The Wiesbaden Museum: when your kids say “This is so cool” for at least 10 times, you know this museum is top of the bill.
The museum really surprised us. It combines natural history with contemporary art and paintings from the old masters.
Beautiful.
The natural history part is fairly new and their exhibition approach is brilliant. Nature is being shown in 4 themes: Color, Shape, Movement and Time: the esthetics of nature.
Color
In the Color area the museum combines animals and plants carrying the same color. Right opposite it shows how mankind tries to mimic the natural colors for use as paint. It’s amazing to see animals with the same color together…kind of makes you wonder if they are real!
Movement
How do animals move around? What parts of their body do they use to move? Fascinating again to discover flying snakes, to walk below flying swans or to see an octopus from up close.
Shape
I didn’t expect that the shape collection would fascinate me the most. A video was played about the Alsomitra, a plant which at first glance looks uninteresting….until you learn that they can ride the wind for distances of 10 kilometers. The Alsomitra inspired us humans to build the first flying wing aircraft.
And what about the sea beans? Because of the shape of its pod they can travel from one continent to the other by just floating on the sea. After reaching another continent it still has the power to germinate and grow.
Animals of course also have the most fascinating shapes you can think of.
Time
We were amazed to see this 30 million years old skeleton….the animal used to swim in the shallow lagoon that covered the area. “That’s nothing”, our guide Dorothee mentioned. “Look over here, this fossil is hundreds of millions of years old.” I felt so tiny.
Within the museum you will encounter many doors and stairways, leading you suddenly from the nature part into a room with contemporary art or a room with statues and paintings of old masters. It’s part of the experience to get lost and to get confronted with all the museum has to offer.
Statues
Do not forget to visit the Statue room.
And maybe you still feel to visit the old masters…
Wiesbaden Museum
I can highly recommend this museum (also with your kids). Make sure to visit it when you are in Wiesbaden. Look for the statue of Goethe in front of the museum. According to Patrick our guide he looks like (and I quote) “a Calvin Klein model sitting on chewing gum”. Anyway, Wiesbaden is full of statues and again our guide Patrick explained it quite clearly: “You have only three kinds of statues in Wiesbaden: Goethe, Schiller….or some Emperor.”
Want to read more about Wiesbaden? Check out Wiesbaden, the city that runs on water.
Our family has been traveling to Wiesbaden by invitation of Wiesbaden Marketing.
Text and photography by: Emiel van den Boomen
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