Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The dinosaurs form part of the Blue Zone, one of the four color-coded sections that
make up the museum. This zone is primarily concerned with animals, both past and
present, and has plenty of other showstoppers, including a 40-m (90-ft.) model of a
blue whale hanging from the ceiling, a saber-tooth tiger skeleton, and an adult-size
model of a fetus.
The Green Zone's galleries focus on plants, insects, and ecology. Highlights include
giant models of insects, a cross-section of a sequoia (the world's largest tree), a leaf-
cutter ant colony, and a life-size termite mound.
The Earth's interior processes are explored in the Red Zone, where you can try and stay
upright on an earthquake simulator, see plastercasts of victims preserved in ash by the
volcanic eruption at Pompeii, and explore a gallery of minerals, rocks, and gemstones.
The final zone, the Orange Zone, is the museum's latest pride and joy, comprising
the eight-story glass-and-steel
Darwin Centre,
the most significant addition to the
museum since it opened in 1881. Constructed in 2008 in time for the 150th anni-
versary of Darwin's
Origin of the Species
, the center is primarily a research institute,
but also boasts a number of hi-tech attractions for the public, including Cocoon,
which has a transparent table filled with insect and plant specimens. The museum
offers a wealth of resources for younger visitors, including free discovery guides,
explorer backpacks, and family workshops.
Cromwell Rd., SW7.
&
020/7942-5000.
www.nhm.ac.uk. Free admission. Mon-Sat 10am-5:50pm;
Sun 11am-5:50pm. Tube: S. Kensington.
Saatchi Gallery
GALLERY The capital's largest gallery of contemporary art
recently decamped to the grand three-story surrounds of the Duke of York's HQ
building, a former military school. The man behind it, British mega-collector Charles
Saatchi, is known for upsetting mainstream opinion with his willfully avant-garde
exhibitions. The constantly changing temporary displays are often of the “challenging”
variety. If you think you're going to be offended by a Madonna with elephant dung or
one of Damien Hirst's pickled sharks, then it's probably best to go look at a Rem-
brandt in the
National
(p. 89) instead.
Duke of York's Headquarters, King's Rd., SW3.
&
020/7811-3070.
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk. Free
admission. Daily 10am-6pm. Tube: Sloane Sq.
Science Museum
MUSEUM The country's pre-eminent museum of
science, this is one of the capital's great interactive experiences, filled with buttons to
press, levers to pull, and experiments to absorb you. It aims to provide a complete
overview of technological progress, beginning, just after the entrance, in the
Energy
Hall,
where you can meet the great clunking behemoths of the Industrial Revolution,
including steam locomotives and giant beam engines. From here, things shoot ahead
a couple of hundred years to the
Exploring Space
gallery, where you can see one of
the great icons of the U.S. space program, the Apollo 10 command module, as well
as lots of fascinating space paraphernalia (including space food). Beyond is the shiny
Wellcome Wing,
where the “Who Am I?” exhibit whisks us off into the future to
explore what it means to be human—computers let you experiment with your appear-
ance, changing your facial features and even your gender. There's also an IMAX cin-
ema showing spectacular nature- and space-related epics on a giant screen.
And that's just the start of the museum. Elsewhere you'll find galleries dedicated
to medicine, telecommunications, computers, and flight—the last now with state-of-
the-art flight simulators—as well as the ever popular
Launchpad,
where there are
more than 50 hands-on experiments for kids to try.
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