Looking for new museums to explore? Here are five worth a visit
There are at least 55,000 museums in the world, according to the International Council of Museums. New ones are set to open this year, among them a spinoff of London’s venerable V&A and a new home for Seattle’s shrine to all things Nordic.
Scotland
London’s V&A Museum, once called the Victoria and Albert, traces its roots back to 1851. This year, V&A Dundee will open Sept. 15 on the east coast of Scotland as the first satellite museum to bear the name. The remarkable building made with more than 2,000 cast-stone panels looks like a stylized ship floating on the River Tay. Scottish design — architecture, ceramics, jewelry, textiles and more — will be the focus. The opening show is “Ocean Liners: Speed and Style.”
Info: V&A Dundee, 3 Greenmarket, Dundee, Scotland
Seattle
As the V&A Dundee’s building tips its hat to shipbuilding, the new Nordic Museum in Seattle will open its new home May 5 with galleries organized around an interior fjord “composed of faceted white planes evoking its glacial origins,” the website says. The museum is moving from a cramped 1907 building to a 57,000-square-foot site in the city’s Ballard section. Displays will tell the story of Nordic and Nordic American culture and history. Expect to see historic wooden longboats, traditional clothing and fishing hooks among the thousands of items in the collection.
Info: Nordic Museum, 2655 NW Market St., Seattle
Charleston
Travelers consistently pick Charleston, S.C., as one of the nation’s best cities to visit. The town will open a new museum September in the Fireproof Building, a National Historic Landmark that’s also home to the South Carolina Historical Society. The Greek Doric-style building got its name for being “the most fire-protected building at the time of its construction in 1827,” according to the National Park Service’s website. The museum will showcase the state’s 300-year heritage and culture in a fresh way: through the eyes of historical characters, from the colonial novel “Cassique of Kiawah” to plantation life and slavery and beyond.
Info: South Carolina Historical Society Museum, 100 Meeting St., Charleston
Egypt
The partially opened Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza welcomed one of its first bigwigs into the building. In January, an ancient statue of famed pharaoh Ramses II, weighing around 83 tons, was moved from a temporary building into the new museum while a band played and crowds gathered. The building, still under construction, features a facade of pyramids and is close to the real pyramids. When completed, it will be the the permanent home of King Tut and other royal mummies plus around 100,000 of the country’s ancient treasures.
Info: Grand Egyptian Museum
Tokyo
Artist Yayoi Kusama wowed Angelenos last fall with her infinite and Instagrammable mirrored rooms at the Broad Museum, a show making its way around America. Now the 88-year-old, known for her repetitive patterns of polka dots and pumpkins as well as images derived from her fantasies, has a museum that bears her name. A show opening Feb. 28 called “Here, Now, I have Reached the Grandest Start of My Life” will display her early works from the 1950s. The building, which resembles stacked cubes, is run by Kusama’s foundation. Tickets must be purchased online and in advance.
Info: Yayoi Kusama Museum, 107 Bentencho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
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