The recurring, yet sometimes overlooked role of the built environment in childrenβs literature is being showcased in Building Stories, a new long-term exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Designed for a multigenerational audience, it offers an immersive exploration of architecture, engineering and construction found in the pages of childrenβs books and encourages interaction with familiar classics and new favorites through hands-on activities, media installations, sketching, reading and building stories of their own.
Occupying 4,000 sq ft of prominent ground-floor exhibition space, Building Stories is the museum’s most ambitious exhibitionβdeveloped in partnership with curator Leonard Marcus, the nationβs leading expert on childrenβs literature, and Portland, Ore.-based exhibition and experiential design studio Plus And Greater Than.
Award-winning author/illustrators David Macaulay and Oliver Jeffers collaborated to create original environments that offer insight into their creative processes, and engage visitors to better understand what is created in books and encourage their own roles in making a better world.
The exhibition will encourage visitors of all ages to interact with familiar classics and new favorites.
Photo courtesy National Building MuseumBuilding StoriesΒ begins with βBuilding Readers,β an introductory gallery that explores a childβs first experiences of shapes, forms, imagery and words as they becomeΒ building blocks of language and the built environment. The many parallels between design of books and of structures are revealed as visitors are invited to consider processes of building and bookmaking through a selection of rare book dummies, original sketches and architectural models.Β
Three archways inspired by the Three Little Pigs connect βBuilding Readersβ to βYour Home, My Home,β a gallery that explores the idea and expression of βhomeβ in its many forms: a bedroom, a house or a neighborhood and community in cultures and locations around the world. An immersive round theater with a multimedia presentation brings books such as Tar Beach, ShadowΒ and The Snowy DayΒ to life.Β The third gallery,Β βScale Play,β challenges visitorsβ perceptions of the environment through another recurring theme in children’s literatureβcharacters changing size. It explores what it feels like to navigate the world when one is small, and the impact of monumental architecture on how spaces are seen.
The many parallels between the design of books and buildings are revealed as visitorsΒ Photos courtesy of the National Building MuseumΒ βWider World,β the exhibitionβs final gallery, unites its concepts to focus on Β possibilities for childrenβs real-world empowerment and participation. Books on display explore connections between the natural world and human-built systems, and emphasize characters who use their imagination and work together to shape the future, inspiring other young visitors to do the same. Building Stories opened in January and will be on display for the next decade. Among the exhibition’s many sponsors are HITT Contracting; Davis Construction; DPR Construction; Forsythe Inc.; and AECOM.
