The recurring, but sometimes overlooked, role of the built environment in children’s literature is being shown Building Stories, a new long-term exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC
Designed for a multigenerational audience, it offers an immersive exploration of the architecture, engineering and construction found in the pages of children’s books and encourages interaction with familiar classics and new favorites through hands-on activities, multimedia installations, drawings, reading and constructing their own stories. own
It occupies 4,000 square meters of prominent exhibition space on the ground floor, Building stories is the museum’s most ambitious exhibition yet, developed in collaboration with curator Leonard Marcus, the nation’s leading expert on children’s literature, and Portland, Oregon-based exhibition and experience design studio Plus And Greater Than .
Award-winning authors and illustrators David Macaulay and Oliver Jeffers collaborated to create original environments that provide insight into their creative processes and encourage visitors to better understand what is created in the books and encourage their own roles in making a better world
The exhibit will encourage visitors of all ages to interact with familiar classics and new favorites.
Photo courtesy National Building MuseumBuilding stories begins with “Building Readers,” an introductory gallery that explores a child’s first experiences with shapes, forms, images, and words as they become.e building blocks of language and the built environment. The many parallels between book design and structures are revealed as visitors are invited to consider the construction and stake-making processes through a selection of rare book dummies, original sketches and architectural models .
Three arches inspired by the three little pigs connect “Building Readers” with “Your Home, My Home”, a gallery that explores the idea and expression of “home” in its many forms: a bedroom, a house or a neighborhood and community in cultures and places of around the world. An immersive round theater with a multimedia presentation carries books like Tar Beach, Ombra i The snow day in life. The third gallery, “Scale Play,” challenges visitors’ perceptions of the environment through another recurring theme in children’s literature: characters change size. Explore what it feels like to navigate the world as a child and the impact of monumental architecture on how spaces are seen.
The many parallels between the design of the books and the buildings are revealed as visitors Photos courtesy of the National Building Museum “Wider World,” the exhibition’s final gallery, brings its concepts together to focus on the possibilities of empowerment and participation in the real world for children. The books on display explore the connections between the natural world and man-made systems, and emphasize characters who use their imaginations and work together to shape the future, inspiring other young visitors to the same. Building Stories opened in January and will be on display for the next decade. Among the many sponsors of the exhibition are HITT Contracting; Davis Construction; Construction DPR; Forsythe Inc.; and AECOM.
