Overall, a decent museum, but much worse after the recent 2024 remodeling
Cleveland Museum of Natural History的点评
点评:There still are some very good artifacts of paleontology and other scientific areas, but the new remodeling has resulted in an enormous amount of wasted space that seems to have been left empty for decorative purposes at the expense of the actual content. Instead of the previous smaller thematic rooms, most of the collection is crammed into one large curving hall that has very poor flow and is quite confusing and incoherently arranged in some places. (On the plus side, the live animal exhibit is now more spacious, to the benefit of its inhabitants.) A great deal of material seems to have been placed in storage or removed entirely as a result of the renovation, for example, the ethnographic exhibits that previously had been my favorite part of CMNH. (Given the relatively high cost of entry — about the same as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, judging from my last visit there), this has resulted in a kind of shrinkflation). The quantity and quality of explanatory texts seem to have been reduced and dumbed down considerably since our last visit before the renovation. Perhaps this was meant to make the museum more accessible to children, but unfortunately the resulting impression is something more like a large nature center than a major museum.
If I had never visited a natural history museum before, I would give this one a score of five. On the other hand, my familiarity with other natural history museums and my great disappointment at the results of the long-awaited renovation initially had tempted me to bestow a score of three. So a reasonable compromise score would be four.
翻译:博物馆里仍然有一些非常好的古生物学和其他科学领域的文物,但新的改建导致了大量空间被浪费,这些空间似乎被空置以牺牲实际内容为代价,用于装饰目的。大部分藏品都挤在一个弯曲的大大厅里,而不是像以前那样分成几个较小的主题室,这个大厅的流动性很差,有些地方安排得相当混乱和不连贯。(从好的方面来看,活体动物展览现在更宽敞了,这对里面的动物来说很方便。)由于这次翻修,很多材料似乎被存放起来或完全搬走了,例如,以前我最喜欢的 CMNH 部分——民族志展览。(考虑到相对较高的入场费——从我上次去那里来看,大约和纽约大都会艺术博物馆一样高),这导致了某种缩水)。自从我们上次在翻修前参观以来,解释性文字的数量和质量似乎已经大大减少和简化了。也许这是为了让博物馆更方便儿童参观,但不幸的是,最终的印象更像是一个大型自然中心,而不是一个大型博物馆。
如果我以前从未参观过自然历史博物馆,我会给这个博物馆打五分。另一方面,我对其他自然历史博物馆的熟悉以及我对期待已久的翻修结果的极大失望最初诱使我给出三分。所以合理的折衷分数是四分。