maam2025buildingmuseums

The Missouri History Museum is in the middle of a decade-long transformation, promising to introduce visitors to a St. Louis they’ve never met. The Museum will accomplish this through the development of three new permanent exhibits set to open to the public over the course of four years. With an eye toward the future, the Museum undertook a rigorous process to prequalify a group of potential exhibition design, media, and fabrication partners for these future renovation efforts. Their unique approach focused on developing strong teams to help produce these projects over the course of several years. The Museum team was presented with many challenges, ranging from budget and schedule management, to finding new ways to engage visitors in a deeper dive into the stories they thought they knew.

This session will: discuss early decisions on each exhibit’s development strategy and the pre-bid partnership research process; provide a case study of the first completed gallery, The 1904 World’s Fair; and explore how the Museum distilled their learnings from The 1904 World’s Fair to optimize their approach for the other two exhibits.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss strategies and processes for developing a strong team of collaborative partners invested in the Museum’s vision.
2. Create a nimble process so that one phase of work can inform and improve execution of a second phase as well as future projects.
3. Understand how to use a budget management process to maximize the visitor experiences.
4. Recognize resources the museum already has to support new project budgets.

AIA Continuing Education Course Number, BMS2025-47