Star-Spangled Banner: An abstract flag that is 40 feet long and 19 feet high soars above the entrance to a new Star-Spangled Banner gallery. This flag is the new focal point of the second floor at the place that most visitors enter the museum. The exhibit itself showcases the 30 by-34 foot wool and cotton Star-Spangled Banner in a new setting with floor-to-ceiling glass windows designed to evoke the “dawn’s early light” in which Francis Scott Key saw the flag.
Architecture: The renovation dramatically opens the building up by removing the marble panels that blocked the view to the museum’s third floor. The new design creates a central atrium with a skylight and a grand staircase connects the museum’s first and second floors.
There are also new entrance vestibules at Constitution Avenue and Madison Drive which will help alleviate crowding. On the first floor, there is a new exhibition gallery for the museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, a new lobby for the 275-seat Carmichael Auditorium and new retail operations.
Public Amenities: The renovation also includes the Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Lobby for the 275-seat Carmichael Auditorium, new elevators and restroom facilities, food and retail operations. The Constitution Café will face Constitution Avenue on the first floor and offer sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts while the lower level 600-seat Stars and Stripes Café will serve American fare.
Renovation Funding
The renovation was made possible through a public-private partnership with $46 million in federal funds and the remaining $39 million from individuals, foundations and corporations. The museum’s $80 million dollar donor, Kenneth E. Behring, has contributed $16 million to the project.Renovation Architect and Builder
This project was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, one of the world’s leading architecture, urban design, engineering and interior architecture firms. SOM’s portfolio includes two Chicago landmarks, the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center; the design of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden; and other performing arts and education buildings.Turner Construction served as the general contractor. Turner is the builder that renovated the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, the Metropolitian Museum of Art in New York and constructed the Newseum building at Pennsylvania and 6th Street in Washington, DC.
