Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Unexpected disappointment - Royal Ontario Museum



 A highlight and lowlight of our first week in Toronto were the Royal Ontario Museum- ROM and the Toronto Zoo. Ela did not like the museum at all and Sami found it too big. There were a few sections that were great but otherwise- "boooh" to the curators.
Besides the highlights that I will mention soon, the museum has such an all over the place architecutre that it was very difficult to find sections, the collections seemed very random (allbeit intersting) and so selected that it was not possible to get the big picture if you don't know it. Explanations were poorly placed and seemed without context. The worst part was the highly praised super section with dinosaurs which was very disappointing. The place seemed also very inappropriate/unintersting for kids (if I compare it e.g. to the Museum of Natural History in Helsinki).
A section I was looking for and by the title seemed intersting was "Korea". As this is not a specialized museum, like arts, biology or history I would assume a good overview of how the Korean nations developed, how poeple lived and dressed. But what you get is a MASSIVE exhibition of ceramics. It was pleasant and nice too look at but boy, there is only so and so much ceramics one can take is a day. And conencted to China and Japan with 3921032 more vases, I was underwhelmed!

And worst- they have somebody that is called "Head of Visitor Experience"....?!

To the posivites: Neither me nor Sami have ever seen such an extensive and great to watch minerals selection. really valuable ones, a really big diamond and many good explanations were part of it. (click on one of them to see all pictures in big).



The tallest stake in the world (Marterpfahl) was displayed across several floors in the stairways.


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