Carnegie announces $37 million expansion
Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh is announcing a $37 million renovation and expansion project for its historic Dinosaur Hall that will more than double its size when completed. “This will make Carnegie Museum of Natural History the premiere exhibitor of dinosaurs,’ said Bill DeWalt, director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in a press conference at the Oakland museum on Thursday.
Standing in present-Dinosaur Hall in the midst of the towering exhibits, officials revealed the museum plans to create a group of new exhibits called “Dinosaurs in Their World.’
The dinosaurs on display and several new specimens will be mounted in scientifically correct active poses in the environment of their periods.
“What we want is for the visitors to walk through the halls and feel like they’re walking in a different time and place,’ said DeWalt.
The current Dinosaur Hall will be renamed Jurassic Hall and will feature dinosaurs from 150 million years ago. They include the museum’s first dinosaur Diplodocus carnegii, who was named after Andrew Carnegie. He is more affectionately referred to as “Dippy.’
An adjacent Cretaceous Hall will be created with a newly constructed atrium, which will become the physical core of the museum of natural history. The atrium will be built by expanding into a connecting courtyard in the middle of the museum.
Cretaceous Hall will feature exhibits from 65 million years ago, including the Tyrannosaurus rex.
Both halls will incorporate state-of-the-art interactive displays and built-in classrooms.
Officials have long wanted to expand Dinosaur Hall, one of the museum’s most popular exhibits.
Jack Barbour, chairman of the board of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, explained that “Dinosaur Hall was built for one dinosaur. Today we have 15 in here.’
In fact, the museum is the third largest repository of dinosaur fossils in the world.
“We made a decision to increase Dinosaur Hall in response to a real need,’ said Ellsworth Brown, president of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. (Carnegie Museum of Natural History is one of four museums that make up the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. The others include the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Carnegie Science Center and the Andy Warhol Museum.)
The museum hopes to fund the renovation with a combination of private and public funding. That will include $20 million in private funding raised by the Carnegie as well as $17 million in state funds that are waiting to be released.
“I hope the state will be able to make this come to fruition,’ said state Rep. Dan B. Frankel, one of the speakers.
With state funding, DeWalt said the museum would be able to break ground in 2004 and that the project should be ready for completion in late 2007 or early 2008.
Officials hope to keep the dinosaurs on exhibit as much as possible during that period, creating windows on the project so that visitors can watch scientists disassemble and reassemble the dinosaurs into their new exhibits.
Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, one of the speakers, said, “I’ve been coming here for 57 years and it doesn’t stop – the awe of standing before these creatures who lived millions of years ago.’