Smithsonian’s Arts And Industries Building To Reopen With Future-Facing Exhibit This November

After being closed for more than 15 years, the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building has set a date for its grand re-opening. The AIB will open the “FUTURES (opens in a new window)” exhibit Saturday, Nov. 20, and the weekend will feature a live-streamed event with Bill Nye, a family day, and a concert featuring go-go music and indie pop trio SHAED.

The building, which opened in 1881 as the first U.S. National Museum, closed in 2004 for a 10-year, $55 million renovation to the AIB. Workers have stabilized the building’s structure and repaired the roof, along with over 900 of its windows (opens in a new window). The interior — including the original marble flooring and the fossils (opens in a new window) embedded in it — remains largely the same. However, the Smithsonian plans to embark on a more complete renovation project in 2022 (opens in a new window) to the AIB and the Castle next door.

A planned reopening in 2014 was pushed back (opens in a new window) due to financial constraints, and save for a few public and private events, the AIB has been closed to the public. A more ambitious, $2 billion Smithsonian expansion plan was dialed back (opens in a new window) this past January to focus more specifically on renovations to the two buildings. The Smithsonian first announced the AIB reopening (opens in a new window) in February.

Renovation delays aside, Smithsonian curators say visitors should prepare to have their minds blown by the AIB reopening.

“FUTURES” brings visitors into an interactive, four-hall exhibit that looks at the future people envisioned in the past (displayed in the Past Futures hall) and the future we envision today (represented in three halls: Futures that Inspire, Futures that Unite, and Futures that Work). Designed by architecture firm Rockwell Group, the 30,000-square foot space will feature innovations that inspired previous generations — like an early model of the Alexander Graham Bell telephone and a 1960s jet pack (opens in a new window) — as well as art, prototypes, and interactive AI that invites viewers to ask, “What’s possible?”

“[The exhibit] is really designed to be a kind of ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ experience, building agency and demonstrating different kinds of  decision making that can inform future thinking on an individual level and a global level,” says curator Ashley Molese, who’s part of the interdisciplinary team (opens in a new window) of curators, artists, and tech experts who put the exhibit together.

The space will comprise 150 items futurists can ogle: from an autonomous air taxi (opens in a new window) in the Futures that Inspire hall to a working water harvester that pulls liquid from air. Parents be warned: It may be hard to remove children from the section that lets visitor play Minecraft with their retinas. And parents, you might get stuck in front of the “Doing Nothing with AI (opens in a new window)” installation by Emanuel Gollob that helps stressed-out people meditate by reading brain activity and wiggling accordingly.

Visitors will encounter interesting objects before they even enter the museum. Soo Sunny Park’s sparkling cloud-like sculpture (opens in a new window) — made from glass invented by NASA — will welcome guests at the front door, almost like a portal into the future. A light sculpture by Suchi Reddy called “me + you” sits at the nexus of the four halls — it’s an Amazon Web Services machine with over 1,500 acrylic rods and illuminated microphones guests can speak into, sharing their ideas for the future. Those words will be reflected with various color patterns throughout the sculpture.

Other highlights include Virgin’s Hyperloop (opens in a new window), an interplanetary balloon (opens in a new window) that could vastly expand internet access, and one of the first prosthetic limb models.

Molese says the exhibit’s design focuses heavily on accessibility and sustainability. The Futures that Unite (opens in a new window) hall explores the future of body autonomy, centering on technology like a robotic exoskeleton designed at Harvard University, and customizable, 3-D-printed artificial limbs.

“We also went and worked with our accessibility team at Smithsonian and have built in a fairly rigorous set of standards for ourselves to make this a more accessible show,” Molese says.

Allison Peck, the AIB’s director of external affairs and partnerships, says that after the “FUTURES” exhibit closes in July 2022, the building will continue to reflect its roots as an incubator of big ideas for the world (opens in a new window). Given its massive open halls, Peck says the AIB will be used for installations that require lots of space, as well as hard-to-categorize prototypes and performances.

“This building has a very World’s Fair-inspired history,” Peck says. “So we wanted to riff on that idea a little bit and say, ‘What does a World’s Fair look like now?'”

The AIB’s opening weekend (opens in a new window) begins the evening of Friday, Nov. 19, with a livestreamed first-look at the exhibit on social media hosted by Bill Nye and a conversation with actor and Obama appointee Kal Penn, drag queen and environmental activist Pattie Gonia, and 2021 National Spelling Bee winner Zaila Avant-garde. On opening night, Nov. 20, the museum will host a “call-and-response concert” that explores the future of music, featuring performances by go-go artists, SHAED (opens in a new window), street drummer Malik Dope, and more.

The AIB will end the weekend in the only way that makes sense: with a family day full of activities and pop-ups for the kids — who are, in fact, our future.