🎭 10 most unusual museums in the world
I don't know about you, but most of the museums I visited were boring. No, at first everything is very interesting, but after 10 minutes the brain is overwhelmed with an excess of facts, and the guide’s voice makes you sleepy. But it turns out that there are many museums in the world whose purpose is completely different. They can surprise, make you laugh, give an interesting experience, or even shock. We have selected 10 unusual museums where you will definitely not be bored.
Museum of Failure, New York, USA
The museum was opened by psychologist Samuel West in the city of Helsingborg, Sweden. However, after litigation between partners, it closed in 2019. Today the museum travels all over the world and is wildly popular. In New York, the exhibition will last until June 18.
The exhibits of the museum are unsuccessful business products that, for various reasons, did not find their consumers and failed miserably. We could see some of them on store shelves and even use them.
However, most of the exhibits immediately raise the question: how did anyone even think of doing this? For example, forked drumsticks or a wavy ping-pong table. Well, how do you like lasagna from Colgate? Surprisingly, the world famous toothpaste manufacturer sincerely believed in success in the new field.
Mistakes were made in different areas: design, marketing, technology. But the essence of the exhibition is to show that failure is not the end of the story, but an incentive to create a truly good product.
Tickets can be purchased on the official website for prices ranging from $18 to $30, depending on age and date selected.
Disgusting Food Museum, Malmo, Sweden
Like the previous project, this one also belongs to Samuel West. The exhibition presents, in the author's opinion, the most disgusting products in the world. Most are from Asian and European countries. All exhibits are not a figment of someone’s imagination, but real dishes that are eaten in one or another corner of the world.
This is the well-known fermented herring Surströmming from Sweden. Videos of its opening flooded the Internet. Or cheese with live larvae from Sardinia. Adventurous travelers will appreciate the opportunity to smell and even taste some of these notorious products. Fortunately, upon entry, each visitor is given special bags in case of vomiting.
According to the founder of the museum, the exhibition was created to show that the feeling of disgust is only in the eyes of the beholder. Tickets can be purchased on the official website from $6 to $19 depending on the age of the visitor.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland
The museum displays more than 300 penises from more than 100 mammals that live in Iceland and beyond. Visitors can also appreciate a variety of crafts from Icelandic folklore dedicated to the reproductive organ. According to the founder, there is even an elf's penis on display. However, according to legend, these creatures are invisible, so you won’t be able to see the exhibit.
The largest specimen is the penis of a blue whale, 170 cm long and weighing 5 kg. And the smallest one once belonged to a hamster and is only 2 mm long. You can only see it with a magnifying glass. Looking at all this, you understand that everything in the world is relative.
The museum, unfortunately or fortunately, cannot boast of the presence of a human penis. However, he has interesting souvenirs in his collection. For example, the Icelandic national handball team left casts of their erect qualities especially for fans. True, for some reason without signatures.
You will have to pay $11 to enter the museum.
Sex Museum (Sexmuseum), Amsterdam, Netherlands
Having seen enough of animal penises, you can safely move on to more familiar things. The Sex Museum in Amsterdam is not the only one of its kind, but it is one of the most popular. About 500 thousand people visit it annually. Despite the fact that the museum is more of an entertaining nature, inside you can glean a lot of useful information and see how attitudes towards intimate issues have changed over the centuries.
In the halls on several floors, filled to the brim with all kinds of gizmos, you can find literally everything related to sex. These include magazines, porcelain figurines, and various devices for pleasure. The museum even has its own Red Light District.
- Personal experience: hen and stag parties in Amsterdam
- Discovering the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul
Many installations demonstrate people's attitudes towards sexuality and sexual intercourse at different times and in different cultures. There are ivory dildos, a Chinese sex manual for newlyweds, and pornographic photo cards from the 19th century. Surprisingly, this part of human life has not undergone any fundamental changes.
Tickets can be purchased on the official website for 9€.
Muse Underwater Museum (MUSA), Cancun, Mexico
This museum is most likely the most unusual of our collection. In order to view all the exhibits from all sides, you need to dive under water with scuba diving. Five hundred life-size human sculptures were placed in three underwater galleries off the coast of Mexico at depths of 3 and 6 meters.
The museum's goal is to highlight the complex relationship between humans and the environment, and to raise awareness of the conservation of coral reefs. On the seabed, realistic sculptures look creepy but attractive. The very first ones have long been overgrown with corals and look more like sinister pirates from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”.
