Museum Visiting Series #2.1 — Trip to D.C.
Air and Space Museum, Botanic Garden, Newseum, Holocaust Museum, Natural History Museum
Published in
4 min readNov 2, 2016
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
- Date Visited: Oct 27 2016 [Thu], 1:45–2:50pm
- Overview: Really popular among all groups of people, young and old, from different regions around the globe. Had ‘Show & Tell’ or ‘Science Fair’ sort of stations where miniature models of airplanes are displayed to be touched and played around with assistant museum staffs to answer any questions or to talk about artifacts. Because most of the artifacts are really big, fitting and displaying them in an appealing way in such limited space seem a big challenge.
- People: Lots of foreigners. Many tour group with their own guide who speaks their mother language. Student groups wearing same t-shirts. Many family groups from both the U.S. and other countries.
- Visitor Behavior: Many were just sitting down on benches waiting for others to finish going through the galleries.
United States Botanic Garden
- Date Visited: Oct 28 2016 [Fri], 12:30–12:50pm
- Overview: Saw many families with toddlers taking photos. Everyone in the docent tour were seniors (60+) and very enthusiastic about orchids and flowers. An educational class was in session. Saw many people resting inside the greenhouse due to cold weather.
Newseum
- Date Visited: Oct 28 2016 [Fri], 3:30–5:10pm
- Purpose of Visit: Entertainment
- Overview: All the materials the museum had were really interesting and educational. Use of new technology was really impressive—touch screens, UGCs, museum apps and VR. Even though I was not impressed by the 4D theater, I really enjoyed how Newseum tried different methods to engage visitors and show the contents they have. Most of the visitors (approximately 90%) were highly engaged and took long time to go through the materials displayed at the Pulizer Prize Photographs Gallery even though it was simply displayed with high quality photos and long explanations next to the photo. Outside museums many people, including non-visitors, took long time to read and discuss about the news articles displayed outside circumference of the museum.
- People: Didn’t see any visitors of old generation. Saw many students.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Date Visited: Oct 29 2016 [Sat], 12:30–1:40pm
- Overview: Museum presents Holocaust in chronological order mainly with photos and text explanations. Museum experience is somewhat immersive where the whole journey start by picking up an identification booklet before entering very first museum space. Also how visitors enter the museum gallery was interested how a staff give brief intro how to enjoy the museum. In the gallery space, all the materials are really well explained with great detail but because the materials were really long and the space is pretty narrow, often the gallery space is clogged with people who are trying to read things. Because no photo taking was prohibited, visitors—except the ones who were reading—didn’t stay in one spot long enough to annoy other visitors. I really enjoyed the visit but because the information there were too much after going though one floor, I was overwhelmed and tired to know there are 3 more floors to go that I skipped the rest of the exhibition.
- People: All ages. Generally English speaking people.
- Visitor Behavior: Most of the visitors were engaged in reading all the materials that are provided by the museum.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- Date Visited: Oct 29 2016 [Sat], 2:00–4:00pm
- Purpose of Visit: Watch IMAX film
- Overview: I was there for the theater which I enjoyed but felt very commercial. Typical visitor types are family groups with young children, foreigners and students.
