Description of the attraction
A tour of Ueno Park will definitely bring guests of the Japanese capital to the National Museum of Nature and Science, located in the northeastern part of the park. Its exposition numbers more than 14 thousand exhibits and tells about the origin of the world in general and the Japanese archipelago in particular, as well as about the changes that have occurred in their history from the moment of their inception to the present day.
The museum was opened in 1871 and has since changed several names - it was both a museum of the Ministry of Education and the Tokyo Museum until it acquired its current name in 2007. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of this century, the museum underwent modernization. Its main building was declared a cultural heritage of the nation, it now houses the Japanese Gallery, and is also home to the Theater 360 3D cinema. The Global Gallery has been opened in the new museum building. A life-size figure of a blue whale is installed in front of the entrance to the museum.
The six floors of the Global Gallery tell about the evolution of life on earth, the laws of nature, the origin of dinosaurs and species diversity. Separate sections are devoted to the development of science and technology and representatives of the animal world. In the garden, located on the roof of the gallery, there are about 160 species of medicinal and herbal herbs, and there are sun umbrellas that open when a person approaches them. In the gallery, visitors can have their own physical experience or enter an interactive forest.
The Japanese Gallery is located in the former main building, built in 1930. It shows what the Japanese archipelago was like during the Ice Age, you can view the collections of minerals, meteorites, ancient fossils, get acquainted with the animals inhabiting the islands of the archipelago, find out what agricultural implements were. A separate section is devoted to the role of rice in the life of Japan.
The 3D-cinema "Theater 360", which is located in the same building, was transferred to the museum after the end of the international exhibition "Expo-2005", where it was first presented to the visitors of the Japanese pavilion. This is a spherical seamless screen with a diameter of 12.8 meters. This size was not chosen by chance: this figure is approximately one millionth of the diameter of our planet. The number 360 in the name of the cinema means the viewing angle. The audience in this cinema is in the center of the sphere, and films about the origin of the universe, dinosaurs and continents are projected onto its dome. Four of them were created by the museum staff.
