Ten Museums You Can Virtually Visit
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, museums and cultural institutions across the globe are closing their doors to the public. But while visitors can no longer roam the halls of these institutions, virtual tools and online experiences mean anyone with an internet connection can browse world-class collections from home.
The Smithsonian Institution, of course, has its own array of virtual tours, experiences and educational resources. Among the other experiences on offer: Scroll through an extensive trove of 3-D photographs from the Minneapolis Institute of Art, explore online exhibits from the National Women’s History Museum in Virginia, or admire artistic masterpieces from the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Spain. Additionally, around 2,500 museums and galleries, including the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, are offering virtual tours and presenting online collections via the Google Arts and Culture portal.
For those in search of armchair travel inspiration, Smithsonian magazine has compiled a list of ten museums that have found new ways to fulfill their critical mission of cultivating creativity and spreading knowledge.
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
Home to the world’s second largest private collection of art, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza owns masterpieces by giants of virtually every art movement—to name just a few, Jan van Eyck, Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Picasso and Dalí. To spotlight these artistic treasures, the Madrid museum offers an array of multimedia resources. Users can take a virtual tour of the entire building (or a thematic tour covering such topics as food, sustainability, fashion and even “inclusive love”); browse current and closed exhibits; and watch behind-the-scenes videos featuring interviews, lectures and technical studies.
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
Visitors look at a site-specific art project called Home Within Home by artist Suh Do-Ho during a media event before the opening of a branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, in Seoul.Committed to offering a culturally rewarding experience since opening its doors in 2013, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul (MMCA) has established itself as a prominent cultural platform and leader in Korean art. In collaboration with Google Arts and Culture, the MMCA is now offering a virtual tour of its collections. This experience takes visitors through six floors of modern and contemporary art from Korea and around the world. Those seeking an educational walkthrough can follow along by tuning into curator-led recorded tours.
The Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House, established in cooperation with the famed diarist’s father, Otto, in 1957, strives to inform the public through educational programs and tours of the building where the teenager and her family hid during World War II. To delve deeper into the story detailed in Frank’s diary, online visitors can watch videos about her life; virtually explore the Secret Annex; look around the house where she lived before going into hiding; and view the Google Arts and Culture exhibition “Anne Frank: Her Life, Her Diary, Her Legacy.”
The Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums, the Anne Frank House and the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City are among the many cultural institutions with online offerings. Home to some 70,000 artworks and artifacts spanning centuries, continents and mediums, the 5.5-hectare Vatican Museums are among Italy’s finest cultural institutions. Virtual visitors can tour seven different sections of the sprawling complex, enjoying 360-degree views of the Sistine Chapel, perhaps best known for Michelangelo’s ceiling and Last Judgment fresco; Raphael’s Rooms, where the Renaissance artist’s School of Athens resides; and lesser-known but equally sumptuous locations such as the Pio Clementino Museum, the Niccoline Chapel and the Room of the Chiaroscuri.The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
“Since its founding, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has maintained a belief in the transformative powers of art,” reads the Manhattan museum’s website. “In uncertain times such as these, art can provide both solace and inspiration.”
In a nod to this mission, the Guggenheim, a cultural center and educational institution devoted to modern and contemporary art, has opened up its collections to online visitors. The building itself, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is an architectural masterpiece; audiences can listen to an audio guide of its history or journey up its spiral halls via a Google Arts and Culture virtual tour. For those who want to take a deeper dive into the museum’s collections, the Guggenheim’s online database features some 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists.
The London National Gallery
Take a virtual tour of 18 gallery rooms, enjoy a panoramic view of the museum’s halls and click through a wide collection of artistic masterpieces using the National Gallery’s virtual tools. Based in London, this museum houses more than 2,300 works reflecting the Western European tradition between the 13th and 19th centuries. Collection highlights include Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers and J.M.W Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire.
NASA Research Centers
For those fascinated by space exploration, NASA offers online visitors the chance to take a behind-the-scenes look inside its facilities. Visitors can take virtual tours of the organization’s research centers, where aeronautic technology is developed and tested, and learn more about the functions of different facilities. The online tour of Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, covers 16 locations, including the Flight Research Hangar and the Katherine Johnson Computational Research Facility. The virtual tour of the Glenn Research Center in Ohio, meanwhile, takes visitors inside facilities such as the Supersonic Wind Tunnel, where high speed flight is researched, and the Zero Gravity Research Facility, where microgravity research is conducted.
The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City
Carved statue outside the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico CityHome to the world’s largest ancient Mexican art collection, in addition to an extensive collection of ethnographic objects, the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City preserves the country’s indigenous legacy and celebrates its cultural heritage. In collaboration with Google Arts and Culture, the museum has made some 140 items available for online visitors to explore from their homes. Among the objects available for viewing are the famous Aztec calendar sun stone and the striking jade death mask of ancient Mayan king Pakal the Great.
San Francisco’s De Young Museum
One of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the de Young Museum’s new copper-clad building in Golden Gate Park combines art with architecture. The collection features a priceless array of American art dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries, as well as artifacts from Africa and Oceania, modern and contemporary art, costumes, and textiles. Through Google Arts and Culture, the de Young offers 11 exhibits, including “Cult of the Machine” and “Ruth Asawa: A Working Life.”
