexuality. Thus, the exhibit expands its definition to note that all living things must reproduce and pass along their traits. Avian mating displays show the advantages and disadvantages of this system: the decorated male bird may attract predators as well as an appreciative female and his elaborate plumage may make it hard to fly. Over in the corner, a life-sized blue whale head and an oversized sea turtle represent r/K selection theory. This cycle of risk and benefit hinders even human childbirth. Larger brains give humans a clear advantage, but complicate biophysical matters with an enlarged braincase.
The "World in the Head" section looks at the senses, the brain and the idea of consciousness. A Gertrude Stein quote and small animatronic display illustrates the senses that humans do not have. A mirrored room metaphorically takes the visitor into an infinity and asks if vision requires an infinite amount of brain activity.
The largest collection of animal skeletons and bones in Switzerland is displayed under the name "The Big Bone Show" (Die grosse Knochenschau). [6] This room exhibits over 300 skeletons, including those of a fin whale and an Asian elephant. Eight of the larger skeletons sit upon a continually revolving carousel. The display cabinets contain numerous further exhibits, including 518 individual bones.
The Albert Heim Foundation for the promotion of cynological research is based at the museum, and possesses the world's largest collection of canine skulls. [7]
In 2014 the Natural History Museum of Bern took over the World Spider Catalog, created in 2000 by Norman I. Platnick of the American Museum of Natural History, converting it to a relational database. [8]
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain about 32 million specimens of plants, animals, fungi, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than 2,500,000 sq ft (232,258 m2). AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.
A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional model either full-sized or miniature. Sometimes it is enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies such as military vehicle modeling, miniature figure modeling, or aircraft modeling.
The University of Nebraska State Museum, also known as Morrill Hall, founded in 1871, is a natural history museum featuring Nebraska biodiversity, paleontology, and cultural diversity, located on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln City Campus near the corner of 14th and Vine Streets in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. The museum houses Mueller Planetarium, a hands-on science discovery center, and the Elephant Hall, where visitors can see the world's largest articulated fossil mammoth among the collection of fossil elephants. Also featured are interactive paleontology exhibits, a dinosaur gallery, ancient life and evolution exhibits, wildlife dioramas, gems and minerals, American Indian and African exhibits, and a temporary exhibit gallery featuring rotating displays on diverse topics including photography, quilts and fine arts.
The Museum of Natural Sciences of Belgium is a Brussels museum dedicated to natural history. It is a part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville.
The Natural History Museum Vienna is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help museum visitors learn about the natural history of Colorado, Earth, and the universe. The 716,000-square-foot (66,519 m2) building houses more than one million objects in its collections including natural history and anthropological materials, as well as archival and library resources.
The Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) is a museum of human and natural history in Downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, located north of City Hall. The museum is the largest in western Canada with more than 7,600 square metres (82,000 sq ft) exhibition space and 38,900 square metres (419,000 sq ft) in total.
Barry der Menschenretter (1800–1814), also known as Barry, was a dog of a breed which was later called the St. Bernard that worked as a mountain rescue dog in Switzerland and Italy for the Great St Bernard Hospice. He predates the modern St. Bernard, and was lighter built than the modern breed. He has been described as the most famous St. Bernard, as he was credited with saving more than 40 lives during his lifetime, hence his byname Menschenretter meaning "people rescuer" in German.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS) is a natural history museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. The museum is the oldest in the state, and the largest natural history museum in the Southeastern United States.
The Iziko South African Museum is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present site in the Company's Garden since 1897. The museum houses important African zoology, palaeontology and archaeology collections.
The Bell Museum, formerly known as the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History, is located at the University of Minnesota's Saint Paul campus. The museum's current location on the Saint Paul campus opened in 2018. The Minnesota wildlife dioramas focus on animal specimens native to the state. The museum also houses the digital Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium. The museum is part of the university's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The museum's former location on University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus closed in January 2017.
The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano is a museum in Milan, Italy. It was founded in 1838 when naturalist Giuseppe de Cristoforis donated his collections to the city. Its first director was Giorgio Jan.
The Slovenian Museum of Natural History is a Slovenian national museum with natural history, scientific, and educational contents. It is the oldest cultural and scientific Slovenian institution.
The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum on the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City, Iowa. The museum was founded in 1858 by instruction of the Iowa General Assembly as the Cabinet of Natural History. It is housed within Macbride Hall, located in the Pentacrest area of the university campus. The museum's collections contain around 140,000 objects, including approximately 31,000 birds, eggs, and nests, 5,000 mammal specimens, 41,000 insects, 44,000 other invertebrates, 6,000 archaeological specimens, and historical documents and images from the museum's history. The museum includes several galleries on Iowa's geological and cultural history, biological diversity, and environmental science, spanning four floors. Major research collections include the Kallam Collection of prehistoric stone tools, the Talbot and Jones Bird Collections, the Frank Russell Collection of Inuit and Native Arctic artifacts, and the Philippine Collection of ethnographic materials from the 1904 World's Fair.
Carl Brunner von Wattenwyl was a geologist and physicist who worked as the first head of telegraphy administration in Switzerland. He was the first to promote transnational cooperation for telegraphic networks. In his spare time he was an entomologist who specialised in the orthopteroid insects, and was also a botanist.
Booth Museum of Natural History is a charitable trust-managed, municipally-owned museum of natural history in the city of Brighton and Hove in the South East of England. Its focus is on Victorian taxidermy, especially of British birds, as well as collections focusing on entomology, chalk fossils, skeletons and botany. It is part of "Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust". Admission to the museum is free.
The Museum of Osteology, located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., is a private museum devoted to the study of bones and skeletons (osteology). This museum displays over 450 skeletons of animal species from all over the world. With another 7,000 specimens as part of the collection, but not on display, this is the largest privately held collection of osteological specimens in the world. The museum is an entity of its parent company, Skulls Unlimited International.
The State Natural History Museum in Braunschweig, Germany, is a zoology museum. It was founded in 1754.
The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Israel National Center for Biodiversity Studies at Tel Aviv University, is a natural history museum in Israel, including both education and a research center. It is the largest and most active center in Israel of documentation and science, focusing on biodiversity research and its varied applications including nature conservation, environmental protection, and agriculture.