The Virginia Historical Society is preparing to reopen its Virginia Museum of History & Culture, which has undergone an 18-month, $30 million-plus renovation that is the most extensive in the institution’s 200-year history.
The Museum, located in Richmond, is planning a grand reopening for the weekend of May 14 and 15, when it will officially unveil to the public a renovation that touches nearly two-thirds of the museum’s 250,000 sf. The project adds about 50 percent more exhibition space, a new research library, a grand two-story entrance atrium, an immersive orientation theater, several community meeting spaces, a connection between the Museum of History & Culture with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, an enhanced green space, and new amenities that include a café and museum store.
Glavé Holmes is the architect for this renovation, and Whiting-Turner Construction the GC. The PRD Group provided the exhibition design in partnership with the Museum’s internal curatorial staff.
(The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is also undergoing a $190 million renovation, designed by SmithGroup, that will impact 45,000 of the museum’s existing 650,000 sf of space, and include a new 100,000-sf wing and a 45,000-sf standalone Collections Center building. Construction is scheduled to start in the summer of 2023 for completion in the summer of 2025.)
Some of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture’s main goals from its renovation are to improve its infrastructure and programming, expand attendance by 25 percent, and extend the length of a guest’s visit by 50 percent.
VIRGINIA’S FIVE MAJOR REGIONS HIGHLIGHTED
As part of its reopening, the Museum of History & Culture—whose collection includes more than nine million objects—will debut exhibitions and galleries the present new approaches to learning. For example, Our Commonwealth, a more than 5,000-sf long-term exhibition with a 15-ft-wide video mural, will provide an in-depth, multi-sensory exploration through the five major regions of Virginia, featuring stories and artifacts from partner organizations and cultural institutions throughout the state. The exhibition will include living murals—large-scale, changing digital projections—and custom soundscapes that immerse them in the arts, culture, food, music, industry, and people of each region.
Other exhibits include American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith, is a Smithsonian-organized display that will dynamically bring the great American experiment of democracy to life. Treasures of Virginia will feature objects associated with Virginians who, through extraordinary leadership and creativity, have worked to shape the future of both our state and our nation. Cheers, Virginia! explores alcohol crafting and consumption practices in Virginia across time. Virginia Explorers is a new interactive learning space for the museum’s youngest guests. The orientation theater will screen Imagine Virginia, a 17-minute film highlighting indelible moments and scenes in the state’s history. The film serves as an introduction to the reimagined museum.
Beyond new physical spaces, the Museum is investing time and resources into a long-term collections partnership with the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. In addition, the Museum is a key partner with educators across the state, enhancing the stories that can be told and supplementing the curricula that are pivotal for developing an informed citizenry.
Related Stories
| Sep 12, 2011
Living Buildings: Are AEC Firms up to the Challenge?
Modular Architecture > You’ve done a LEED Gold or two, maybe even a LEED Platinum. But are you and your firm ready to take on the Living Building Challenge? Think twice before you say yes.
| Apr 13, 2011
Expanded Museum of the Moving Image provides a treat for the eyes
The expansion and renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., involved a complete redesign of its first floor and the construction of a three-story 47,000-sf addition.
| Apr 12, 2011
Entrance pavilion adds subtle style to Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
A $13 million gift from the Otis Booth Foundation is funding a new entrance pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. CO Architects, Los Angeles, is designing the frameless structure with an energy-efficient curtain wall, vertical suspension rods, and horizontal knife plates to make it as transparent as possible.
| Jan 21, 2011
Sustainable history center exhibits Fort Ticonderoga’s storied past
Fort Ticonderoga, in Ticonderoga, N.Y., along Lake Champlain, dates to 1755 and was the site of battles in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The new $20.8 million, 15,000-sf Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center pays homage to the French magasin du Roi (the King’s warehouse) at the fort.
| Jan 19, 2011
Industrial history museum gets new home in steel plant
The National Museum of Industrial History recently renovated the exterior of a 1913 steel plant in Bethlehem, Pa., to house its new 40,000-sf exhibition space. The museum chose VOA Associates, which is headquartered in Chicago, to complete the design for the exhibit’s interior. The exhibit, which has views of five historic blast furnaces, will feature artifacts from the Smithsonian Institution to illustrate early industrial America.
| Jan 19, 2011
Museum design integrates Greek history and architecture
Construction is under way in Chicago on the National Hellenic Museum, the nation’s first museum devoted to Greek history and culture. RTKL designed the 40,000-sf limestone and glass building to include such historic references as the covered walkway of classical architecture and the natural wood accents of Byzantine monasteries. The museum will include a research library and oral history center, plus a 3,600-sf rooftop terrace featuring three gardens. The project seeks LEED Silver.
| Nov 23, 2010
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library and museum, plus the Bush Institute, is aiming for LEED Platinum. The 226,565-sf center, located at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, was designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Oct 13, 2010
Tower commemorates Lewis & Clark’s historic expedition
The $4.8 million Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford, Ill., commemorates explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark at the point where their trek to the Pacific Ocean began—the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
