Shanghai Natural History Museum, Natural history museum in Jing'an District, Shanghai, China.
The Shanghai Natural History Museum occupies a 44,517-square-meter building in Jing'an Sculpture Park, opened in 2015. Its dark glass facade is divided into a grid of rectangular panes, with white Chinese characters above the English name "SHANGHAI NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM". A recessed entrance with glass doors sits below, and the glass reflects a diamond-patterned building opposite. The collection numbers 240,000 samples, including 62,000 animal specimens and a 140-million-year-old Mamenchisaurus skeleton over four stories high.
The museum was established in 1956 in the Shanghai Cotton Exchange Building, a classical British structure built in 1923 at 260 East Yan'an Road. It moved to a purpose-built site in Jing'an Sculpture Park in 2015. The new building, designed by Perkins & Will and Tongji University's Architectural Design and Research Institute, opened on 18 April 2015 and to the public the next day.
Locals call the building "Green Snail" (绿螺) for its nautilus-shell form. Its east facade is planted with greenery and connects directly to the Natural History Museum station on Metro Line 13. The museum is administratively a branch of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.
The museum stands at 510 Beijing West Road in Jing'an Sculpture Park, and its east facade connects directly to Exit of Natural History Museum Station on Metro Line 13. The building covers 44,517 square metres, so allow several hours for the galleries. Enter from the recessed glass doors beneath the white lettering on the dark grid facade.
The 24-metre fin whale skeleton installed in 2021 is the longest of its kind in China. Its bones come from a whale found dead in March 2017 where the Yangtze meets Hangzhou Bay. The specimen hangs in the museum's atrium, where visitors can walk beneath it.
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