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Harvard Museum of Natural History
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Neighborhood: Harvard Square
26 Oxford St
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 495-3045
26 Oxford St
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 495-3045
Free Sunday AM for MA Residents
Check out the newly renovated Great Mammal Hall with…
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- Nearest Transit:
-
Harvard (Red)
- Hours:
Mon-Sun. 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
46 reviews for Harvard Museum of Natural History
This place is rad. What's nice is that it's one of Boston's "lesser" museums, in that it's off the beaten path, and isn't totally mobbed by tourist-y folks. It's a great old collection. My favorite room is the hall of skeletons with large whales and the likes.
Recently I attended their free Sunday morning admission. DO NOT come here on SUNDAY mornings. I repeat DO NOT. I should have figured, but the place was over-run by parents with 3-5 year old running and screaming children. Some people just don't have the sense to bring their kids to a park or playground when they are toddlers. Kids need to run, jump, and play; not be forced to stand around for hours looking at displays. I wish the Yelp info about this place said: good for kids (10 and older). PUH-LEASE!
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Comment from Blue M. of
Harvard Museum of Natural History
10/28/2009
Sunday mornings are popular--perhaps come another time to…
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I came here for the second time ever this past summer, when my friend from New Jersey came to visit me. It's a cool place, but natural history isn't really my thing, so I actually would give this 3.5 stars, but I do think it deserves a four- if only I were more interested in the subject. My friend is really into natural history though, so she really enjoyed it.
With a student I.D., we got in for $7. This place is full of taxadermied animals, which seriously gives me the shivers. It makes me feel very uncomfortable looking at not-alive animals staring back at you. Some rooms just have rows and rows of stuffed animals on display and it creeps me out to the point where I cannot wait to move on. Half the time though, I was wondering whether they were actually real or not.
Overall, it is interesting and I always learn something new going through the exhibits. I'm just a more art museum type of gal.
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I was really amazed by the size of the museum and all of the artifacts they have. Seeing all of those different plants, fish, and animals, it kinda makes you stop for a second and appreciate the world.
The place is old so things looked a little old and dusty. And the smell of "dead animal" is a bit overwhelming at times. But you get used to it the longer you are there.
The only thing that could make this place better is more interactive exhibits like the Museum of Science. But maybe thats the beauty of this place. Old brick bldging in historic Cambridge with historic artifacts. You quietly walk through the exhibits and appreciate it for what it is.
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My boyfriend is a history major. We were in Cambridge and we thought, hmmmm we should try out the harvard musuem! we had heard it was great!!
Firstly, if you are a MA resident bring your ID card because sometimes they have free admission for residents! That's pretty cool! But we happened to be there on free resident day, and that meant that there were all kinds of kids running around and around and around....strollers everywhere...and it was raining that day, so all of the kids were wet....definitely not a relaxing museum going experience...
The first room most people walk into is their rock show room, which if you love rocks is the coolest thing you will see, and if you don't (i'm not a rock formation fan type of girl ha ha) you will walk by a couple of cases and stare at the meteorite for a couple minutes and maybe the giant amethyst, but then...you're done. And that wasn't a real motivator to see more of the museum, which from the outside you would never even know was as big as it actually is! There are rooms connecting to more rooms and more rooms...
Their stuffed animals section was cool to see, but definitely sort of made us feel weird by having all of those fake eyes staring back at us, but it didn't seem like they were kept in the best condition...a little dusty and dirty...But the best collection is the dinosaur section. We found that section last, so be sure to go there first. Those things are giant! Matt was in awe, pure awe. But then we ended at their prized exhibit the glass flowers, which is another room like the rock room with a whole bunch of flowers all made by hand out of glass. I know it must have taken the artist FOREVER to make these, but they only entertained us for a couple minutes....
All in all, a good stop for some educational entertainment, but I think the museum needs some updating and some more exciting exhibits.
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Yelp's Red Carpet Gala was amazing there. The museum has impressive collections of taxidermy, bone, glass flowers, preserved fish and insects, meteorites, and other exhibits. The last time I was there was for a class and I was hungover so I did not get to really appreciate what the museum has to offer.
The glass flowers room is just amazing. The collection is large and the fact that all the flowers are glass is unbelievable.
The taxadermy is extensive but some of it seems a bit tired. There are some animals that have some split skin. The overall smell is musty and odd.
