Historical Commission Agenda and Packet 2016 08 03 JT

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Page 45 of 150 Introduction On September 29, 2014, the Louisville Historical Museum began a project to assess its long-term facility needs. During the course of this study, Beth Barrett, Director of Library and Museum Services and Bridget Bacon, Museum Coordinator, worked with Metcalfe Architecture & Design to quantify those needs and reimagine its campus of five buildings. This process included two public input meetings held at the Library on September 30, 2014. The goals of the study were to create a plan that satisfies the visitor experience and operational challenges the Museum currently faces. The plan laid out in this document is the result of our work and activates the Museum campus as the northern anchor for downtown Louisville. The Museum occupies the intersection between residential and commercial Louisville. With the planned new gateway, welcoming visitors from the sports fields east of the city, the Museum campus will announce the city's history as core to its identity today and into the future, for everyone who lives in and visits Louisville. To reflect this enhanced role, we propose renaming the Museum to the Louisville Visitor Center and Historical Museum. Creating a new Campus for the Louisville Visitor Center and Historical. Museum CAMPUS PLANNING • DECEMBER 2014 Metcalfe Architecture & Design The Big Idea: "We're Listening" The most important characteristic of this Museum is listening. It is an attitude about public history that places authority and importance on the content that walks in the door every day; first-time visitors and loyal members. It is an assertion that the value of history is in the telling of stories by the people who experienced it directly or as descendants whose Lives were shaped by that history. will be to engage visitors entering the buildings. Our intention is to express the value of visitor -focused interpretation everywhere on the campus. What we share across a kitchen table in our families' homes is modeled at the table currently occupying the center of the Jacoe Store, where Museum staff and volunteers engage visitors, listening to their stories and sharing stories related to their lives. We plan to continue and expand this primary interpretive strategy employed by the Museum -- listening to visitors. This will be accomplished by placing a table, Like the one currently in the Jacoe Store, into the Jordinelli and Tomeo Houses and the new building. A staff member or volunteer will do her or his work conducting research, cataloging collections, etc. at these tables, but their primary job We determined that the Community Table is the appropriate metaphor for understanding and shaping our plans for the Louisville Visitor Center and Historical Museum. This means that the entire campus and the new building designed to meet operational needs would be conceived as reflecting that idea; they would together serve as a place to gather, share stories, to listen and to be heard. �ty.e Louisville L91ttith,iI&t TENtL Ill r METC►LFE The Alley Louisville is blessed with a system of alleys running between the main streets, creating an informal extension of the private property lining both sides of the alleys. Children played in these alleys more safety than the streets. Family events spilled from the back yards into these alleys. Across fences and standing here, neighbors shared news and concerns ranging from international events to family stories. We propose to reorient the entire campus to celebrate Louisville's alleys, creating a new Alley running north -south through the center of the campus, between the Jacoe Store and Jordinelli House and behind the Tomeo House, ending at the north property line. This new Alley will become the heart of the campus. It will be large enough to host events of significant size, becoming the north anchor for downtown events, as well as events specific to the Museum. While the street presence along Main Street will remain strong, the main entrance to the campus will be a broad, welcoming opening to the site on South Street.