Antipa Grand Multiplex

it was last weekend when i was driving my mom around the city and i saw the queue at antipa for the second time. i told her that this sight makes me feel good, it makes me happy, seeing all these people staying in line to visit the newly open museum. something must be working, it’s one of the small good news things that makes your day in a week of not that much wellness. well, sort off, cause then i went to see it.

long story short. the antipa museum is great, loved it as a kid, love it now. but here is what happened. the queues form because all tickets are generated by three machines, which need exact change or certain credit cards. the woman at the welcome desk does not know how the machines operate but will give you change, a job she finds demeaning. the museum is very small, only a small part of the building is used. actually it’s exactly as big as it used to be. and the content is the same. a mix of plastic and real taxidermy.

this is what my eyes saw as change. they cleaned the place. they repainted the walls. they put a couple of projectors. they put some touch screens. if you push the outline of the pelican in the diorama sketch it will tell you this is a pelican and a latin name. wow, way to go too-much-info on the kids. luckily kids today have smartphones and can do a wolfram alpha on a pelican. check it out. but 10 mil euros? man, i felt cheated. maybe the expectations where way up high, but still. all the pictures on the net and magazines are done with a wide angle lens and it appears so dope and cool. the actual kitchen size rooms hold dioramas so close to each other you basically walk a tunnel through the whole museum. the glasses are so close to each other they reflect each others dioramas. after 10 mil euros, from the entrance to the restrooms, we still use paper a4 to mark the right doors?

antipa will be an awesome first visit for kids, and young, still interested by the world hearts, but it gives nothing for a second ride. it is far from achieving the place of learning or curiosity for it to return. and it is so so small you can’t even go for piece of mind. plus the ticket is as expensive as a movie at the nearest multiplex. exciting stuff there too.

well, baby steps, go see it, you can also get a 1 euro kid ticket from the machine, no one checks.