Best Science and Technology Museums
What follows is a personal but defensible shortlist — the ten institutions any serious traveller in this field should know, with a note on what makes each one distinctive.
Deutsches Museum, Munich
Founded 1903 on the Isar island, the Deutsches Museum is among the world's oldest and largest science and technology museums. A multi-decade renovation has reopened sections progressively; the U1 submarine, the original Lilienthal glider, and the Foucault pendulum remain anchors.
Science Museum, London
On Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the Science Museum holds Stephenson's Rocket, the Apollo 10 command module, and Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. Free admission.
Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris
Adrien Fainsilber's 1986 building at La Villette is Europe's largest science museum. The Géode IMAX sphere, the Cité des Enfants, and the Argonaute submarine outdoors round out the campus.
Smithsonian Air and Space, Washington
On the National Mall, Air and Space holds the Wright Flyer (1903), the Spirit of St Louis, the Apollo 11 command module Columbia, and the Bell X-1. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles houses larger aircraft including a Concorde and the Space Shuttle Discovery.
Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
In the former 1893 World's Fair Palace of Fine Arts, MSI Chicago holds the U-505 German submarine, a working coal mine, and Henry Crown Space Center with a Mercury and Apollo capsule.
Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Tecnologia, Milan
Italy's leading science museum in a former Olivetan monastery holds a major Leonardo da Vinci gallery (with working models of his machines) and the submarine Enrico Toti outside.
Exploratorium, San Francisco
Frank Oppenheimer's 1969 founding of the Exploratorium pioneered the interactive science museum. On Pier 15 since 2013, it remains a model studied worldwide.
National Museum of Computing, Bletchley
On the Bletchley Park site where wartime codebreaking developed early computing, the museum holds a working reconstruction of Colossus and the original Tunny machine.
Polytechnic Museum, Moscow
Closed since 2013 for extended renovation, Russia's national science museum holds extensive material from Soviet space, computing, and engineering programmes.
Miraikan, Tokyo
Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation on Odaiba focuses on contemporary research with an emphasis on robotics — the Asimo demonstrations and the Geo-Cosmos globe.
Any thematic shortlist will leave out worthy candidates; treat the above as a starting point for further exploration rather than a closed canon.
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