London is always amazing. I knew I wanted to get in as many museums as possible this last trip without tiring myself out. The Natural History Museum is always at the top of my list purely for all of the skeletons they have and the dinosaurs of course. If you've seen some of my previous dinosaur mobiles, such as here and here, you know how I'm a nerd about them. I remember spending the whole morning here and even much of the afternoon just exploring the various hallways and floors of ancient specimens. When you first arrive at the museum, you are greeted with the impressive guy you see above. He was quite unique in that over 90% of his skeleton is accounted for, and was even on display. While observing him (at this point I'm dubbing him a 'him'), I started to wonder how one would go about reconstructing the skeleton so that it would stand on its own, and even portray a ferocious animal again. As I looked closer, I found that each bone was attached within a metal framework. I was quite impressed by the intricate framework as it must have been quite a tedious task to construct. The framework not only needed to support the specimens weight, but also allow for assembly and disassembly. These constructions would be the source of my amazement for the rest of my museum visit.
Further areas of interest while perusing the National History Museum included how large specimens were hung from the ceiling (yes, of course I found something that connects to mobiles!). Ranging from a long brontosaurus neck hung in the main atrium, to a whole pod of various whales hanging in the mammals hall. Someone had to physically hang up all of these specimens, and it was inspiring to see how each was hung in its own unique way to hold the weight, as well as being designed as to not take away from the outlook of the specimen itself nor the surrounding area. So the question I asked my self was: how does one get in to work such as this? Does one simply become a dinosaur construction expert? Who knows, maybe I'll get to hang large skeletons for a museum one day...