For those who are afraid of diving, excursions are available in a glass-bottomed boat. However, you can truly appreciate the beauty of the exhibits on display only by diving under the water.
Tickets can be purchased on the official website. Diving will cost from $95 to $145. Boat excursion – from $50 to $74.
Color Museum (Color Factory), New York, Chicago, Houston, USA
It would seem that what could be interesting about color? We see it around us every day, and you don’t have to go to a museum to see it. However, the creators of Color Factory think differently. The purpose of the exhibition is to show how color affects a person’s mood. On an area of almost 2000 m2 there are interactive colorful installations dedicated to the concept of color. Some of them can be interacted with.
For example, in a huge blue room you can splash around in balloons. In another room, visitors are invited to draw something on the walls themselves. There is a dance floor flooded with bright lights, and hundreds of colorful ribbons hanging from the ceiling. All elements are designed to do one thing – lift your spirits.
This is also an almost ideal place for photo shoots. Especially for this purpose, cameras are installed in each room, which visitors can launch using a QR code on the ticket. Photos will be sent by email later. This service is included in the ticket price, but if you are not sure of the reliability of the equipment, you can always use your smartphone’s camera.
Tickets can be purchased on the official website for $39 or $45 depending on the day of the week.
Museum of Bad Art, Boston, USA
Three galleries near Boston, in the cities of Dedham, Somerville and Brookline, house a museum of bad art. In it, visitors can see more than 500 works by artists who tried to create a masterpiece, but failed.
The very first painting, “Lucy in a Field of Flowers,” was found in the trash by museum founder Scott Wilson. He bought some works in thrift stores for pennies. What they all have in common is that the authors did not deliberately try to make their work bad. They put their soul into it.
According to Scott, bad art should have a right to exist. It shows us that it is difficult to succeed the first time. And every masterpiece is preceded by many failures and setbacks. It is thanks to them that a person does not stop there and moves towards his goal.
Studying the exhibits will definitely lift your spirits, and the guide’s funny comments will only add fuel to the fire.
Entrance to the museum is free.
Museum of the Human Body (Corpus), Leiden, Netherlands
Located near the city of Leiden, the Corpus Museum of the Human Body is hard to miss. After all, this is a 35-meter orange man sitting on a two-story platform. Having risen on the escalator to the knee, visitors enter the body through a wound in the leg. The purpose of the excursion is to introduce people to their own anatomy.
The museum is equipped with modern technology and is more like an exciting 5D attraction. The premises look like an organ from the inside. You may witness the sandwich overcooking and even jump on your tongue. All this is accompanied by sounds that are characteristic of the process in the body.
Various interactive entertainments are provided for children, allowing them to understand through play how individual parts of our body function.
Tickets can be purchased on the official website for 21.95€
CupNoodles Museum , Yokohama, Japan
Instant noodles are so popular in Japan that they have even been called the main invention of the 20th century. After such a title, it would have been a sin not to create a museum. It is dedicated not only to the noodles themselves, but also to their creator, Momofuku Ando. It was he who invented the very first instant noodles, Chicken Ramen, in 1958.
There is plenty to do on the four floors of the museum. First you come to an exhibition where more than 3 thousand instant noodles from all over the world are presented. There is a cinema, as well as a room where Momofuku’s house in which he conducted his experiments was accurately recreated. They want to convey a message to visitors: you don’t have to have money and technology to invent something outstanding.
A whole obstacle course in the form of noodles has been designed for children, where they can learn the entire cooking process in a playful way. Adults will be able to prepare and take home their own unique instant noodles for just 300 yen (6.5 rubles). A cafe and souvenir shop are also available.
Ticket price is 500 yen (10 rubles).
- Life hacks: how to save money in Japan
- Walking around Tokyo: the best places for anime fans and more
Museum of Enduring Beauty, Malacca, Malaysia
This museum may not be the most popular, but it is certainly one of the strangest and creepiest. The exhibition presents exhibits that reflect beauty standards from antiquity to the present in different cultures.
When you see what girls were subjected to in order to be considered beautiful, you are a little horrified. For example, foot binding to reduce the size of the foot. The painful procedure was accompanied by broken bones and in some cases led to disability. However, the bride's prestige depended on the size of her feet. How do you like deforming the skull, lengthening the neck with rings, or filing teeth? This is only a small part of all executions.
All the techniques presented in the beauty museum are still used in many regions and tribes. Although some of the methods may be considered barbaric, the museum will allow you to look at beauty from different points of view.
Ticket price: $0.5