National Constitution Center
Philadelphia, PA
Two galleries for the nation's 250th. One asks how the country was made. The other asks how it runs.
KEY INFO
Client
National Constitution Center
Scale
8600 sqft / 800 sqm
Partners
Becker & Frondorf, Hadley Exhibits,
Trivium Interactives, Two Left Hands
CONCEPT
The National Constitution Center brought us in on both. America's Founding puts the past on its feet and strips out the idea that the outcome was ever inevitable. It opens in a 1765 tavern, a letter to the king on the table and the choice narrowed to loyalist or rebel.
“The exhibit bridges the past and the future in an almost magical way. It feels like you’re walking through an interactive timeline…”
Visit Philadelphia
America's founding
Collaborating with the Center's constitutional scholars, historians, and educators, we framed the gallery across four moments: Resistance, Revolution, Ratification, and Rights. Visitors push from the tavern into a smoke-filled Valley Forge camp, then into the arguments that shaped a new nation. At a four-station drafting table, they trigger the convention's fiercest debates, tracing the disagreements and negotiations that defined the Constitution. It ends on the drafting of the Bill of Rights, where failed amendments show a document still in motion.
Governing the Nation
Governing the Nation makes government tangible. Visitors weigh a vote at a congressional dais, take the oath behind the Resolute Desk, and sit the Supreme Court bench. By stepping into each branch, they begin to see how government works, and their own place within it.
Together, the galleries demystify both the making of American democracy and how it works today. Visitors leave understanding that government is something they can participate in. Democracy asks something of everyone who lives under it. Here, that ask becomes something visitors can see, understand, and act on.
Document and collection photography credit - The National Constitution Center made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin and Griffin Catalyst