The crystal, meteroite, jem room is stunning. The large amathsyst in the room is a must see- over 1600pounds! Everything is cataloged well and easy to see.
This is a great place to visit. Its large and has a lot to offer.
Comment from Blue M. of
Harvard Museum of Natural History
8/20/2009
The over 500 mammal specimens on exhibit in the Harvard…
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I grew up going to the Smithsonian museum in D.C. so when I found this place i was delighted. It is very different... sort of like the zombie version of the Smithsonian but pretty awesome. You can see the zebra's ears stapled down and the stripes pinned with black and white bobby pins. The taxidermy is older so you can see cracked skin, if you're into that kind of thing this place is sweet. (Some of the animals are in better condition!)
The minerals I could look at all day and the glass flowers are def worth a look!
"Free to Massachusetts residents every Sunday morning (year-round) from 9:00 am to noon and on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 5:00 pm (September through May) excluding commercial groups"
I think the glass flowers and minerals are def good for kids but you should be weary of bringing a kid who may be afraid of the slightly disturbing taxidermy!
I'm not really in to natural history museums. I went on field trips when I was little. Thats about it.
I walked quickly through the museum to see one thing only. The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants....basically, glass flowers.
I got permission from my UCLA professor to write my paper whilst on vacation and decided the hand blown and molded glass pieces were perfect. (no need to explain the topic, its difficult)
Of course, I had no idea they closed at 5pm, because I didn't plan well and my tour book said 8pm. I walked up at 4:50 and BEGGED them to let me in. I was panicked and thankfully the docents let me in, free of charge, to rush over to the exhibit. I took tons of photos (all of which came out blurred) and tried to write down as much as possible.
I ended up having to buy a $35 book at the gift shop to get the info I needed.....but oh well, it was really nice of them to help me out!
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What do you do on a beautiful New England spring-like Sunday in early March? Walk all the way from the South End to the Harvard Museum of Natural History to see cool rocks, cool bones, and cool stuffed primates.
The museum is part old-school, taxidermy-heavy, puke-green paint installations and part modern museum, tech savvy, multi-media installations. I like it. The juxtaposition is, admittedly, a little jarring. But it's also a lot of fun.
You know what isn't fun though? Glass freakin' flowers. It was mildly interesting. Very pretty. But honestly it felt more like a "hey look what I can do" exhibit rather than an educational one. Yeah, they look like real flowers. And seeing all the stamen and stigmas and other reproductive stuff pulled out was neat. But isn't it more fun to look at real flowers? Maybe I just don't get it. Or maybe it's just because I prefer those old-school botanical drawings. Whatevs.
Interesting and fun parts: The dinosaur/fossil area was pretty good. I actually preferred the early mammalian bone displays to the actual dinosaur ones. It pains me that there are no longer gigantic sloths roaming the earth. The bug area is appropriately creepy. Lots of things in jars. And, as everyone knows, things are always creepier when they are put in jars. The gems and minerals area is really cool- lots of pretty shiny things. And, in what appears to be a newer-revamped area, nice displays of their better taxidermy work with good signage about why some animals are white and why birds have crazy feathers and cool videos of an octopus going all crazy colored and squirting ink.
But the best part? Aye-ayes! Two of them! Saddest part? Dead Aye-ayes! Two of them. Poor aye-ayes. So misunderstood. So hideous. So awesome. I might never get to see one in the wild- their numbers dwindling in the tiny little part of Madagascar they call home- but at least I got to see two freaky stuffed ones at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
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Just came back from Washington DC. I must say, the Harvard Museum of Natural History beats the National Museum of Natural History. The Harvard Museum was a nice suprise, because I actually went there on a whim, and ended up spending hours there. Very educational.
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What an awesome hidden gem. If you like taxidermied animals, bones, and minerals, this place is for you. The museum is tucked in an old brick building up a couple flights of creaky stairs, which lends to the charm.
The first exhibit we saw was the "glass flowers", which holds a large collection of botanically correct flowers made of glass. Apparently, a father son team constructed these to study the flowers without the need for live specimens. Remarkable in their construction, and hard to tell whether they were science or art. Still, it was our least favorite part of the museum.
The museum holds a large collection of gems and minerals, arranged by type and fun to wander through, with several impressively large specimens. Next we wandered through some dinosaur bones, including a neat skeleton of a glyptodont.
