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Communications museums are intriguing places. They are museums of something we take so much for granted, something that seems so ephemeral, that changes so quickly, that it is difficult to materialise in exhibitions.



There are many wonderful communications museums I have visited around the world. I get excited about how each museum addresses the challenges above, and how they try and find material traces of communication in different places of that particular site.

I couldn't believe that I hadn't yet visited one of our local Dutch communication museums, COMM in Den Haag, and just happened to be in the area recently when renewing a passport. What great luck, with a few spare hours before we needed to come home, especially as they had a wonderful pneumatic tube display (apparently, according to Wendeline who I bought my tickets from and who kindly explained a bit about the museum, the most popular part of the museum with visitors). Even luckier but also perhaps sadder, it was the last day the museum was open to the public.

So I have included some photos below, for those that will not have the chance to visit in the future. You can also read the museum's post about the buizenpost here. The museum is however open for events, so I am already plotting for a pneumatic tube conference - stay tuned and posted! (and let me know if you are interested)

Visitors had the chance, once travelling through the four floors of the museum to write themselves a message and send it via pneumatic tube to the first floor.

There all the messages were then posted onto a board for visitors to read.

The museum also had a beautifully designed cafe, with what I presume were donors' names (but could be otherwise) on coloured postal boxes, and stamps on the lockers.