Building Stories

The design creates diverse avenues of approach for each curatorial element, so that someone’s fifth visit could be as illuminating as their first. Inspired by the moment of awe when one sees a skyscraper for the first time, both for a child and for a person who has seen a thousand skyscrapers, the exhibition uses multiple scales of encounter to replicate this feeling—whether that occurs when immersed in the multimedia theater or passing through a “shrinking” tunnel.

Gallery 1: Building Readers, explores a child’s first experience where shapes, forms, imagery, and words become building blocks of language and the built environment. This gallery shows how the presentation of a story can be influenced by aspects of a book’s physical design and construction. The parallels between the design of books and the design of buildings are revealed, particularly how scale and construction impacts our experience of both. Visitors are invited to consider the process of building and that of book-making through a selection of rare book dummies, original sketches, and architectural models. 

Gallery 2: Your Home, My Home, explores the idea of “home” in all its forms: a bedroom, a house, or a neighborhood and community and what home (or perhaps the loss of one), looks like in cultures and locations around the world. Three connective archways are anchored by four display cases with books and graphics that explore how orientation tools connect readers to story worlds. Inside, an immersive, semi-circular theater with a multimedia presentation uses light, projection, and sound to bring narrated stories to life.

Gallery 3: Scale Play, is entered through a ‘magic portal’ threshold where a tapered tunnel and environmental graphics make visitors feel like they are shrinking in a gesture reminiscent of Alice In Wonderland. That playful sense of scale remains as visitors travel throughout the gallery. Several walls become a dimensional cityscape integrated with casework that house the chapters of this gallery. The remaining wall takes readers on a bird’s eye view through Rome, illustrated by Dave Macaulay. This gallery challenges visitors’ perceptions of the surrounding world through scale play, a recurring theme in children’s literature. Like fairy tales and favorite fables, monumental structures stretch our imaginations to the limit and beyond, enlarging our very definition of what is possible. Two physical view finders at different heights explore stories of memory, scale, and epic architecture.

Finally, Gallery 4: Wider World, brings all of these concepts together and examines how we build a better world together. Visitors enter a light-filled landscape pulled from the illustrations of award-winning author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers. Oversized soft blocks with imagery and words from his books invite visitors to write (and build) three-dimensional stories of their own. The book selection in the cases lining the perimeter and in its reading nook explore the connections between the natural world and manmade systems, and how we might engage more responsibly by understanding their relationship.

The design team played a vital role in the physical and narrative development and implementation of Building Stories. The exhibit is the most ambitious ever undertaken by the museum in longevity and the number of interactive experiences, specialist fabricators, and multidisciplinary creative team, each of which was overseen by the designers. From inception to opening, the design team collaborated closely with the curatorial and museum staff to produce an exhibition in which they had a hand in virtually every aspect: from the overarching narrative to the 150+ books on display to the specific angle of a display case.

The designers developed a consistent, immersive narrative about literature and the built environment, while instilling richness and depth into every facet of the multigenerational exhibition. Through their efforts, the 10-year exhibition can be experienced by a visitor who is three years old, and then again over the next ten years until she is thirteen—and each visit will present an interesting, engaging experience.

Design Team

Traci Sym (principal)
Daniel Meyers (principal)
David Beauvais (project management)
Julia Meyers (intern)
Andrew Freeman (afreeman, graphic design)
Matt Blum (production designer)

Collaborators

Print Exhibit Partners (printing)
Berry & Homer (printing)
Premier Press (printing)
AV&C (a/v integration and software development)
Tim Cramer (audio production and a/v Integration)
Half Sister Studio (media production)
Plus And Greater Than (media production)
Brooklyn Printworks (wallpaper production)
Jeff Ross (wallpaper installation)
Danaher Signs (murals)
Marmoleum (graphic flooring product)
Ultrasonic Cutting (graphic flooring production)
SmartLam (cross laminated timber entrance)
Rex Lumber (cross laminated timber entrance)
Davis Construction (cross laminated timber entrance)
Forsythe DC (cross laminated timber entrance)
Phoenix Steel Erectors, Inc. (cross laminated timber entrance)
Precision Plastics (upholstered blocks)
Barbara Weber (upholstered blocks),
Andi Kovel (custom glass)
iZone Imaging (graphic panels)
Eva Hagberg (practitioner voices interviews)
Vera Baron (voice talent)
Miles Baron (voice talent)
Nora Bauman (voice talent)
Carla Bonilla (voice talent)
Senami d’Almeida (voice talent)
Rebecca Gates (voice talent)
Marlow Graham (voice talent)
Janelle Linehan (voice talent)
Julia Meyers (voice talent)
Sophia Meyers (voice talent)
Maria Porter (voice talent)
Stefan Pukatzki (voice talent)
Mihoko Suzuki (voice talent)
Carla Vickers (voice talent)
Joan Vickers (voice talent)
Mike Webb (voice talent)

Photo Credits

Stephen A. Miller Photography

Open Date

January 2021