Museum Monday

Museum Monday: at the BEACH

July 13, 2015Harriet Baskasfamily travel, Museum MondayNational Building Museum, the BEACH

Courtesy San Diego Air & Space Museum Archive – via Flickr Common

Can’t make it to the beach this summer?

You’re in luck.

If you can make it to Washington, D.C.’s, there’s a temporary beach at the National Building Museum in the museum’s Great Hall.

Built in partnership with Snarkitecture, the BEACH covers 10,000 square feet and includes an “ocean” of nearly one million recyclable translucent plastic balls. Built inside an enclosure, the temporary beach has beach chairs and umbrellas along a 50-foot wide “shoreline” and a mirrored wall that creates “a seemingly infinite reflected expanse.”

Visitors can “swim” in the ocean, hang out on the “shore,” play beach games, or dangle their feet in the “ocean” off the pier. And like a real beach, there’s even a snack concession with cool treats.

Here’s a time-lapse of the beach being built:

The beach will be open through September 7, 2015 and tickets include admission to all museum exhibitions. More details about the National Building Museum and the BEACH here.

Step on it! Oregon’s World of Speed Museum

June 1, 2015Harriet BaskasMuseum Monday, Museumshydroplanes, motorsports, NASAR, racing, World of Speed Museum

Petersen & Fitz Top Fuel Dragster, nicknamed -The Northwest Terror- after driver Herm Petersen. Courtesy World of Speed Museum

It’s not just airplanes that go fast…

There’s a new museum for horsepower hounds, speed fiends and fans of NASCAR, the Indianapolis 500 and anything with a motor that goes fast.

Located 15 miles south of Portland, Oregon, in Wilsonville, the World of Speed Museum is home to nearly 100 historic cars and motorcycles, along with race-themed simulators and a land speed record timeline.

A shrine to speed, the 80,000-square-foot museum is the first to document the history of motor sports in the Pacific Northwest. It also covers the story of motorsports that have roots in other parts of the country.

“You can see Nascar cars at the Nascar Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can see Indy cars in Indianapolis, and you can see drag cars at Pomona (California),” said museum curator Ron Huegli. “We’ve got it all under one roof, including two notable hydroplanes on loan from the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum near Seattle.”

U-60 Miss Thirftway Hydroplane Boat and U-1 Miss Budweiser Hydroplane Boat.

U-60 Miss Thriftway Hydroplane Boat and U-1 Miss Budweiser Hydroplane Boat. Courtesy World of Speed Museum

The museum’s Daytona display is a winner: a 15-foot-tall, 44-foot-wide structure built with the exact incline of the original 2.5-mile long tri-oval speedway in Florida.

_World of Speed Interior_NASCAR and Daytona Banking

NASCAR and Daytona Banking. World of Speed Museum

The four restored vehicles mounted in the exhibit are from legendary Nascar drivers, and include Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s 2000 Chevy Impala, Jim Vandiver’s 1974 Dodge Charger, Terry Labonte’s 1988 Chevy Monte Carlo and Cale Yarborough’s 1979 Oldsmobile 442.

Other gems on display at the museum (some are on loan, while others are in the permanent collection) include Mickey Thompson’s famous record-breaking Assault and Indianapolis race cars. Both were built by Rolla Vollstedt in the basement shop at his home in Portland.

Rolla Vollstedt Indy Car driven by Len Sutton in the 1965 Indy 500. World of Speed Museum

“We also have ‘Old Number One’ on display in our showcase salon area,” said Huegli. “It’s a 1929 Bentley built as a race car that took first place at the 24-hour Le Mans race in 1929 and 1930. It’s not something many people have seen beyond looking at it on the Internet.”

1929 Bentley-Old Number One- built as a race car. In 1929, the car took first place at Le Mans with Woolf Barnato and Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin behind the wheel. World of Speed Museum

In addition to three real race cars set up as simulators (a 1962 Lotus Formula racing simulator, Adrian Fernandez’s 1995 Lola Indy Car and Johnny Benson’s 1998 Nascar Ford Taurus) the museum also has a gallery celebrating classic songs about fast cars including Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88,” The Beach Boys’ “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” and Commander Cody’s classic “Hot Rod Lincoln.”

Gearhead factor aside, there are some broader themes the World of Speed Museum is hoping to drive home.

“Motorsports represent American ingenuity,” said Huegli. “You’re presented with a problem and you solve it in a quest to go faster, which is the whole idea behind racing.”

There’s also the business side of motorsports. Nascar’s top earners pull down more than $170 million in aggregate earnings, endorsements and other income streams, and Nascar itself commands billions from television rights, in spite of faltering viewership.

