A museum for children gets ready to open

The National Children’s Museum in Washington hopes to attract 500,000 visitors a year from November. Photo / National Children's Museum

The National Children's Museum in Washington hopes to attract 500,000 visitors a year from November.

We have big plans for the future, but this is our first step, getting the doors open and having these magical experiences for the kids.Crystal Bowyer, The National Children's MuseumThe space will blend a science centre with core elements of a children's museum.

The National Children's Museum's anticipated new home opens later this year in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, signalling a new chapter for a beloved institution that has been closed for more than four years.

The opening is eight months later than promised, the result of unexpected construction delays. But museum officials are confident that the US$15 million ($22.3m), 2800sq m space between Pennsylvania Ave and the National Mall is now on track.

The space will blend the tech-focused characteristics of a science centre with core elements of a children's museum, stretching the target audience to age 12 and connecting the entire experience with a dream motif.

"The children will have a magical moment of entry," museum president and chief executive Crystal Bowyer said of the multiple-storey Dream Machine, a structure of slides and climbers that starts the adventure.

"We wanted to weave all the Steam concepts, incorporating the arts into Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) through dreaming."

The museum will open with a gala party on November 1 and a family event the next day. Tickets for the fundraising celebrations range from US$75 to US$750 for various events.

From November the museum will be open daily, tickets will be sold online and it hopes to attract about 500,000 visitors annually.

Originally named the Capital Children's Museum, the institution opened in 1974 in a former convent.

Congress designated it the National Children's Museum in 2003, and a year later the museum sold the property it had long outgrown for US$25m. The plan was to reopen in a 13,000sq m space designed by architect Cesar Pelli at L'Enfant Plaza in 2008. That project never happened, nor did a second iteration of Pelli's design on donated land at National Harbour in Maryland.

The museum opened the Launch Zone at National Harbour in 2009 to keep a physical presence while it sorted out its future.

A larger space opened in 2012 but closed three years later. Since 2015, the museum has been a virtual one, creating programmes for public schools and public libraries.

"It's a blessing in disguise that that didn't happen," Bowyer said of the Pelli construction. "The operating costs were too high."

The museum's exhibition space is on par with other children's museums, Bowyer said.

"We have big plans for the future," she said, "but this is our first step, getting the doors open and having these magical experiences for the kids."