BODY WORLDS London
BODY WORLDS, London’s permanent flagship museum in the heart of London, Piccadilly Circus, is the perfect day out this Christmas for the whole family.
Fusing science, art and health education, it has become one of the biggest new UK attractions to open in the past decade.
Open 365 days a year, it is a fascinating and interactive journey inside the human body that teaches everyone, old and young, the importance of looking after ourselves.
Created by Dr Gunther von Hagens and his co-director and wife Dr Angelina Whalley, the museum represents a chance to make the most detailed ever journey around the human body, and features real bodies and body parts donated to be preserved by Dr von Hagens’ patented ‘plastination’ technique, which replaces fat and water in cells with complex synthetics.
BODY WORLDS is a revolutionary force in terms of presenting the human body as art, bringing anatomical sciences to a wider audience, teaching the public in more detail than ever before about their bodies and how to look after them, and breaking the taboo which still hangs over society’s notions of death. It has been seen by over 47 million visitors in more than 130 cities worldwide.
Health and education remain at the heart of BODY WORLDS London, with over 200 exhibits and displays exploring the ageing process, diet and cholesterol, the beating heart and cardiovascular systems, and pregnancy and reproduction, in more detail than has ever been previously possible. Healthy and diseased organs are shown side by side, allowing visitors to see how lifestyle choices affect the body.
Interactive elements throughout the exhibition include a CPR display where visitors can learn how to save lives, a ‘smoking app’ which shows the effect smoking has on the body, blood pressure and heart rate monitors and even an Anatomical Mirror where museum-goers can see their whole bodies reflected, organs and all.
BODY WORLDS London’s 25 full body plastinates display a range of movements and activities to show exactly how the muscles work in different ways.
Among the exhibition’s full-body plastinates, as they are known, are The Rearing Horse and Rider (a shire horse rearing up on its hind legs with its rider, showing the anatomical difference between animal and human), the Split Jumper (a gymnast caught in mid-air doing a spread-eagle jump), a tennis player (three cross sections attempting a half-volley), a relay runner (posed mid-handover to display the human muscular system) and the Poker Playing Trio famously seen in the James Bond film Casino Royale.
BODY WORLDS London is a stark reminder that modern life has a massive impact on our bodies; research by BODY WORLDS HQ shows that Britons spend a third of their waking lives glued to technology – that’s an average of five hours a day in front of a screen – consume on average 9.5 litres of alcohol a year, and add 14 teaspoons of sugar to their diet per day. The exhibition highlights not only how beautiful and complex our bodies are, but also teaches us how and why we should all look after them.
BODY WORLDS creator Gunther von Hagens said: “The purpose of Plastination from its very inception was a scientific one, to educate medical students. But the interest that laypeople had in the plastinated specimens inspired me to think of creating public exhibitions, which was followed by the realization that I had to offer a heightened sense of aesthetics, to avoid shocking the public and to capture their imagination.
“This museum in the very heart of London is the culmination of my work and my contribution to open the heart to our inner self and makes us fall in love with our own body.”
BODY WORLDS London is open 365 days of the year, Sunday to Thursday from 9.30am to 7pm and Friday and Saturday from 9.30am to 9pm. For tickets go to www.bodyworlds.co.uk/.
Buy tickets online: Adult (16+): £24.50; Child (6 -15 years): £17.50; Student: (<30 years): £22.50; Family ticket (4 people with 2 or more children): £75.
BODY WORLDS, London, The London Pavilion, 1 Piccadilly Circus, London, W1J 0DA