“It’s huge,” said Huegli. “It’s hard to add it all up, but there are ticket sales at events, the billions of dollars generated by manufacturing related to motorsports, the budgets of all the race teams and the billions of dollars companies spend on sponsorships and advertising related to motorsports racing.”

Add in Formula 1 racing, which had revenue last year of close to $2 billion alone and, said Huegli, “the zeroes just keep adding up.”

(A slightly different version of my story about the World of Speed Museum first appeared on CNBC.)

Museum Monday: Egyptian Revival at SFO Airport

January 11, 2015Harriet BaskasAirports, Museum Monday, MuseumsEgyptian Revival, SFO airport, SFO Museum

On display at SFO Airport: Egyptian-inspired cigarette packs. Courtesy SFO Museum

The SFO Museum’s newest exhibit at SFO Airport highlights the design style known as Egyptian Revival and features objects ranging from nineteenth-century mantel clocks and ornate Victorian table stands to Art Deco beaded purses and cigarettes and cigarette cases.

Cleopatra, the Rosetta Stone and King Tutankahamun’s tomb are just a few reasons why the West has a thing for Ancient Egypt. And, according to the notes for this exhibit, “No other ancient civilization’s art and architecture has captivated the Western world in quite the same manner,” and influenced everything from commercial buildings, movie theaters, films and opera to decorative arts, clothing, mass-produced items, operas, and advertisements.

Beaded purse c. 1920s From the collection of Jennifer Whitehair – courtesy SFO Museum

Egyptian Revival: An Everlasting Allure is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby at San Francisco International Airport and will be on view through July 5, 2015.

Museum Monday: Up, up and away

January 5, 2015Harriet BaskasAviation history, Museum Mondayballooning, Montgolfier Brothers

A bandbox celebrating the flight of Richard Clayton from Cincinnati, Ohio, 1835 from the Evelyn Way Kendall Ballooning and Early Aviation Collection. Image by Dane Penland, Smithsonian Institution

Today, airplanes take us from here to there in the air.

But back in 1783, traveling by balloon became the big thing.

That’s when the Montgolfier brothers made a hot air balloon out of paper and silk in Paris and took the first free flight carrying a human.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum recently shared news of the acquisition of a collection filled with items celebrating those ballooning times

The Evelyn Way Kendall Ballooning and Early Aviation Collection is filled with art, prints, objects, books, photos and manuscript materials documenting the history of flight from the late 18th to the early 20th century. And while the Air and Space Museum has no set date for exhibiting items from the collection, it has shared a few images.

Enjoy. And wave!

Fan dating to 1783 painted with the image of the first hot air balloons to carry living creatures aloft. Image by Dane Penland, Smithsonian Institution

Museum Monday: Hawaii by Air exhibit

July 28, 2014Harriet BaskasAir Travel, History, Museum Monday, MuseumsHawaii, history, Pan Am, travel, vacations

Courtesy National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Dreaming of a trip to Hawaii?

So, evidently, are the curators at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

They’ve put together “Hawaii by Air,” an exhibition featuring Hawaiian travel posters, photographs and ephemera that explores how air travel to Hawaii developed and grew, how the travel experience evolved along with the airplane and how air travel changed Hawaii.

Also on display: airplane models, airline uniform badges, historic film footage, a high-resolution satellite image of the islands, broadcasts from a vintage Hawaiian radio show and live Hawaiian plants.

National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Hawaii, exhibition notes remind us, is one of the most remote places on Earth. It got its first air service in 1935 and, by 1936 Pan American Airways was delivering passengers on its famous flying clipper ships.

From the exhibition notes:

“Flying to Hawaii was luxurious but expensive; most people still traveled by ocean liner. That changed after World War II, when new propeller-driven airliners and then jets made travel to this remote destination much more common, comfortable and affordable. Hawaii experienced a tourism boom that exceeded all expectations.”

The exhibit runs through July 2015.

National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Museum Monday: aluminum Christmas Trees

November 25, 2013Harriet BaskasExhibits, Holidays, Museum Monday, Museumsaluminum Christmas Trees

Heading to Wisconsin this holiday season?

If you are, be sure to stop by the Wisconsin Historical Museum in Madison to see the largest exhibit of silver, pink, gold and green Evergleam aluminum Christmas trees.

Created by the Aluminum Specialty Company of Manitowoc, WI, in partnership with a company that had patented some of the design elements such as paper tube for storing branches, more than a million Evergleam trees were sold during the 1960s.

According to the museum:

Aluminum trees quickly found their place in contemporary popular culture and soon attracted the attention of critics who proclaimed them symbols of the commercialism of Christmas. In the television special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965), Lucy wanted “the biggest aluminum tree [Charlie Brown] could find, maybe even painted pink.” Charlie ultimately selected a real, but skimpy tree because it better reflected his view of the true spirit of Christmas.