But the best part of the museum was the hall of mammals, which houses a multitude of mammal taxidermy. There were specimens from all over the world, arranged in a great comparative manner. Highlights include a dodo skeleton and reconstruction, a quoll (what's a quoll, you ask? A neat spotted carnivorous marsupial), a good assortment of bats, a python (something you don't normally see stuffed), and several animals that I had never heard of before.
All in all, a good place to spend a couple hours. A great deal if you're a member of Bank of America - the first full weekend of every month is free to BofA card holders.
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Overall, this is a really great place to kill a Sunday afternoon when you can't think of anything else to do and you're poor and have little to no money and want to do something to remind yourself that yes, there is a world outside your apartment and no, not everything costs $1 million, even if it seems that way sometimes.
Here's a sampling of what you will find here.
BUGS!
Goddamn are there a lot of bugs. Big ones, little ones, and all on their own mounting pin. It's actually pretty remarkable the number of bugs in this place. If the bugs were alive, and could break through glass, they would kill everyone in Boston, easily. Just when you think, "It's virtually impossible that there will be more bugs," you turn around a corner and there are more bugs. They're arranged beautifully, too; beetles in perfect circles, not-so-busy bees arranged in spiral patterns. Someone who was probably a little creepy really took some time and care when arranging all those damn bugs.
SKELETONS!
Skeletons of all kinds of things! They're awesome! There was a skeleton of a big fish! And a room with a ton of skeletons hanging from the ceiling, and below them other skeletons in glass cases! I felt like I was 7 years old again! Until a real live 7-year-old walked directly into my legs because it was doing that thing where it doesn't look where it's going and then I found myself apologizing and then feeling awkward because it didn't acknowledge my apology and just kept walking, and then I thought, "That was rude," but then I had to remind myself that it was a 7-year-old and that I have no idea what kind of moral standards humans at that age are supposed to be held to.
ANIMALS!
So here's the thing. The number of animals is also pretty impressive. There seems to be room after room of stuffed animals, all divided by... genus... or species... or whatever. Maybe (probably) both - I mean this IS Harvard. But there were a lot, and there were big ones, and it was cool to see them up close. However, they definitely are not preserved well. Some of them have seams that were split in places, and they were also just... I don't know, a lot of them were just shabby looking. It's depressing enough on some levels for me to see dead, stuffed animals. When you add the fact that they're falling apart, it makes the whole experience especially morose.
GEM STONES AND MOON ROCKS!
There were some beautiful and breathtaking things in this area. And the moon rocks were cool, and I am pretty sure you could touch them. Or maybe not and I just did. Oops. Either way, if you wanna touch a moon rock, and who doesn't, this is your place.
GLASS FLOWERS! (YAY?)
So everyone (or at least "everyone" according to my middle-aged lady coworkers) oohs and ahhs about these glass flowers, and how beautiful and amazing they are. And they were impressive. I mean, they looked like really real actual flowers. And so... as a result... it looked like I was looking at real flowers in display cases. I forgot that they were glass, and I know that was the point, because that what was so amazing about it. And that was amazing. But you know, once I saw the first row of them (out of like, 7 rows or something), I was done. Maybe that means I'm uncultured. I think it means I don't like looking at glass flowers for any longer than 15 minutes. But they were very beautiful, and it was an astounding exhibit. I think if you weren't as ADD as I can be sometimes, you would be able to really go to town in the glass flower room.
So that's this place, in a nutshell. It's definitely worth the $9.00 to get in, that's for sure, and it is a nice way to spend part of your day. I would call it a "hidden gem," even. Get it? Gem?? Come on.
Anyway, I'm attaching pictures (that's a bonus, you can take pictures in the whole place, with flashes... unless you can't and I just did... oops). Enjoy.
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I just love the blown glass horticultural exhibit. I'm pretty sure there's nothing like it in the Whole Wide World... It's simply exquisite, and irreplaceable.
There's tons of mineral exhibits, too. I just can't get very hot and bothered about those.
I'm torn about the animal taxidermy section. On the one hand, it's very cool to see how big a Tiger can get. On the other hand, some Wanker shot this beautiful creature, just to get a trophy; which makes me sad.
