Why Natural History Museums Should Never Change

last look at Steinhart & the old Acadmy of Sciences by cbcastro.

I went to see the new California Academy of Sciences for the first time yesterday, and I was struck first by what a sleek architect Renzo Piano is. Then I marvelled at some of the nice new features of the museum -- it has a living roof!!-- which are certain to entertain school kids for generations to come.

And then, to my surprise, I realized that an important link to my childhood memories had been wiped away when the institution was completely rebuilt a few years back.

I don't know how many times I visited the place, but it was more than a couple of dozen times. I do remember one particularly eventful 4th grade trip to San Francisco (We rode a schoolbus, saw the old SF Mint in the morning and spent the afternoon at the Academy with me mostly splashing girls in the courtyard fountain). As a camp counselor in my teenage years, we all found the Academy great self-contained venue to allow 7 year olds to let it rip for a whole afternoon.

I can see the layout of the museum I knew if I close my eyes. There's the main entry hall, the courtyard and fountain right beyond it. Straight through the courtyard is the Steinhart Aquarium, with its crocodile pit just inside the door. The penguins are to the right, then left. The planetarium and Foucault pendulum are to the left, along with that platform that simulated earthquakes. Some of these things have been re-installed, but they don't connect to the past. The reinstalled pieces from the old Academy feel like photocopies.

I am not alone in making this deep connection between Natural History Museums and deep childhood memories. Really they're the only type of museum kids care about.

Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, was able to mark the passing of time by walking around the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West.

"The best thing … in that museum, was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you."

So I was wistful as I explored the gleaming new California Academy of Sciences yesterday night. It's not for me.