Steinhardt Museum of Natural History to open fully in September
The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, located next to Tel Aviv University, is to open fully in September.
As of July 2, the museum has been open for a trial run to test crowd flow and to get feedback on the exhibits, according to Prof. Tamar Dayan, the museum’s chairwoman.
“For the trial run, we open for about four hours a day and we limit the number of visitors, because we first want to finish the exhibitions properly and then we want to work out any kinks there may be,” Dayan said.
The museum houses over 5.5 million specimens.
“[The museum] tries to reflect both the natural history of Israel and the general biological phenomenon as well as bringing the wonders of nature and the wonder of science to the general public,” Dayan said.
A hands-on map of Israel and videos on the topic of climate change are main features interlaced with live bugs and stuffed creatures.
“Natural history museums are basically a no-touch operation,” Dayan said. “But because we are building our museum in the 21st century, we have a wonderful opportunity to bring in technologies that maybe weren’t available in the 19th century or in the 20th century.”
The museum serves as a national resource infrastructure and houses a total of eight exhibition galleries, including one temporary exhibition gallery.
“So far we have been getting great responses from the public,” Dayan said, “which is great for us because we have worked very, very hard for five years to get the exhibitions off the ground.”
The museum can be found at 12 Klausner Street, Tel Aviv. The building architecture itself is a mix between a treasure chest and Noah’s ark, representing the large range of biodiversity found inside.