I'm also torn about the American Indian Section, as much of the stuff shown there was gotten by grave-robbing. I first came to the Peabody with my second grade teacher, Miss Rolfe, who was the direct descendant of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. She gave us a distinctly different take on Native American Studies. I'm happy to say Harvard is returning a bunch of their Native American Artifacts, and replacing them with copies. I still think it's very valuable for kids to learn about Native American Culture, and I'm really quite happy to see that Harvard still has some great exhibits, and is actively promoting some great classroom presentations in this realm.
On a final note, this museum is kind of cool in that it's almost an artifact, itself. It looks and feels like something from another age. Heck, it has an Old School Telephone Booth. I'm of the opinion that this should not change, ever. If they ever expand, I hope they preserve the magic of the old, and add on respectfully.
As an addendum, the Gift Shop is fantastic. I've filled my Xmas list once or twice from the Museum Shop.
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Do you have those moments when you have great memories of a tv show, movie, or a place when you were a kid and see it again as a grown-up you're left disappointed? Well this wasn't one of those moments. It was as good as I remembered it. The dead, stuffed, animals were as amazing as ever. Their exhibits were interesting, cool, and fascinating. I enjoyed the various ancient civilization and tribal artifacts, the exquisite glass flowers, and the various bottled creatures, but my favorite were the dinosaur bones and all the animals. It just brought back the kid in me. I was wowed :)
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This is a modest museum, yet has many many taxidermied large animals. Unfortunately, due to the lack of ventilation the smell of preservative is rather overpowering. I could barely breath in there.
The best part was the glass flowers exhibit. You must see this exhibit!
The gift shop is cute too.
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Favorite musuem in Boston, because once they had an exihibit of 19th century tapeworms with the names of the hosts on the side. There were a lot of famous recognizable names. You know, people that they name Museum wings and streets after.
And then one time they had Nabokov's desk and some of the butterflies he collected. Very cool, I think.
I also got to walk around by myself with a glass of champagne once because some Grad students were having a party. It was kind of romantic, even though I was alone.
The first museum director was a Creationist, which is why all the exihibits are in seemingly random order. He wanted people to be impressed with nature in its multiplicity of forms.
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The people that work here are what really makes it a 5 star experience. The volunteers and employees are very knowledgeable and helpful to patrons, especially if you're a student researching specific exhibits for a course. They'll take the time to walk around with you and individually explain what exhibits might aid you in answering specific questions.
They're so many wonderful exhibits that I can't possible compliment them all. Sunday mornings, from 9am-12am, there is free admission! It isn't huge, or terribly modern. Instead, it feels like your walking around an old mansion, with creaky floor boards and winding hallways.
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I decided to check out the Harvard Museum of Natural History for the Glass Flowers. Was so excited to see them and when I got there was disappointed. Not enough flowers that I recognized. Most looked like weed. All in glass cases and hard to photograph.
Other rooms full of stuff was just ok.
Cost to see this & the Peabody Museum that's connected is $9.
FREE for Massachusetts Residents on:
Sun 9a-12 noon - yr round
Wed 3-5p (Sept-May), except for commercial groups
FREE for Harvard students w/ ID, & w/ membership card to these museums: Harvard NH & Peabody
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The glass flowers are neat, the stuffed animals are neat (especially the ones that are starting to crack and leak straw innards!), but the best part of the HVHM is that there's always more rooms than you remember. I swear, this place breaks Euclidian geometry somehow.
For example, if you keep going back through the fossils and stuffed animals eventually you stumble into a room with massive *whale* *skeletons* hanging from the ceiling! And not little minke whales, massive Fin whales and Sperm whales! Whuh? Where did this room come from? Does this room actually fit inside the building the museum is in?
In any case, a great place to kill 2 hours if you're in the area.
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Certainly a museum for big kids. Leave the kids at home. No really, don't bring them here because then we all have to hear them whine about being bored.
This smallish museum displays only a fraction of Harvard's amazing collections of dead preserved things, natural objects, and artifacts. Obviously, the big draw here is the glass plant exhibit which is totally amazing, beautiful, and bizarre.
Your admission gets you admission to the adjacent Peabody Museum with modern and interactive exhibits focused on archaeology and ethnology.
I can't help be disappointed that the wealthiest university in the world doesn't have a drop-dead amazing museum, particularly with so much locked up in storage.
