For the second year in a row, the Met Museum has won the title of world’s Best Museum on TripAdvisor, followed by Chicago’s Art Institute and St Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace, coming in at second and third place, respectively.
Indeed, 2016 has been a momentous (and bittersweet) year for the museum, which first opened in 1870. In February, the new Met Breuer, devoted to modern and contemporary art, opened in the Whitney Museum’s previous abode. The opening, however, was heralded by a much-derided change of branding.
The Met Breuer. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
No doubt aided by the launch of the new branch, the museum has had its best year ever in attendance, with a total of 6.7 million visitors in the fiscal year that ended June 30, totaling 400,000 more visitors than the previous year.
Despite this phenomenal success, however, the museum has also been plagued by intense financial woes, namely a $10 million deficit that has led to cutbacks and lay-offs, including three senior staffers: Sree Sreenivasan, the museum’s first chief digital officer; Cynthia Round, senior vice president for marketing and external relations; and Susan Sellers, head of design.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
According to the Daily Mail, also in TripAdvisor’s 2016 museum top ten are the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York, Madrid’s Museo del Prado, London’s British Museum, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, and Vasa Museum in Stockholm.
Pencil these ones in and update your bucket list.