The Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH), which has been in its University Circle home since 1958, was designed to inspire a love of nature through its five interconnected buildings. This beacon of the natural world also carried the era’s architectural sensibilities, where function sometimes overshadowed form.
Museum officials are now ready for guests to explore the wonders of science through a gorgeously reimagined facility that reconceptualizes how humanity connects to its surroundings.
CMNH fully reopened to the public on Sunday, Dec. 15, marking the completion of a decade-long, $150 million revisioning effort. The transformation features a 375,000-square-foot campus, a 14,600-square-foot Visitor Hall, completely refurbished exhibits, and more than two acres of outdoor visitor areas.
Gone are the siloed galleries of years past, although visitors can still marvel over the usual assortment of dinosaur bones and meticulously preserved animals. Yet, the museum is breaking away from the traditional timeline of Earth’s creation—instead telling a unified story that incorporates our position in the cosmos.
Devised by Cleveland firm DLR Group, with Panzica Construction overseeing the transformation, the facility’s flowing white architecture is inspired by the glaciers that cut through the ancient landscape of Northeast Ohio.
Dr. Gavin Svenson, PH.D., Chief Science Officer and Curator of Invertebrate ZoologyIdeally, the museum will also address the fundamental questions that initially inspired its restoration, notes chief science officer and curator of invertebrate zoology Gavin Svenson.
“What is the role of a natural history museum in the future?” asks Svenson. “Is it still just to communicate what’s out there, or is to communicate why things work the way they do? What is its relevance to human beings, and what is our place in the world?”
Svenson knows guests may question an integrated approach that no longer focuses on separate scientific disciplines—museum officials instead say they want to tell a story that highlights the legacy of Northeast Ohio’s prehistoric ecosystem.
For example, a tropical sea covered the region 359 million years ago, through which swam everyone’s favorite Dunkleosteus terrelli, AKA “Dunk,” predatory fish. The giant Dunkleosteus skull, still lovingly displayed at the renovated museum, provides valuable clues about the area’s geological history, Svenson says.
Today, Dunk—the premier hunter of the Devonian Ocean—can be found in both the new Evolving Life Wing and the Sears Dynamic Earth Wing, a freshened approach in how CMNH is reaching guests. Another exhibit displays the evolutionary journey of birds from their dinosaur ancestors.
Evolving Life Wing“The exhibits are non-linear, so as a visitor, you don’t need to have a starting point to understand something downstream,” Svenson says. “You can move through the galleries at your own pace and your own order. The concepts we’re presenting are self-contained within each exhibit.”
Fostering a science literate community
A spacious, beautifully lit natural history tour is fine with Sonia Winner, museum director since July 2018. Winner’s son learned to walk through the facility’s previous iteration, while her daughter used the beloved Cleveland landmark as a tool to feed her fascination for birds.
Now, Winner is thrilled to stroll through the financially-sound culmination of a decade-long reimagining process.
“We are two years ahead of our original schedule while staying under budget,” boasts Winner. “We want the community to know that we used their money wisely, and never went out of our $150 million goal. We are really proud of that.”
Winner joined CMNH in 2017 as chief philanthropic officer, so she’s been with the museum “through the meat” of the long renovation project, she says. Over the years, exhibits have been removed and repurposed—the museum also added more interactive technology, like a display that allows guests to simulate the formation of stars.
Other hands-on experiences include pull-open drawers that reveal fossil artifacts, as well as a new earthquake simulator that illustrates how quakes are triggered by the movement of tectonic plates.
Sonia Winner, President & CEO at CMNH“What we wanted is to create a place where people could have a 3D experience,” Winner says. “Where they could touch things, hear things, and see things and understand the role that natural history has in their lives.”
Although CMNH has always been a University Circle gem, the long-awaited restoration gives the museum an opportunity to truly shine, adds Winner. Acting as an educational repository comes with responsibility as well—with exhibits like “What Happens When Climates Change” will hopefully stimulate further exploration of the only world we have.
“The idea is not to make everyone a scientist, but we want to make sure people are science literate,” explains Winner. “We want them to understand that the choices we make have an impact on others.”