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Boston really needs a real Museum of Natural History - after all this America's town of scholars. This one at Harvard is GOOD but only 60% of the way to being a major attraction. We have a wonderful science museum, a good arts museum, a historic city library and even a shiny new ICA, so why can't we have something world-class for nature?
What Harvard's museum has....
Lots of cool gemstones and rocks (lots!)
Lots of fossils - some good, some just casts
Lots of butterflies pinned onto boards
Lots of bits of glass shaped to look like flowers (too many)
Lots and lots of stuffed animals (poor things)
A patronising and anti-China video about global warming
What Harvard's museum lacks...
Direction
Sorry again Harvard, but that's the problem - great content in places but a lot of filler and not seemingly in any order, with very little information, no hands-on guides and just loose themes like 'stuffed animals area'.
Perhaps it's just lack of funds (lacks of funds at Harvard??!!). Maybe if we all start going they'll be able to invest in getting a world-class museum director and give Boston a world-class museum.
Hey, I'm being harsh. It's still a great afternoon out and not too expensive either. Kids love it and anyone who loves looking at 67 types of dolomite rock will too.
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I took my family here and had never really known about this hidden museum. It is on the campus of HArvard University and tucked away in the way back. If you visit the website you can get directions and also pay for parking right online for the nearby garage (5 dollars). The museum is on a few levels and was pretty interesting. The minerals and rocks and meteors is very cool and there is a very interesting exhibit of all flowers and plants made out of galss very real looking. The halls and halls of dinosaur and animals are awesome although a bit dated (some are falling apart). The place is pretty extensive and worthwhile to pay a visit especially in the winter months. I would recommend it!
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If you are into 1) dead plants, 2) dead animals, 3) really dead and fossilized animals or 4) rocks (yes, they're dead too), then you will love this place. I'm a sucker for 2 & 3 myself, so I had a good time.
Personal favourites were the narwhal (unicorn of the sea, except these things are for real) and the prehistoric sloth. I don't care that it's a harmless vegetarian mammal - I would not want to run into that monster (bigger than a grizzly!).
I must also mention the minerals exhibit, simply because several of the silver samples are from the small town in Norway I grew up in! Yes, I know, I get easily excited, but so would you if you had grown up in a town of barely 15,000 people halfway across the planet.
Note that Mass residents get in for free before noon on Sundays.
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Came here on Saturday with my parents. My Mom kept talking about the glass flowers and was dying to see them. They are cool but I expected big fancy flowers not a kind of science exhibit with up close views of pistols and stamens.
The rest of the museum is really cool, tons of stuffed animals, lots of minerals and rock exhibits and the staff was very friendly and willing to answer questions. I probably wont' be back because once you've seen it you're set. But it was a good way to kill time on a Saturday afternoon!
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Ok, I am totally spoiled by the fact that I grew up going to the Museum of Natural History in NYC which is about 300000x the size of this place...otherwise I'm sure I would've given it 5 stars.
The main draws are the glass flowers exhibit (which I have seen a few times and am still completely baffled by) and the gems and rock collection, which while not rivaling that of the Smithsonian, is still awfully pretty and easily a way to kill an hour ooohing and aaahing the pretty things nature can do.
When I went a few weeks ago there was an elaborate Day of the Dead installation which I thought was pretty cool. Lots of paper mache skeletons and sugar skulls everywhere.
One point of contention is that I literally could not venture into the preserved animals section of the museum. As I've mentioned in a few reviews, I suffer from mastocytosis, which means I can be pretty sensitive to certain environmental and food triggers, though they are typically pretty arbitrary and do not always fall under the category of traditional allergens.
WELL, whatever the hell they use to preserve the animals absolutely falls under the category of "Things that will make Bridget instantly sick" as I lasted about 7 minutes before nearly passing out. A few years ago, when I wasn't as sensitive to whatever hell preserving agent they used back and made it through the whole exhibit I still felt very touchy afterwards...but that's probably just more my issue.
This is dorky, but I totally love the gift shop as a place to do my holiday shopping. They have all sorts of quirky jewelry and books and fossils, all stuff that I'm a sucker for.
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Huge museum and lots of fun. They have a giant whale skeleton hanging from a ceiling and skeletons of huge prehistoric creatures. If you get bored at museums of paintings, this place is the place to go. They also have a glass flower exhibit which looks absolutely real.
You can also rent out this space. I attended a function here with desserts, cheeses, and wines at various stations around the museum. Very classy and fun. I've also heard of people renting it out for kids' birthday parties.
