www.discovertheburgh.com: One of the things I love about our goal of visiting every attraction in Pittsburgh is uncovering a hidden gem that most who live in the city may not even know about. The Bayernhof Museum in O'Hara Township certainly fell on that list for us, and after visiting it is now one of the many places in the city we have come to regret not visiting sooner.
4 comments:
This is really fun. I love when strange collections are presented in truly interesting ways, especially because more often than not the collection itself might not be so interesting except for its object of concentration. While not so in this case, there are collections like a perfume bottle collection that do not do so well to stand on their own. But with the addition of an exceptional presentation format they become much more interesting to learn about. Even in this case, adding an almost theatrical air to the tour and bringing in the eccentric collector’s own personality into the museum after he’s gone elevates the visitors’ desire to engage with the subject matter. An ice cream shop by my grandmother’s house used to have a player piano. My sister and I loved to watch it play song after song after song, but we were young and easily fascinated. Show me one now and I’d probably still be intrigued for a minute, take me through a secret passageway to another and I definitely want to see more.
Honestly I never really knew that self-playing music instruments existed, let alone that people have large collections or even that one of those collections is on display in a museum here in Pittsburgh. The part I liked most about reading this article is that Charles Brown III, the man who owned all of these instruments, asked that his collection be put on display after he died. I really enjoy visiting museums, but especially museums where everything in it was part of someone’s personal collection. I think the fact that one person spent many years or even an entire lifetime finding the objects in the collection makes the museum even cooler and definitely more personal. I also really enjoy museums where there is stuff to do or hear or smell or food museums where you can eat things too, because I like the way these museums find to incorporate more than just the sense of sight. So, I would really like to go to this museum soon.
Often when people ask me what I think of living in Pittsburgh I tell them I like it, but really I don’t live in Pittsburgh, I live in CMU. I think I will likely end up regretting not exploring the city much, but I also don’t know when I really would have found the time to. Even as I’m saying this, I know even though the Bayernhof Museum sounds like an interesting place, I probably won’t find the time to go. That being said, I would like to try to. It seems like an interesting collection of artifacts, I and I would be interested to see how the self playing instruments changed over time. I also suppose I am not going to be exiled from Pittsburgh after I graduate so I can always come back and see it, I don’t plan on moving all that far away. There is definitely a lot to see in the area.
This is so cool! I really would love to visit this museum. I wonder if they allow audio recording devices, it is a weird thought to be in a world of mechanically produced music. How does that affect people? I want to see who these machines were created for. I am happy and lucky to have so many small random attractions in pittsburgh to visit, and not this one is definitely added to my list. I love the idea of a life’s hobby turned museum, left in someone’s residence. The photo of the bedroom captures a different time I feel listening to mechanically produced music brings out more discrepancies in music produced by a human. This article mentions that the museum has one of the first mechanically produced music machines, which was designed by Edison. I am curious to the other pieces that are in the collection, and look forward to someday hearing them.
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