As you now know, we were yanking your chain about "The City Museum" in St. Louis, MO. It is the antithesis of boring; talk about the over stimulus zone..... WOW! This place has no peers for visual fun wonders and full blown interaction. Perhaps the most incredible aspect of this amusement land is that it is open to the public. How it has not been sued by numerous parents to compensate for the surely endless scraped knees and twisted ankles on little Dick and Jane is hard to understand. City Museum is kid heaven. Oh, to be 10 or 11 years instead of geezers with creaky bones, inflexible joints and expanded girth (Rodney not Susan on that one). The tunnels to climb, slides that zip one to the unknown, cave explorations and the ever-present vertigo tests are a dream come true. And, then there's the decor from Willy Wonka meets Lewis Carroll.
Facts:
City Museum is a museum, consisting largely of repurposed architectural and industrial objects, housed in the former International Shoe building in the Washington Avenue Loft District of St. Louis, Missouri.
Popular among residents and tourists, the museum bills itself as an "eclectic mixture of children's playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel." Visitors are encouraged to feel, touch, climb on, and play in the various exhibits. The museum attracted over 300,000 visitors in 1999 and over 600,000 in 2007. It has been named one of the "great public spaces" by the Project for Public Spaces, and has won other local and international awards as a must-see destination.
Popular among residents and tourists, the museum bills itself as an "eclectic mixture of children's playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel." Visitors are encouraged to feel, touch, climb on, and play in the various exhibits. The museum attracted over 300,000 visitors in 1999 and over 600,000 in 2007. It has been named one of the "great public spaces" by the Project for Public Spaces, and has won other local and international awards as a must-see destination.
City Museum was founded by artist Bob Cassilly, who remains the museum's artistic director, and his then-wife Gail Cassilly. The museum's building was once a shoe factory and warehouse but was mostly vacant when the Cassillys bought it in 1993. Construction began in January 1995 and the building opened to the public on October 25, 1997. The museum has since expanded, adding new exhibits such as MonstroCity in 2002, Enchanted Caves and Shoe Shaft in 2003, and World Aquarium in 2004. A circus ring on the third floor offers daily live acts. The City Museum also houses The Shoelace Factory, whose antique braiding machines makes colorful shoelaces for sale.
The building's fifth floor houses apartments, dubbed the Lofts at City Museum, which range in size from 1,300 to more than 2,800 square feet .
In addition to all the playground elements, the architecture and interior design is simply astounding. It is a shrine to creative re-cycling. Walls are made of things/stuff unimaginable. Take the walls of clear glass bottles glued together two deep and the buffet serving pans; together they make a glorious high-tech combo. Then there where walls embellished entirely with old litho plates and another of sliced boxes. The ceilings range from old tin to hanging ties and strips of torn shiny fabric looking like frosty stalagtites (-mites?). Curtains are some sort of space-age tarps and the entry to the bathrooms is heavy opaque rubberlike strips.
Beyond the obvious allure of the interactive stuff, there were also special exhibit areas. One featured opera posters and another objects all collected from old privies (yep, the pit in ground ex-toilet of old now art & antique stores).... amazing and curious. The place even has a massive vintage (other people's old throwaway fashion crap) store on the fourth floor -- all arranged by color. Oh yeah, if that's not enough, there are art classes in various media and for crying out loud..... a circus (clowning, juggling, spinning etc) training school for all ages.
Then there are the art components -- tile floors beyond compare, embellished pillars, creatures growing out of the ground and around pillars. The welding and metal work is incredible as are the uses of old conveyor belt rollers as moving, hand-painted stair spindles -- S. had to spin them all the way up just like the little kids. The entire place is crazy fun and inspirational. Forget your local Lowes/Home Depot and Crate & Barrel, time to rethink home decor.... yee haw!
Now that the smart aleck R. got the jokester out of his system (for at least this message), here are more pics from our smile-o-thon (our faces actually hurt). Just imagine the fun of crawling through a welded rebar tunnel four stories above a massive ball pit. If you have kids and/or have one still residing within you, get in the car NOW and head to this art-souled fun haven. You will NOT be disappointed.
Love and visions of good backs and knees,
Roddy and Susie
ps. enjoy more peeks below..... We Loved this place.
In addition to all the playground elements, the architecture and interior design is simply astounding. It is a shrine to creative re-cycling. Walls are made of things/stuff unimaginable. Take the walls of clear glass bottles glued together two deep and the buffet serving pans; together they make a glorious high-tech combo. Then there where walls embellished entirely with old litho plates and another of sliced boxes. The ceilings range from old tin to hanging ties and strips of torn shiny fabric looking like frosty stalagtites (-mites?). Curtains are some sort of space-age tarps and the entry to the bathrooms is heavy opaque rubberlike strips.
Beyond the obvious allure of the interactive stuff, there were also special exhibit areas. One featured opera posters and another objects all collected from old privies (yep, the pit in ground ex-toilet of old now art & antique stores).... amazing and curious. The place even has a massive vintage (other people's old throwaway fashion crap) store on the fourth floor -- all arranged by color. Oh yeah, if that's not enough, there are art classes in various media and for crying out loud..... a circus (clowning, juggling, spinning etc) training school for all ages.
Then there are the art components -- tile floors beyond compare, embellished pillars, creatures growing out of the ground and around pillars. The welding and metal work is incredible as are the uses of old conveyor belt rollers as moving, hand-painted stair spindles -- S. had to spin them all the way up just like the little kids. The entire place is crazy fun and inspirational. Forget your local Lowes/Home Depot and Crate & Barrel, time to rethink home decor.... yee haw!
Now that the smart aleck R. got the jokester out of his system (for at least this message), here are more pics from our smile-o-thon (our faces actually hurt). Just imagine the fun of crawling through a welded rebar tunnel four stories above a massive ball pit. If you have kids and/or have one still residing within you, get in the car NOW and head to this art-souled fun haven. You will NOT be disappointed.
Love and visions of good backs and knees,
Roddy and Susie
ps. enjoy more peeks below..... We Loved this place.
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