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Kind of difficult to find, and there aren't really signs pointing you in the right direction.
It was pretty hot inside the building and I probably would have stayed longer if it wasn't so stifling.
The glass flower exhibit was much more scientific then I expected and the area of the museum is fairly small. But that's what I get for being used to the AMNH in New York.
This place is really awesome. My Bf and I went here last Saturday and had such a fascinating time. There were tons of kids around, so it got a little annoying having to trail behind them and their parents as they wanted to touch literally everthing! From the outside, it didnt really look big but inside is pretty large space. I enjoyed all the taxidermed animals and the cultural exhibits as well. I highly recommend anyone to visit if you have a free afternoon. I must say, the coat check, even though I hung my coat up is way sketch. No one looks over it and its behind these walls. I feel like this is very easy for someone to steal a better coat or bag!
If you have a Boston libaray pass, you can get a pass from them and its only 2 bucks to get in!
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I like Brendan's review...
"If you are into 1) dead plants, 2) dead animals, 3) really dead and fossilized animals or 4) rocks" you'll like this place. It's a great museum for geeks like me and for people who know nothing about geology. It's curated beautifully and they have an amazing collection.
I think this is a little known museum that is actually a serious gem.
GO!
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yep, I sure have experienced better.
So, my boyfriend and I decided to take up the "Free to MA residents" Sunday morning admission. I read the reviews and didn't really expect it to be large or modern. And man, it sure wasn't!
This is more like a couple of rooms of collections. No real hands-on stuff.. and hardly any information, facts, etc next to the display items.
The taxidermy area smelled like a great grandma's attic. The animals were falling apart.
The glass flower exhibit was set up like a school library... I mean, sure, it's awesome work... but I mean, I just wasn't into staring at fake plant/flower anatomy for more than 5 minutes. Also, these are mostly plants/greens. No brightly colored flowers or anything like that.
The Mineral Hall is a large room with many minerals on display. Some were amazing. But again, I don't think we spent more than 15 minutes in that room. Kind of repetitive.
The Arthropod exhibit is what I was mostly interested in seeing and ended up slightly disappointed. They didn't really have the vast collection I thought they would. There wasn't really anything to read when looking at them, either.
The Climate Change Exhibit I can't really vouch for... we only went in there because a massive amount of kids stormed the gem room and we needed to escape.
I am with others - I don't understand why Harvard can't update its collections... I mean, the animals were literally falling apart.
I also have no idea how kids would find this exciting for more than 5 minutes.
But hey, It was free.
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Way bigger than I thought it would be. Lots of scary and funny stuffed animals, whale bones and birds galore. Pacific islands stuff and rocks with glitter inside.
Come for the unbelievably beautiful exhibit of glass flowers, stay for the fossils of prehistoric creatures and other treasures of natural history. Admission is free every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
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A little out of the way for a downtown Boston visitor, but totally worth going out of your way for. They had an exhibit of glass flowers while we were there. These were incredibly detailed and realistic flowers that were, amazingly, made out of glass. Some were over 100 years old. It was quite a collection. As works of art, it shows an insane dedication to craft, and they are also valuable as for scientific reference. For all intents and purposes, you might as well be looking at the real flower itself, as it existed a hundred years ago. There were other permanent exhibitions that were good, but not as good as the flowers. All kinds of taxidermied animals. Many with their mouths wide open to show the teeth, which results in a lot of comical looks on the poor animals' faces.
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An out-of-state friend was visiting, and professed and interest in seeing the glass flowers here. Honestly, I never would've gone if not for him.
I have a terrible sense of direction. I mean, I could get lost walking home if I didn't pay attention. Fortunately, Harvard Square has an information booth. We asked how to get to the museum and he pointed us through the Harvard Yard. It was a nice walk on a warm day, and even better was running through the fountain (..at the science building..? Not sure exactly where it was.) to cool down. Yes, I enjoy acting like a five-year-old.
Since we were visiting on a Sunday morning, it was free. (Actually, it was free for me, but they just assumed he also lived in Massachusetts since we were together. Hey, no complaints here, although he would've paid.) The glass flowers.. now, I didn't actually know what they were going to look like. I didn't realize the amount of detail that was put into them. I was shocked at how real everything looked. But, by the end, I wasn't as amazed. There's a lot to look at in that room, but it could only hold my interest for so long.
