Museums make Chicago one of the world's cultural capitals

One of the glorious truths of the human condition is that aspirational people lavish money on the arts.

Whether it's "barbarian" conquers of Egypt trying to be convincing as pharaoh, the Medicis moving
from banking to nobility or nouveau riche Americans trying to be accepted by the European aristocracy, history shows us that if you want to be taken seriously, you buy a lot of art, build grand structures and found some museums.

Take Bertha Palmer.  Her husband Potter made a vast fortune at the turn of the 20th century, first from the Marshall Field's department store, then from property investments and the huge luxury hotel in Chicago's loop that bears his name.  Bertha spent a lot of that money on a bunch of avant garde artists in Paris she quite fancied, but who didn't interest the French.  Eventually she gave her collection to the Art Institute of Chicago, establishing what would become ... in my, and many others', opinion ... the finest collection of impressionist art in the world.  Potter's early business partner Field, also rolling in pre-income-tax lucre, indulged his interests in the natural world a few blocks over by establishing his eponymous museum.

Just two of many examples of how the uncouth, rough-and-ready town that was early Chicago gave us the finest collection of museums in the United States outside of New York or Washington.  Museums that are, I am delighted to say, going from strength to strength.  Rather than resting on their laurels, they've all adapted to the modern age:  updating how you interact with collections, adding wings and facilities and establishing themselves as a complete "family days out".  (Except for one delightfully quirky exception, which I'll mention at the end.)

Let's start with the Art Institute.  Some of my earliest memories take place in this building, and it's so associated with great memories of my mother that, on this first visit since her death, I made it no further than the bottom of the grand staircase before I broke down for a little cry.  That blast of emotion past, I started on a 90-minute stroll through my highlights of the collection.  (Like most of the museums mentioned here, you could easily give the Institute a full day.  But with so much to see and our GoChicago cards covering admission to all, we did abbreviated sampler visits.)

The core of Old Masters is essentially unchanged, and offers one or two examples of most of the great names of the Western World.  My favourites here have always been a bit quirky, however; I needed to make my pilgrimage to four vast Hubert Robert canvases of imagined classical ruins and a medieval Spanish altarpiece of a noble St. George impaling an unthreatening little dragon who looks like a labrador-komodo dragon cross.  The gallery around the top of the grand staircase offers a collection of decorative bits rescued from Chicago buildings long-gone, proving that the early 20th-century dedication to the arts included architecture, and was city-wide.  Walk to the back of the museum and that's illustrated in full by Adler and Sullivan's magnificent Arts & Crafts trading room from the old Chicago Stock Exchange, moved here in full when the original building was demolished.  You get to pass by Chagall's famous stained glass windows on the way.

There's a whole new wing since my day, bringing the museum's total area up to one million square feet and making it biggest art museum in the USA after the Met in New York.  With limited time we didn't head into the new wing (modern art ... never high on my priority list), but I did notice what that extra room did for the rest of the collection.  With room to spread out, the Impressionists now fill all the galleries on the upper floor of the bridge linking original and new buildings; a neat positioning both figuratively and literally as they link old to new.  The bottom level of that bridge, once a dark and narrow province of arms and armour, has now been opened up with windows and filled with Indian and Asian art.  Adding this new stuff (at least, I don't remember any of it, and assume it was in storage somewhere) to the familiar galleries on China and Japan, this must be one of the best Oriental collections in America.  The armour now has its own gallery, where I think there's less of it, but it's all the finest pieces beautifully displayed.  And now with the benefit of a free standing cube gallery-within-a-gallery of Renaissance jewellery to show off similar artistic skills, but in miniature.  (I don't remember any of this stuff, either.)

Over at Shedd Aquarium, there's more than a little new stuff ... it's a revolution.  My sorority used to host a casino night fund raiser here every year (Pisces and Dices; get it?), so I knew it well.  When last I visited they'd just gotten a couple of Beluga whales and built a lovely tank on the back end of the place

with a glass wall, so you had the illusion they were swimming in Lake Michigan.  And there was a cool new coral reef in the centre of the building.  That's all old hat now.  The Beluga tanks have expanded into a vast, glass-enclosed area (still with the fabulous views of the lake) now landscaped like the Pacific Northwest and filled with an army of fabulous animals.  Seals, sea lions, otters, and downstairs a great penguin experience with multiple varieties zipping about like torpedoes.  Here, and throughout most of the exhibits, the cases are modelled to reflect the animals' native environment, with water coming half way up the glass, so you have a great perspective of being both under and on top of the water.

