Reimagining the Oakland Museum of California
on May 1, 2010
The Oakland Museum of California reopened May 1 after a two-year, $58 million renovation—the first major renovation since it was founded in 1969. The art and history galleries have both been remodeled and reinstalled with new artifacts, arrangements, themes and interactive exhibits.
Curators redesigned their exhibits with the modern visitor in mind—more seating, more things to touch and more things to play with. The art gallery features “poufs,” small portable stools that visitors are encouraged to plop front of works or art. The history gallery has an interactive “Land Grab” so that visitors see what life was like for earlier Californians. The OMCA has also mingled artifacts from all three galleries, so that a painting of a golden bear on the wall in the art gallery is displayed with a bear skull borrowed from natural sciences, and a rifle from history.
Click here for a map of the new museum layout. (The interactive video portion of this map no longer works, but you can see several of the videos by clicking below.)
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poufs!