The Arts and Industries Building (AIB), located on the national mall, is the second oldest of the Smithsonian’s buildings and was America’s first national Museum. It has inspired visitors to imagine the future since opening as a showcase in 1881 for the inventions from the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, including the steam locomotive, electric light bulb, and Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. For the next 125 years, it housed a series of collections that illuminated the wonders of the universe for millions of people, igniting awe and discovery in technology, space travel, natural history and American history.
After closing in 2004, the building lay dormant for more than a decade. Now, after a federally-funded structural revitalization, the Smithsonian is developing plans to reopen the building as a national hub for innovative thinking and experimentation across a broad spectrum of technologies and issues. It will become a space where new generations see themselves as the innovators and problem solvers who can create the future.
In the fall of 2017, the Smithsonian partnered with the Yale University Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID) to engage an interdisciplinary cohort of students in the process of reimagining the future of the Arts and Industries Building. The Smithsonian Future Project was the focus of “Making Spaces”, a course which borrows from the practices of adaptive reuse and spatial design to repurpose an existing site for a new future. Positioned at the intersection of history, technology, and design, the course explored the historical and technological significance of the ideas and innovations that the AIB house over the years. Students then worked to conceptualize new experience and exhibits for the space, exploring ways to use technology to enhance and enrich visitor engagement.
