Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History, Bucharest

A top Bucharest landmark

How and when to get there, how much does it cost?

Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History in Bucharest is located at the address: Kiseleff 1, sector 1 and is surrounded by Mihalache Boulevard, Victoriei Square and the above mentioned road.

With tourism I recommend to park on Kiseleff in the Kiseleff roundabout 350 m before the museum. Attention! The boulevard is one-way. More convenient, in my opinion, is to come by subway, here intersecting at Piata Victoriei station metro lines 1 and 2. But there are also many public transportation that reach the area.

In winter, the opening hours are:

Tuesday - Friday 10:00 - 18:00
Saturday - Sunday 10:00 - 19:00
Monday closed.

In summer, the visiting hours are:

Tuesday - Sunday 10:00 - 20:00
Monday closed.

Last entry is allowed 1 hour before closing time.

Tickets for adults cost 20 lei, for children and other categories 5 lei, photo fee 10 lei. Other prices including online ticket option can be found on www.antipa.ro. We got free access for children and no photo fee.

About the Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History

The Antipa Museum was opened on May 24, 1908 (!) by its namesake: Dr. Grigore Antipa. The full name is National Museum of Natural History "Grigore Antipa". The museum building is an architectural monument, being also the first building in Romania designed and built as a museum. Interesting, isn't it? In 1908!!!

History

1834 - Grand Ban Mihalache Ghica, the brother of the ruler Alexandru Ghica, founds the "Museum of Natural History and Antiquities", the predecessor of today's museum. He also donated exhibits and collections.
1893 - 1944 - Grigore Antipa is the director of the museum and designs and builds the current museum building. At that time it was to be a modern museum. It was also the period when the museum collection was significantly enriched with exhibits and dioramas from all over the world. Antipa was a pioneer of the diorama - a mode of display and presentation that has since spread around the world
1933 - King Charles II gave the Antipa Museum its name.

About Grigore Antipa

1867 - Grigore Antipa is born in Botosani
1885 - Antipa enrols at the Faculty of Science and Medicine of the University of Iasi
While at university he went to Jena, where he became a pupil of the famous professor Ernst Haeckel, a proponent of the theory of evolutionism
1889 - embarks on an expedition to Heligoland
1891 - Antipa defends his doctorate, and Ernst Haeckel awards him the Summa Cum Laude, awarded only three times in his career
1892 - Antipa meets King Charles I to whom he presents a memo on fish farming. This was the door Antipa opened to the relevant ministers of the time
He will head the State Fisheries, Zoology Section of the Museum
1903 - Antipa presents Sturza with a memorandum on the need for a building dedicated to the Natural History Museum
1908 - the first rooms of the museum are opened in the presence of King Charles I and Princess Margaret. The dioramas are used for the first time in the world, and they will successfully spread all over the world
Antipa is bringing new collections from donations and purchases, with the support of the international personalities among whom he had become known
He ran the museum for 51 years

1. Museum, giraffe and mammoth

In front of the entrance is an unmissable landmark: the giraffe.

Many times during the year temporary exhibitions are organized in the museum. When we went in December there were two: Moon Impact and Israel.

Right from the entrance we are met with a mega skeleton of Deinotherium gigantissimum (a mammoth), which is impressive for first-time visitors.

At the ticket office we received a map to guide us through the museum. The museum is on 3 levels: ground floor, first floor and basement and is visited in this order on a one-way circuit.

Antipa Museum

giraffe

Mammoth skeleton

2. Earth's biodiversity

The ground floor is allocated Earth's Biodiversity (World Fauna). It presents dioramas representing cold seas, warm seas and several bioregions: Malagasy (Madagascar), Neotropical, Oriental, Australian, New Zealand, Nearctic, Palearctic and Ethiopian, plus 1907 dioramas.

penguins, Antarctic seas

seal, Frozen Ocean

diadema setosum - sea urchin, Black Sea

from the cold seas

Indian and Pacific sharks

Atlantic fish species

Madagascar

wildlife in the Pampas

Indian wildlife

elephant, India

desert animals

kangaroo, Australia

pillbox, Papua New Guinea

in the Australian jungle

wildlife in New Zealand

crocodile, eagle, North American mouflon

Eurasian animals

tundra herbivores

bison, prairie

African wildlife symbols

3. Natural History Section (I)

Then it goes upstairs where there is the section Natural history. Right at the entrance on the first floor we are fascinated by another mega skeleton - that of a humpback whale.

Also here we meet Grigore Antipa.

Next up are sea giants, minerals and rocks, and a couple of themed halls: fossils, insects, trophies.

whale skeleton with humpback

Grigore Antipa

mineral exhibition

insect world

4. Natural History Section (II)

Very interesting is the area where genetics, origin of life, evolution of human species, ethnography, human anatomy, man and the biosphere, comparative anatomy of vertebrates.

evolution of the heart

evolution of the human skull

5. Romania's biodiversity

The last part of the visit takes place on the basement level Romania's biodiversity. Here we know the biosphere reserve "Danube Delta"; but also the bioregions: Pannonian, Pontic, Steppic, Continental, Alpine. The species presented are divided into categories: extinct, respectively introduced from/into our fauna, synanthrope, and the different living environments: marine aquatic, freshwater, cavernicolous, extreme.

dolphin and fish species

black goats

fishing

forest fauna

dropia, missing

Personal impressions

Only by going through these "stops" shown on the map - guide or by me synthetically above, we realize the enormous value of this museum. As a bucurestean I have visited many times in the course of time Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History. I liked it every time. However, I have to say that the development of the museum in the last 50 years has been - not insestible - but hardly noticeable. Little news, even if some QR codes have appeared that can be scanned to open pages of information. But it's too little, today's museum is far from the great museums of the world even though it has a huge educational note. Plus the value in recent years and must be recognized has been the temporary exhibitions hosted.

Our visit to the museum lasted more than 2 hours, although we didn't stay for a detailed study, but we went from one diorama to another, from one room to another, we admired, we read some information on the skip, we took pictures and so on. Without exaggeration, for enthusiasts, a full day of visit is not enough.

All the best!

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