Finally, here’s a closer look at the newly renovated National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) inside Manila’s Rizal Park.
Last Saturday, some of the museum’s stakeholders were invited to its inauguration and were able to see the building before the official opening scheduled for this year.
Thankfully, Ivan Man Dy, the founder of tour outfit Old Manila Walks and trustee of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, shared pictures from the event on Facebook, so we don’t have to wait that long to see the improvements either.
“The galleries are not all up yet but interior is quite something else, one of the most dramatic and innovative I’ve seen in any government building in recent memory,” Dy told Coconuts through Facebook Messenger.
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The renovation project was made official in 1998 as part of the National Museum Act but only during President Benigno Aquino III’s administration did it hit the ground running.
The NMNH building formerly housed the Department of Agriculture and later on, the Department of Tourism (DOT) building. The DOT left the building in 2014.
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According to a letter published on Inquirer.net by Ramon R. del Rosario Jr., the chair of the National Museum, the renovation project cost a total of PHP2.4 billion. PHP1.8 billion came from the government and the rest were from private entities.
According to Dy, the museum is set to open by the end of the month.
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