The Louvre
Housed in a large fortress along the banks of Paris’ Seine River, the Louvre regularly tops rankings of the most-visited museums in the world, with millions of visitors flocking to its halls in search of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and other instantly recognizable artworks. Virtual tours offered by the Louvre include a walkthrough of the Egyptian antiquities wing and a view of the museum’s moat, which was built in 1190 to protect Paris from invaders.
Nothing quite compares with the feeling of standing in front of an artistic masterpiece or a towering Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, but virtual exhibitions and museum tours are about as close as you can get to recreating the experience. Science lovers can survey the National Museum of Natural History’s permanent, current and past exhibitions, including the Butterfly Pavilion, the Deep Time Hall of Fossils and the Hall of Human Origins, while arts and culture fans can tour the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Asian Art. Other options range from founder James Smithson’s Smithsonian Castle crypt to the Enid A. Haupt Garden, the Smithsonian Marine Station Wet Laboratory and the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center.
In addition to highlighting virtual views, many Smithsonian museums offer exhibitions optimized for digital audiences. The National Museum of the American Indian has exhibitions on “The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire,” “Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections,” and “Patriot Nations: Native Americans in Our Nation’s Armed Forces,” among others. You can also check out the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s “A Look at the Black Fashion Museum Collection and Designer Peter Day,” the National Portrait Gallery’s “One Life: Marian Anderson” ASL tour and “Outwin: American Portraiture Today” portal, Smithsonian Libraries’ “Exploring the Meaning of Place in ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro,’” the National Museum of American History’s “Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life,” the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s “Willi Smith Community Archive,” the Air and Space Museum’s “Outside the Spacecraft,” the Smithsonian Latino Center’s “D.C. Latino Street Murals,” and the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service’s “Men of Change.”
Podcasts, videos and lecture recordings also hold valuable lessons for listeners. The Hirshhorn Museum has an “Artist Talks” lecture series, while the Air and Space Museum offers an archive of recorded lectures like “Women of Apollo” and “The Future of Lunar Exploration.” Five seasons of the Smithsonian’s “Sidedoor” podcast, including episodes on the “worst video game of all time” and underwear in outer space, are available for streaming at any time. Other Smithsonian podcasts range from the Museum of American History’s “History Explorer” and “Prototype Online: Inventive Voices” shows to “AirSpace,” “Portraits” and “Freer Thinking. The Smithsonian Channel has a diverse catalog of television and web series—among others, “Spy Wars With Damian Lewis,” “Wild Inside the National Zoo” and “Humboldt: Epic Explorer.”
Thanks to Smithsonian Open Access, anyone with an internet connection can not only browse, but “use, transform and distribute” some 2.8 million high-resolution images from the collections without restrictions. Among the artifacts highlighted on the Open Access portal are Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Vega 5B plane, a portrait of Pocahontas, a chunk of Smithsonite and the Apollo 11 command module. For inspiration on remixing these and other artifacts in the public domain, visit the Open Access Remix page, which lists projects including Georgetown University students’ laser-cut clocks, a three-part sculpture titled Mediated and the How to Make a Collagasaurus workbook.
Another option for makers and creatives is the Smithsonian’s 3-D digitization portal, which features interactive models from a pantheon of fields. Take a closer look at Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit, a pair of boots from Broadway musical The Wiz and fossils found on National Park Service lands, then print your very own scale models of a T. rex skull, a coral skeleton and a “Cosmic Buddha” sculpture. For tips on 3-D printing from home, check out Smithsonian magazine’s November 2019 guide, which features historical background on various digitized offerings, tips for printing specific models and download free coloring pages from Smithsonian Libraries.
The Smithsonian’s virtual presence comprises millions of educational resources for learners of all ages. Younger students (and their teachers or caregivers) can visit the Smithsonian Learning Lab’s newly launched distance learning resources hub, which highlights offerings from STEM games and simulations to American Women’s History Initiative’s Because of Her Story articles and comprehensive lesson plans.
Find the latest updates by checking the #SmithsonianEdu hashtag, and browse Smithsonian magazine’s roundup of educational resources for ideas on where to start. Though many of these tools are geared toward pre-K-12 students, older learners will also find them engaging; examples of adult-friendly activities circulating on social media include reading “rare and notable editions” of classic books via Smithsonian Libraries’ Digital Library, checking out the National Museum of Natural History’s Ocean and Human Origins portals, and watching a collection of narrated short stories from around the world.
Other avenues of exploration include the Smithsonian Transcription Center’s database of ongoing and completed projects, from “personal diaries and scientific fieldbooks to playbills and sound recordings,” and the Because of Her Story campaign, which draws on articles, quizzes, videos and book excerpts to “create, disseminate, and amplify the historical record of the accomplishments of American women”—a mission that holds particular resonance during Women’s History Month. The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Collection Stories, meanwhile, invites staff to “share their interpretation of the collections they find most powerful from a variety of perspectives.”
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