Description
This stunningly illustrated, oversized book is best read while lying on the floor, allowing you to turn its vividly colored pages more easily. Translated from French, the author Eva Bensard introduces the readers to thirteen remarkable museums. Some may be familiar to the reader, while others are either distant or relatively recent. Familiar ones, such as the Vatican Museum. The Louvre, the Hermitage, the Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian are easily recognized, but others, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, the Palace Museum in China, and several others, were introduced here. Each of the extraordinary illustrations fills a double page with a pictorial version of the museum building, crowded with a medley of Disney-like viewers of all ages. Significant art holdings are described, the architects are noted, and comments are made regarding historical records. The reader is escorted through the Palace Museum in Beijing, or learns that the Louvre was originally a fortified castle for French kings built around the year 1200. There is a “living wall’ of 15,000 plants in a vertical garden at the Quad Branly Museum in Paris. Full of fascinating facts and provocative, quirky designs, this is a museum page turner.