There are wonderful new exhibits on the Amazon rain forest and the coral reefs of Southeast Asia, both with that naturalistic approach so you are totally immersed in the environment.  They've even landscaped the outside, making one of the prettiest gardens in Chicago.  The coral reef seems a bit passé these days, to be honest.  All these additions make it the largest indoor aquarium in the world, with more than 8000 animals.  And they've done a fabulous job reaching out to children, with shows and added experiences (for an extra fee) like touching a stingray.  These days, if I had little ones in tow, Shedd would be my first stop.

Which was never the case in the old days, when the kid magnet was always the Museum of Science and Industry.  It's still fabulous, of course, and like the Shedd they've invested and expanded heavily.  Here, the most noticeable additions since the old days are an impressive entrance hall which gives more intuitive access to the whole museum; a bit like the pyramid at the Louvre.  And an entire wing devoted to U-505, a German sub captured in World War II.  In my childhood the old hulk sat on a concrete slab outside the building; you saw it rusting beyond the windows as you headed for the model farm to watch baby chickens hatch, or Coleen Moore's dollhouse.  (The latter ... a 1930s film star's scale model of a fantasy castle right out of an Errol Flynn swashbuckler ... is a rather bizarre inclusion in a science museum but, unsurprisingly, one of my favourite displays.)

They have now done the old sub justice, moving it indoors, completely restoring it and building a whole dedicated mini-museum around it.  Displays tell the story of the daring capture, the remarkable effort to get it to Chicago, and the larger context of the war and the importance of capturing the enemy's kit.  There's an enigma machine and stuff on code breaking here.  You can actually tour the inside of the sub now, but this is an additional fee and you have to book early.  If you want to get in, either go early or prepare to hang about for many hours.  We skipped it, but the outside of the boat and the museum displays were so fascinating we were perfectly satisfied.

Elsewhere, most of the old displays are still here but enhanced for the digital age with more to touch and explore.  The old coal mine is another extra charge experience, but the air and space wing still offers plenty to gawp at as part of general admission.  Particularly impressive for a Midwesterner was the artificial tornado generated in a tube stretching the height of the main hall.  Across the aisle the massive train set is still there, complete with mountains and farms, but they've added a scale model of Chicago to one side.

The other honeypot for the under 10s is the Field Museum, charitable establishment of the department store magnate.  Of the four major museums mentioned here, this one seemed to have changed the least. The grand, open great hall is still dominated by its mastadons and a dinosaur skeleton, though I learned it's a different one than in my youth.  Hadn't noticed.  For our quick dip, we headed for the animals of the world section.  These glass cases with their taxidermised animals in dioramas of their native

environments haven't changed at all.  But I have.  After seeing most of the African animals shown here in the wild, I realise what pale and slightly mangy representations these long-dead versions are.  It is still, however, a fun way to explore the planet's fauna.  The educational labels on the side are much improved, making it all a game for the kids.

We spent some time in the excellent American Indian displays before heading upstairs for the room of jewels, which is much brighter and more artfully displayed since my day.  Living within striking distance of the British Museum and its amazing Egyptian collection, we didn't bother with the noteworthy Egyptian stuff here, but it remains one of the best gatherings in the States.

Our final museum was an aberration to almost everything I've said above.  The Oriental Institute wasn't on our GoChicago Card, isn't designed for children and doesn't appear to have changed a bit since its establishment in 1919.  This small museum sits in the middle of the University of Chicago and is associated with the renowned archeology programme there.  In the early 20th century, its professors led major discoveries across the Near East, and this small but beautifully formed collection is a treasure trove of loot from cities of legend.  There's a good Egyptian collection here as well, but it's the stuff from places like Nineveh, Babylon, Sumer, Ur and Meggido that's both impressive and unique to most American museums.  Agriculture, writing, law, art, the whole urban experience ... it all came out of the fertile plans around the Tigris and Euphrates.  Sadly, it's a region primarily associated with war, terrorism and religious conflict now.  The Institute reminds you that once, not so long ago, it was known for exquisite artefacts and the birthplace of civilisation.

Here, in fact, is where the museum has changed.  Down in the basement you'll find a little exhibit on the sack of the museum in Baghdad.  Sadly, the devastation of recent years means that what's now at the institute is arguably the most comprehensive collection in the world on this topic.  And, let's face it, you're unlikely to get to any of the original sites in the foreseeable future given the political situation.  So come here, stand before the human-headed winged bull from Khorsabad, be intimidated ... as Sargon meant you to be ... by the larger-than-life procession of courtiers from his throne room, and remember the wonders that once existed in that part of the world.

Iran and Iraq, the Amazon rain forest, the African veldt, the drawing rooms of 18th century Europe.  Chicago's museums take you to all of these places, without ever leaving the shores of Lake Michigan.  It was in these places that my hunger to see the world started.  I'm confident they'll be triggering intellectual wonder and a desire to explore for generations to come.