And here’s an interesting tidbit: the museum notes that branches on Evergleam aluminum Christmas trees have a connection to a military item from World War II:

“American airplanes dropped tiny strips of metal, called chaff, to block enemy radar. Evergleams utilized similar finely cut foil, which could be easily twisted into various forms.”

’tis the Season – an exhibit of aluminum Christmas trees will be on display at the Wisconsin Historical Museum in Madison through January 11, 2014.

Nautical arts at SFO Int’l Airport

May 26, 2013Harriet BaskasAirports, Exhibits, Museum Monday, MuseumsNautical arts at SFO Int'l Airport

Lion deck ornament from the Himalaya 1863
Collection of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park , Courtesy SFO Museum

If you’re traveling to or through San Francisco International Airport (SFO), be sure to leave some time to explore the newest exhibit from the SFO Museum: From Ship to Shore: Nautical Arts from the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, on view in Terminal 2 through December.

The exhibit displays ingeniously crafted items made by sailors during long stints at sea and includes masthead ornaments, scrimshaw, fancy ropework, ships-in-bottles, shadowbox half models, a hand-painted sea chest, a whalebone chair and other items on loan from the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

From Ship to Shore: Nautical Arts from the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park; May 2013–November 2013

Shadowbox of a fishing vessel c. 1850–60
Collection of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, courtesy SFO Museum

Scrimshaw c. 1850–1900, orca jawbone, ink
Collection of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, courtesy SFO Museum

Got a second? Time & Navigation exhibit at the Smithsonian

April 28, 2013Harriet Baskasaviation, Museum Monday, Museumsseconds, Smithsonian Institution, Time & Navigation, Wiley Post

The National Air & Space Museum and the National Museum of American History have joined forces to create a new permanent exhibition at the Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. called Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There.

Wiley Post’s Winnie Mae circled the globe two times, shattering previous records.
Photo: Eric Long, Smithsonian

The new exhibit explores how revolutions in timekeeping allowed people to find their way and includes sections about navigation at sea, in the air and in space,

Great on-line resources include a Timeline of Innovation, which notes that a new and more accurate definition of a second – the basic unit of time – was adopted in 1967.

“The new second was based on the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation in an isotope of cesium. Previously, the second had been defined as 1/86,400th of the mean solar day. The change was momentous. Atomic clocks had demonstrated that the unvarying vibrations of atoms were more accurate timekeepers than the irregular daily rotation of the Earth.”

A new second. courtesy National Air & Space Museum

SFO Museum displays vintage United Airlines uniforms

April 7, 2013Harriet BaskasMuseum Monday, Museumsairline uniforms, flight attendants, stewardesses, United Airlines

The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport is currently displaying eighteen United Airlines flight attendant uniforms, some of them dating back to the 1930s.

United We Stand Female Flight Attendant Uniforms of United Airlines

United Airlines stewardess uniform – with cape. 1930-1932. Courtesy SFO Museum

The exhibit is part of a donation of fifty-five flight attendant uniforms given to the SFO Museum by the United Airlines Historical Foundation and which represent the full history of the airline’s company-issued cabin crew attire.

Look for the exhibit – United we Stand: Female Flight Attendant Uniforms of United Airlines – through September 15, 2013 at the San Francisco International Airport Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum in the International Terminal, Departure Level, near the entrant to Boarding Area ‘A.”

United Airlines uniforms 1968-1970 – courtesy SFO Museum

There’s no admission to enter the museum, which is open 10 am to 4:30 pm, Sunday through Friday.

Here’s a link to more images from the exhibition.

Museum Monday: Richard Nixon arm wrestles George McGovern

October 22, 2012Harriet BaskasMuseum Monday, Museumsarm wrestling, George McGovern, Richard Nixon

The death on Sunday, October 21st of George McGovern – who ran an unsuccessful campaign for president in 1972 against Richard Nixon – gives me the opportunity to offer a sneak preview of something that will be in my new book about things museums have that are rarely shown to the public.

Tucked away at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California is a plaster sculpture that depicts Richard Nixon and George McGovern arm-wrestling.

The sculpture was made in 1972 by art students at Lancaster Country Day School in Lancaster, PA. who had just been to see an exhibit of work by George Segal at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They class traveled to Washington, D.C. to deliver the sculpture to the White House and it is now in storage at the Nixon museum in California with what may be thousands of other gifts given to the former president.

A curator told me that the museum can’t put this sculpture on display because it’s been damaged.

“One of the feet is broken. One of the hands is cracked. We’d need a get a conservator to fix the plaster.”