The Louvre has the Mona Lisa, the Prado is famed for its collection of Velasquez and El Greco, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has the Temple of Dendur. The Guggenheim has Gauguin and the Smithsonian has the first space capsule. But none of these celebrated museums has anything close to the likes of the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum, the International Banana Museum, or Leila's Hair Museum.

While esteemed cultural institutions attract millions of visitors yearly, and are rightfully acclaimed for the value of their collections, they are far outnumbered by the many specialty (some would say oddball) museums, which have their own fanatic, albeit small, followings. Many of these museums pay homage to ordinary things, elevating them to fetishistic status. They are often a celebration of an individual's passion, and embody the desire to reach out to others who may share this peculiar obsession.

Take the SULABH INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF TOILETS in New Delhi. Its founder, Dr. Bindeshwar Patak, claims that India was the first area of the world to have a public sewage disposal system, about 4,500 years ago. The Museum of Toilets meticulously documents the history of toilets and has an extensive collection of privies, chamber pots, toilet furniture, bidets, and water closets dating back to A.D. 1145. From Austrian floral-painted porcelain urinals and a replica of King Louis XIII's “throne within a throne” (this allowed him to “ease himself” in public), to experimental microwave toilets which use less water and “compost” waste, the museum is a fascinating repository of all things toilet. It also houses a collection of international poetry based on bodily excretions (obviously for some a great source of poetic inspiration).

A similarly themed institution, the MADISON MUSEUM OF BATHROOM TISSUE, Madison, Wis., has over 2,500 rolls of toilet paper (“an impressive assemblage of toilet paper from across the country and around the world”) from Ellis Island, Caesar's Palace, the Alamo, and the like. There are examples of celebrity-signed toilet paper (Madonna), vintage toilet paper from the late 1800s, and yes, toilet paper poetry (is there a common thread here?).

The BRITISH LAWNMOWER MUSEUM, located in a seaside resort in Lancashire County, proudly calls itself "one of the world's leading authorities on vintage lawnmowers" and "the largest import and export specialist in antique garden machinery.” The current exhibition features "Lawnmowers of the Rich and Famous" and its permanent collection houses the first solar-powered robot mower as well as one that is only 2 inches tall. Closet lawnmower enthusiasts can buy the DVD Lawnmower World: A Glimpse into the Fascinating History of Garden Machinery.

Some objects have multiple museums devoted to their documentation. The humble corkscrew may be worshipped in several countries, including—where else?—in the South of France, at the Musee du Tire-Bouchon. The CORKSCREW MUSEUM has over 1,500 examples of this implement, including several unique pieces from the 17th century.

Edibles are also worthy of museum status: The MOUNT HOREB MUSTARD MUSEUM in Mount Horeb, Wis., has more than 3,000 different kinds of mustard, from almost every U.S. state and several foreign countries. The museum shows how mustard is made, and its visitors can taste 300 kinds of mustard. Pastrami, anyone?

The MEGURO PARASITOLOGICAL MUSEUM in Tokyo is “the world's one and only museum devoted to parasites.” Vaguely sinister but fascinating, the museum contains more than 300 specimens preserved in formalin lab bottles, as well as artifacts such as a 28-foot tapeworm that lived inside a man who liked to eat his trout raw. The museum is a proper research institute, where one may learn that fully 70,000 species—six percent of all animals— are of the parasitic persuasion.

Philadelphia does Tokyo one better; its MÜTTER MUSEUM has approximately 900 fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens; 10,000 medical instruments and apparati dating from 1750 to the present; about 400 anatomical and pathological models in plaster, wax, papier-mâché, plastic, and more. While the Mütter Museum is not for the faint of heart, those who delight in the macabre will revel in the gory details. (I must confess that I am one such, having once—long ago—falsified my references to gain admittance to the private collection of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.) No need to pretend you are a medical professional here ... the Mütter Museum is open to the public, every day of the year except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Its gift shop bristles with sticky body parts, a squishy anatomical heart, “Box ‘O' Bones” (a puzzle with glow-in-the-dark skeletal parts), and “The Incredible Growing Brain,” a gray model of the brain that expands to human size when placed in water.

Death seems to have a fatal allure: One may choose from the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FUNERAL HISTORY in Houston or the undertakers museum in Vienna, the latter of which was founded in 1967 and documents the history of burial rites and customs and contains a library and an archive. One can see uniforms of undertakers and hearses through the ages and funeral-related paraphernalia such as reusable coffins.

Italy is the home of not one but two museums devoted to torture: The ROME CRIME MUSEUM is housed in a former prison built especially for Pope Leo XII in 1827. Wax models and lifelike drawings depict a wide array of torture techniques, and actual torture devices are on display. One of these, the Iron Maiden, was a suffocating sarcophagus lined with flesh-piercing spikes. The criminal walked in, and the door was gradually shut until the desired confession was elicited. The mission of the MEDIEVAL CRIMINAL MUSEUM in Siena (aka the Museum of Torture) is to provoke thought and debate about man's inhumanity to man. On exhibit: a devastating display of devices such as a spiked collar, an iron gag, a stretching ladder, thumbscrews, and a chain flail with iron stars.

While some museums are devoted to pain, others favor pleasure. I wrote about New York City's Museum of Sex in STEP's July/August 2004 issue (there are a number of other sex museums worldwide). In Prague, however, the SEX MACHINE MUSEUMspecializes in “mechanical erotic appliances, the purpose of which is to bring pleasure and allow extraordinary and unusual positions during intercourse.” Over 200 such devices are on display, accompanied by some very flexible dummies.

The CENTER FOR UNUSUAL MUSEUMS in Munich houses not one but seven eccentric museums: the Pedal Car Museum, the Chamber Pot Museum (more than 2,000 examples are displayed), the Bourdalou Museum (these were fancy portable chamber pots for French noblewomen in the 18th and 19th centuries), the Easter Bunny Museum, the Museum of Scent, the Guardian Angel Museum, and a museum devoted to Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Founded on the theory that all art needs a home, the museum of bad art in Dedham, Mass., describes its collection as ranging from "the work of talented artists that have gone awry, to works of exuberant, although crude, execution by artists barely in control of the brush." MOBA is dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition, and celebration of bad art in all its forms, and is located in the basement of the Dedham Community Theater, conveniently located just outside the men's room. Museum volunteers claim that “the nearby flushing helps maintain a uniform humidity.”

There is no end of ordinary objects that have been celebrated and showcased ... the KENNETH W. BERGER HEARING AID MUSEUM at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, has more than 3,000 hearing aids from around the world. At LEILA'S HAIR MUSEUM in Independence, Mo., there are 159 wreaths made from human hair and over 2,000 pieces of jewelry containing or made of human hair dating before 1900. the INTERNATIONAL TOWING MUSEUM'S (Chattanooga, Tenn.) mission is "to preserve the history of the towing and recovery industry."

Each of these museums offers up its treasures; documented, lit, and framed, elevated from the realm of the sometimes mundane. Each is in its own way a tribute to obsession. Paying homage to ordinary things, pulled out of their ordinary surroundings, made more important by multiplication, fills a basic human need: It brings together odd fellows so they may share and indulge their passions. After all, who is qualified to distinguish that which is simply odd from that which is extraordinary?

This article was originally published in the July/August 2005 issue of STEP inside design magazine.

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