Babies in museums

Contrary to what may be expected, babies need very little to enjoy the museum visit. In this series of posts I report on our visits to museums highlighting the enjoyments and challenges we encounter as museum visitors. In this post: KAMPA Museum of Modern Art in Prague.

The museum is located in a gorgeous building complex by the Vlatva river. It holds an important number of works by Czech artist František Kupka.

After a nursing break, we went back to a second viewing session and baby got tired to view more art as he is wanting to do things himself. On the first floor of the permanent exhibit we found a small section for baby to play with the elements of colour, shape, and light, which were probably there to explain the colour theories of Kupka. There was a light table with mica cutouts to explain the pieces of the collection, as well as some cushions to sit on the floor. Few people ventured to this hidden corner and so we enjoyed a great moment of quiet for baby to be on the floor and active moments for baby to play hands on.

This turned out to be a great highlight of our visit. It made me realise how little is needed for babies to also be able to enjoy an art museum. We spent probably 30 min in the activities corner and would have stayed longer had we had more time before having to catch our flight.

Baby loved the wooden floors and if he could crawl I am sure we would have spent some time closely looking at the gorgeous shades of wood.

This experience inspire me to start this series. This is the first post on a series about museums and babies.

Main attraction

It is a gorgeous building next to the river.

Unique feature

It has a small but dedicated section for children. We loved it.

General basics

• Entrance and place for baby wagon:
  The museum is made of several buildings. We left the baby wagon by the entrance of one space and continued by foot. The lift is managed by the staff only.
• Toilet facilities:
  We used the floor of one of the galleries to change baby. We did not spot the baby toilet.
• Breast feeding space:
  The museum is small and it was quite busy during the weekend when we visited. We were not allowed to use the chairs of the security staff. We left mid of our visit to the cafe nearby for baby to eat. We were happy to come back and enjoy the Kupka interactive corner.
• Staff and sphere:
  Staff were nice in spite of language barriers.