How did they get all this stuff into the museum?

#metkids The Metropolitan Museum of Art How does The Met get all this art into the museum? Tobias, age 9 ♪ (Hindi music) ♪ <i>(Tobias) I've always been fascinated by how science works.</i> You have to use science to construct things, like physics. Hello, I'm Tobias, and I'm nine years old. I'm Aileen Chuk. I'm the chief registrar here at the Metropolitan Museum. What does "registrar" mean? We're in charge of all the art that comes in or out of the building. How do you fit all the artwork through the doorways that are only like-- Sometimes, it's really, really difficult. <i>(Tobias) How did they fit this in here?</i> <i>Would they take apart this building</i> <i>and then build it up again?</i> <i>(Aileen) That's exactly what they did, actually.</i> <i>You can see that the building is made out of blocks of stone,</i> <i>and before we moved it, each block of stone was numbered.</i> <i>And so, all we had to do was take it apart</i> and put it back together again. So, it's like one, two, three, they took that apart, and then they put one, two, three, back in order again? <i>(Aileen) True. At least this breaks down into a lot of small parts.</i> You're lucky with that. - I know I'm lucky with that. - But what about huge paintings that are-- <i>(Aileen) Exactly right.</i> <i>And how about that big Egyptian sculpture</i> <i>that's in the Great Hall?</i> <i>He's ten tons.</i> Whoa! He just came in the Museum two years ago. - Really? - Yes, he came from Berlin. (Tobias) <i>Awesome.</i> <i>(Aileen) We brought it in at six o'clock in the morning.</i> And you probably ended around eight o'clock at night. We ended at midnight. <i>Because-- you've learned a little bit about physics, right?</i> A little bit. So we have to worry about the floors in the Museum. You don't want to crack the floors. <i>(Aileen) Because you have to worry about floor loads.</i> <i>Do you know what floor loads are?</i> -- Like, there's weak spots-- -- Exactly, exactly. <i>So in order to move it,</i> <i>we had to spread the weight of that sculpture.</i> You had to cut it in half? Well, what we did was, <i>we moved it a couple of inches at a time.</i> <i>We put down wood,</i> <i>and then we put down steel plates.</i> <i>And we had to wrap him up, put straps on him,</i> <i>and then we had to stand him up.</i> <i>We did all of that in one day,</i> on a Monday when the Museum was closed. That's smart. <i>(Aileen) See, now the Museum is open seven days a week,</i> <i>so I guess he has to stay there for quite a while.</i> - Yeah. Yeah. - (laughing) what's your #metkids question? If there's a small piece that's hanging off, gravity will pull down on that piece, and the entire building will go "timber!". That's an excellent explanation. - Thank you, Tobias. - You're welcome. ♪ (Hindi music) ♪