Where Americans Go

Posted by: Christine Golus

140 million Americans attended sporting events this year, but 850 million visit museums annually. Wow! This statistic caught my ear on a recent NPR broadcast. There are more than 17,500 museums in the U.S. – from small town historical museums to large art museums in our major cities. That is a tremendous body of work in terms of architecture, signage, exhibit design, marketing materials, events, catalogs, books, merchandising, and online presence.

Included in the story was mention of a wonderful web site devoted to online museums – The Museum of Online Museums. Great resource for links to brick-and-mortar museums as well as “unique” collections such as The Pez Dispenser Museum.

Our own University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor is undergoing an expansion and restoration project and is scheduled to open in early 2009. The 55,000 square foot addition was designed by Brad Cloepfil and his firm Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon.

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