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The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States. Its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and
NHM opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, United States in 1913 as The Museum of History, Science, and Art. The moving force behind it was a museum association founded in 1910. Its distinctive main building with fitted marble walls and domed and colonnaded rotunda, is on The National Register of Historic Places. Additional wings opened in 1925, 1930, 1960, and 1976.
The museum split in 1961 into The Los Angeles County Museum of History and Science and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). LACMA moved to new quarters on Wilshire Boulevard in 1965, and the Museum of History and Science was renamed The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Eventually, the museum renamed itself again, becoming The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
In 2003, the museum began a campaign to transform its exhibits and visitor experience. The museum reopened its seismically retrofitted renovated 1913 rotunda, along with the new ''Age of Mammals'' exhibition in 2010. Its Dinosaur Hall opened in July 2011. A new Los Angeles history exhibition, ''Becoming Los Angeles'', opened in 2013. The outdoor Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, which explore L.A. wildlife, also opened in 2013.
The museum maintains research and collections in the following fields:
* Annelida
* Anthropology and Archaeology
* Ethnology
*
Over the years, the museum has built additions onto its original building. Originally dedicated when The Natural History Museum opened its doors in 1913, the rotunda is one of the museum's most elegant and popular spaces. Lined with marble columns and crowned by a stained glass dome, the room is also the home of the very first piece of public art funded by
William S. Hart Ranch and Museum
George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
at The New York Times, July 19, 2011
Slide show of exhibitOne of the famous Diamonds Collection in Exhibition of L.A. COUNTY MUSEUM, Recently exhibited in Taiwan Auction House, December 6, 2020
{{DEFAULTSORT:Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles County Museums in Los Angeles Exposition Park (Los Angeles) Los Angeles Archaeological museums in California Dinosaur museums in the United States Geology museums in California History museums in California Mesoamerican art museums in the United States Mineralogy museums Native American museums in California Science museums in California Science and technology in Greater Los Angeles Botanical gardens in California Butterfly houses Gardens in California Paleontology in California Government buildings completed in 1913 Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Association of Science-Technology Centers member institutions Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums established in 1913 1913 establishments in California Beaux-Arts architecture in California Mediterranean Revival architecture in California South Los Angeles Native Americans in Los Angeles
artifact Artifact, or artefact, may refer to:
Science and technology
* Artifact (error), misleading or confusing alteration in data or observation, commonly in experimental science, resulting from flaws in technique or equipment
** Compression artifact, a ...
s and cover 4.5 billion years of history. This large collection is comprised not only of specimens for exhibition, but also of vast research collections housed on and offsite.
The museum is associated with two other museums in Greater Los Angeles: the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gro ...
in Hancock Park and the William S. Hart Ranch and Museum in Newhall. The three museums work together to achieve their common mission: "to inspire wonder, discovery, and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds."
History
NHM opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, United States in 1913 as The Museum of History, Science, and Art. The moving force behind it was a museum association founded in 1910. Its distinctive main building with fitted marble walls and domed and colonnaded rotunda, is on The National Register of Historic Places. Additional wings opened in 1925, 1930, 1960, and 1976.
The museum split in 1961 into The Los Angeles County Museum of History and Science and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). LACMA moved to new quarters on Wilshire Boulevard in 1965, and the Museum of History and Science was renamed The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Eventually, the museum renamed itself again, becoming The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
In 2003, the museum began a campaign to transform its exhibits and visitor experience. The museum reopened its seismically retrofitted renovated 1913 rotunda, along with the new ''Age of Mammals'' exhibition in 2010. Its Dinosaur Hall opened in July 2011. A new Los Angeles history exhibition, ''Becoming Los Angeles'', opened in 2013. The outdoor Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, which explore L.A. wildlife, also opened in 2013.
Research and collections
The museum maintains research and collections in the following fields:
* Annelida
* Anthropology and Archaeology
* Ethnology
* Crustacea
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...
* Echinoderms
* Entomology
Entomology () is the science, scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such ...
* Herpetology
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and rept ...
* History
* Ichthyology
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octob ...
* Invertebrate paleontology
* Malacology
Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...
* Mammalogy In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part o ...
* Mineralogy
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...
* Ornithology
* Vertebrate paleontology
The museum has three floors of permanent exhibits. Among the most popular museum displays are those devoted to animal habitats
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
, dinosaurs, pre-Columbian cultures, The Ralph M. Parsons Discovery Center and Insect Zoo, and the new Nature Lab, which explores urban wildlife in Southern California.
The museum's collections are strong in many fields, but the mineralogy and Pleistocene paleontology are the most esteemed, the latter thanks to the wealth of specimens collected from The La Brea Tar Pits.
The museum has almost 30 million specimens representing marine zoology. These include one of the largest collections of marine mammal remains in the world, housed in a warehouse off site, which at over 5,000 specimens is second in size only to that of The Smithsonian.
The museum's collection of historical documents is held in The Seaver Center for Western History Research.
Special exhibits
The museum hosts regular special exhibitions which augment its collections and advance its mission. Recent special exhibits have included Mummies and Pterosaurs. The museum also hosts a butterfly pavilion outside every spring and summer and a spider pavilion on the same site in the fall. Since 2017, the museum has hosted a special exhibit aboutP-22
P-22 ( – December 17, 2022) was a wild mountain lion who resided in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, on the eastern side of the Santa Monica Mountains. P-22 was first identified in 2012 and was the subject of significant media attenti ...
, the mountain lion that lived in nearby Griffith Park.
Architecture
Over the years, the museum has built additions onto its original building. Originally dedicated when The Natural History Museum opened its doors in 1913, the rotunda is one of the museum's most elegant and popular spaces. Lined with marble columns and crowned by a stained glass dome, the room is also the home of the very first piece of public art funded by Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...
, a Beaux-Arts statue by Julia Bracken Wendt
Julia Bracken Wendt, (1870–1942) a notable American sculptor, was born on June 10, 1871 in Apple River, Illinois, the twelfth of thirteen children in an Irish Catholic family.Rubenstein, Charlotte Streifer, ‘’American Women Sculptors: A Hi ...
entitled ''Three Muses'', or ''History, Science and Art''. This hall is among the most distinctive locales in Los Angeles and has often been used as a filming location.
References
External links
*William S. Hart Ranch and Museum
George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
at The New York Times, July 19, 2011
Slide show of exhibit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles County Museums in Los Angeles Exposition Park (Los Angeles) Los Angeles Archaeological museums in California Dinosaur museums in the United States Geology museums in California History museums in California Mesoamerican art museums in the United States Mineralogy museums Native American museums in California Science museums in California Science and technology in Greater Los Angeles Botanical gardens in California Butterfly houses Gardens in California Paleontology in California Government buildings completed in 1913 Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Association of Science-Technology Centers member institutions Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums established in 1913 1913 establishments in California Beaux-Arts architecture in California Mediterranean Revival architecture in California South Los Angeles Native Americans in Los Angeles