BES-Assignment 2 (Making Sense of it all: the Museum of London)

This past Sunday I ventured to the Museum of London with a group of girls from our program. I took a trip through the history of London, from pre-historic times to present day. We were there for about two and a half hours but I could have spent a whole week if I stopped and read all of the captions to the displays. I moved through, taking everything in but only stopping and reading what I found interesting. My two favorite parts of the museum were those featuring the black-death plague and the great fire: both of which had videos that accompanied them. They had a display for the great fire (pretty sure it was for children) with a video and diorama that lit up when the video of the days of the fire progressed. I’m not ashamed to admit that was my favorite part of the museum.

The first few exhibitions reminded me a lot of American history with the Native Americans, which I thought was pretty boring. Once we began to make our way into the 1900’s things started to become more interesting. I found the “pleasure gardens,” area very interesting, especially the costumes from the time period. I liked how the museum went in chronological order of its history, it gave me an opportunity to understand how the culture became to be what it is today.

Although it has a rich and cultured history the history of London is a lot like the history of America. Urbanization, suffragettes and two world wars are all also part of our own countries history. It was interesting to see another side of WWII. To Americans it was on foreign soil but the war actually happened in London and impacted its people. In addition to the great fire and the black plague I enjoyed the displays of fashion throughout the museum. My favorite area was that of the 60s, featuring Beatles band dresses and fashion. Something unique I noticed about this museum was that it focused on the people’s history. There wasn’t much about the royal history/ history about the monarchy. I like how it focused on the people of London, showing how it developed into the metropolis that it is today.

After getting lost and wandering the streets, we found our way to the Barbican Centre. It was a nice complex that looks like it has a lot of cool things going on. I can see why people get lost looking for it, because it was super hard to find. We walked around the areas that we could but most of it is admission only. I grabbed an information packet with February events in it and saw that the cinema is showing the film “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” which I wanted to see. If it can find it again I will definitely go see it.

 

Overall, this area of London seemed very cultured with many opportunities to explore past and present London. If I have time I would like to go back and spend more time in the museum but it won’t be at the top of my list.