Over the years the Washington Mall has lost a considerable amount of green space to the erection of monuments, memorials and museums. The coveted space between the U.S. Capitol stretching to the Lincoln Memorial has become home a select group of American shrines and the designated path of millions of sightseers. The most highly anticipated of new museums, however, The Bible Museum, set itself apart by location, mission, and design.
Devoted exclusively to the Bible, the Bible Museum is being built in a few blocks from the Smithsonian’s Air and Space and National Indian Museums, in Southwest’s old Design Center building. Backed by Steve Green, an evangelical Christian businessman who owns one of the world’s largest private collections of biblical artifacts and manuscripts, the construction is believed to be among the most significant.
The eight-story, 430,000-square-foot grows out of the $50 million, former refrigeration warehouse and interior design showcase site, restored, adapted and enhanced over the next three years to create the newest addition to D.C.’s pantheon of museums, as part of a more than $400 million construction project.
At a recent briefing, Museum of the Bible President Cary Summers told media that the goal was to make the construction and design of the museum engaging, inviting and innovative.
“We’ve empowered with the task of creating a museum space that honors this site’s history, improves the immediate area and neighborhood, and captures the essence of the Bible through a recognizable, iconic landmark,” Summers said.
While touring museums recently with his family, Michael Proctor, of Venice Beach, Calif. said he would welcome the Bible Museum and consider it a family-friendly alternative to Christian tourists visiting the District.
“It is amazing to watch Christian people learn all types of historical facts and then step over homeless people with no regard as they leave these museums,” Proctor said. “We are learning so many things that do not take our faith into consideration or reinforce the spiritual side of our intellect that perhaps having a museum dedicated to better understanding how we should treat each other, would have tremendous benefit.”
Proctor’s church offers an annual spring break trip to D.C. for church members. Their coach driver, Ernest Dalton, Jr., said that the Bible Museum would be of benefit to a nation that seems to have lost its spiritual way.
“There will surely be naysayers and folks who run their mouths about how Black people fit into this museum. What they have to remember is that it was God who got us here and we ought not to miss any opportunity to learn from His word,” Dalton said.
The Bible Museum is set to open in 2017, boasting three central exhibit floors; a grand lobby with a wall-to-wall, 200-foot LED ceiling that displays a moving canvas; a two-story, window-clad, rooftop galley providing a 500-seat performing-arts theater, garden restaurant and 500-seat ballroom overlooking the National Mall and U.S. Capitol; and a front entrance flanked by massive, textured bronze panels and stained glass depicting abstract biblical manuscripts.