Milwaukee Public Museum has opened a new gallery that will showcase the museum's next home.
The Future Museum Gallery, which will be in the space that was home to Discovery World from 1996 until 2006, will include building renderings, details on Wisconsin Wonders fundraising progress, information about the design team, project updates and, in the center, a smaller-scale interpretation of the lightwell that will be one of the major architectural features of the Future Museum.
One of the centerpieces of the space – literally and figuratively – is a scale model layout of the building in its neighborhood.
The gallery, which is in a space that's been used for storage since the departure of Discovery World, will be updated during the course of the project.
The new five-story, 200,000-square-foot museum – designed by Ennead Architects and Milwaukee’s Kahler Slater – is expected to open on a 2.4-acre site at 6th and McKinley, near the Deer District, in 2026. Renderings of the building were released in July.
Groundbreaking is slated for 2023.
To date, $110 million has been dedicated to the new museum, including $40 million from the State of Wisconsin, $45 million from Milwaukee County, and $25 million in private donations from 72 donors.
A recent survey seeking public input on the new museum has received more than 4,000 responses.
MPM Director of Earned Media Madeline Anderson organized and is overseeing the Future Museum Gallery.
We walked through the space with Anderson to hear more about it. You can watch the video here:
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