We spent most of the time we had looking at the glass flowers, but we also checked out the collection of rocks, stuffed birds, fossils... maybe something else, too, but I can't quite remember. All told, we were there for maybe two hours, but I wish we had more time to explore because we didn't see everything.
Four stars mostly because it's free, and something worth checking out.
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This place was total disappointment for me and my 2 friends. The exhibits were lame and so small-scale. This museum was a total waste of my time and money.
i love this place -even the very old and worn out fake looking but real stuffed exotic animals - fun place to bring kids for the dinosaurs etc..but also fun for us grown-ups. They are known mostly for the glass flowers which, while totally cool, should be dusted off now and then. My personal fave is the minerals room - gorgeous!! Nice layout, friendly staff and it's FREE on Sunday mornings which is great!
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My mom and stepdad were in town this weekend, and i was racking my brain trying to think of interesting places to take them. They've both been to Boston on numerous occasions and have seen the more common attractions: Museum of Science, MFA, aquarium, etc., so I wanted something a little different. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon the Natural History Museum, so off we went. It's a little hard to get to by public transportation, although it is within walking distance of Harvard Square. I liked how the HNMH is not heavily trafficked like the Museum of Science and aquarium (which each have their merits, but I can tolerate precocious youngsters and cumbersome strollers for only so long). We saw an amazing exhibit of glass flowers created back in the 19th century by a man and his two sons who were in the glass business. These flowers were so lifelike and real-looking; they looked as if they had just been plucked and stuck in a display case. There are all manners of dead preserved animals, and an awesome array of rocks. Yes, that's right, I said rocks. Some of the colors and textures of said rocks, however, are truly stunning.
So if you're looking for a fun but educational attraction that's a little more off the beaten path, I'd suggest HNMH. Bonus: I used my out-of-state, expired-for-two-years student ID and got the student discount. Score!
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The mood is somber and the corridors dark, but there is so much to learn here. I recommend doing a quick tour of the animal displays with family, then come back sans kids for a lengthy visit and just wander around and appreciate our world without the glitz and glamour.
I love this place.
We went on a Sunday in winter and couldn't get enough of it. The glass flowers are the most amazing pieces of craft I have ever seen - they are incredibly realistic and detailed and you would never know they are made of glass. They were made by a German artist and his son for teaching purposes (hence the realism and detail - they had an exclusive contract with Harvard to work on these flowers), and only a small part of the complete collection is on display. I think nobody today knows exactly how they made them - sadly, the technique died together with the son.
The rest of the museum is also pretty awesome - tons of stuffed animals, rocks, etc, although some of the labels are in urgent need of updating - some of the information is so old that it's actually false now. Pretty embarrassing for an institution with the resources of Harvard, I'd say. (Minus one star for that.)
Still, definitely a must-see!
i've been here with both large groups of kids and smaller groups of adults. i have to say i am a fan. not every museum has to be huge... infact i enjoy a small museum now and again. as it is, there's more to see than one can handle in an afternoon. i'm also a fan of the peabody and i think the folks working there are pretty great- well informed, pleasant and good-humored.
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Another excursion with my girlfriend this time here to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Located on campus at Harvard University, this museum is quite an experience especially if your a first time visitor as I was, (My girlfriend had visited the museum in the past), we went in and paid the $9.00 entrance fee, which is quite a nice fee for all you get to see. We headed up stairs to the third floor, and entered the glass flower exhibit, which if you have not been in there, is quite something to see, I had heard about this exhibit, and it is not at all what I expected. I'll explain, all the plants that were presented were absolutely amazing, looking at them, you never would know that they were made of glass if you didn't realise that you were looking at them. The details and colours were right on, every detail of the over 800 species of plant were stunning...you would actually think you were looking at an actual non-glass replica of any particular plant.
As we walked through the various other parts of the museum, you are presented with a plethora of various animals, (quite a collection of various taxidermy animals), as well as some creepy crawlies, (various anthropoids, as well as a number of other specimens in bell jars with formaldehyde). There was also a decent sized fish tank filled with formaldehyde that had a single large fish on a holder sort of staring at you. I humourously commented to my girlfriend that I think that the meat on this fish might be rather tough, she went on to comment that the formaldehyde would also effect the flavour of the fish...I chuckled and agreed with her.
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