Showing 1-12 of 12 results
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Bishop Museum
Considered the finest Polynesian cultural-and natural-history museum in the world, the Bishop Museum is Hawaii's version of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. The museum was originally founded in 1889 in honor of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a descendant of the Kamehameha family, and originally housed only Hawaiian and royal artifacts.
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Contemporary Museum
Occupying an estate with 3.5 acres of tropical and meditative gardens, the Contemporary Museum is an engaging modern-art museum, with views of Honolulu below. Admission is free every third Thursday of the month. The estate house was constructed in 1925 for Mrs Charles Montague Cooke, whose other former home is the present site of the Honolulu Academy of Arts. A patron of the arts, she played a founding role in both museums.
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Hawai'i Maritime Center
Near the Aloha Tower, the Hawai'i Maritime Center is a great place to get a sense of Hawaii's history. The museum covers everything from the arrival of Captain Cook to modern-day windsurfing.The center is home to the 60ft Hokule'a, a double-hulled sailing canoe constructed to resemble boats used by Polynesians in their sea migrations.
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Hawaii Children's Discovery Center
If the beach somehow fails to stimulate your children, get them some hands-on-learning at the Hawaii Children's Discovery Center. Occupying a 37,000-sq-ft waterfront site, once the city's old incinerator, its origins are evidenced by the surviving smokestack reaching skyward from the building's center.
Although older kids may find some exhibits interesting, the museum is principally geared toward elementary school-aged children.
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Hawaii Nature Center
The Hawaii Nature Center is a great place to take the kids. The Center conducts family programs and hikes on most weekends; see their website for a schedule.
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Hawaii State Art Museum
A long-overdue addition to Honolulu's museum scene, Hawai'i State Art Museum showcases the best of traditional and contemporary art from Hawaii's diverse ethnic artistic community. A variety of artistic styles are on display, from fine art and sculpture to contemporary photography and mixed-media. Revolving exhibits reveal how a blending of Western, Asian and traditional Pacific folk-art forms have shaped a unique island aesthetic.
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Honolulu Academy of Arts
The Honolulu Academy of Arts covers the artistic traditions of almost every continent, with a leading role in the area of Pacific Rim art. The splendid Asian gallery is considered one of the finest Asian art collections in the USA, and it gives almost equal weight to both Japanese and Chinese works, ranging from scenes of Kyoto, painted by the renowned Japanese artist Kano Motohide, to the extensive Ming dynasty collection.
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Mission Houses Museum
Containing three of the original buildings of the Sandwich Islands Mission headquarters, the Mission Houses Museum is authentically furnished with handmade quilts on the beds, settees in the parlor and iron cooking pots in the stone fireplaces. The first missionaries packed more than their bags when they left Boston; they actually brought a prefabricated wooden house, now called the Frame House, around the Horn with them!
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US Army Museum of Hawai'i
The US Army Museum of Hawai'i traces the military history of consolidation of power under King Kamehameha in the 1700s to the US army's ongoing role on the island. Located at Fort DeRussy Military Reservation, the museum occupies Battery Randolph, a reinforced concrete building erected in 1911 as a coastal artillery battery.
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USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park
If you have to wait an hour or two for your USS Arizona Memorial tour to begin, you might want to stroll over to the adjacent USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park. Run by a private nonprofit organization, this park contains the moored WWII-era USS Bowfin submarine as well as the Pacific Submarine Museum. Launched in 1942, the Bowfin completed nine war patrols and sank 44 ships in the Pacific before the end of WWII.
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USS Missouri
The decommissioned battleship USS Missouri, nicknamed 'Mighty Mo,' provides a unique historical 'bookend' to the US campaign in the Pacific during WWII. If you're a history buff the USS Missouri is a worthwhile sight, but if your time or money is limited a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial will suffice. The 887ft-long USS Missouri launched near the end of WWII and served as a flagship during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
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Washington Place
The former governor's official residence, Washington Place is now a historic house museum intended to open up cultural legacies to the Hawaiian people. The large colonial-style building, surrounded by stately trees, was erected in 1846 by US sea captain John Dominis. The captain's son, also named John, became the governor of O'ahu and married the Hawaiian princess who later became Queen Lili'uokalani.
Showing 1-12 of 12 results
