Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

At only ten years old, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art was undergoing growing pains. While they described themselves as “An Art Museum that welcomes children,” the gallery spaces were designed for adults. In addition, their traveling exhibition program was blossoming into a significant revenue source, and the space set aside for a cafe was little used. Meanwhile, a growing number of artists and illustrators sought to donate their work to the museum's already overflowing collections.

Museum Insights helped the museum make sense of the building they had and the facilities that they would need to operate effectively as the museum that they had become ten years after opening. We began by clarifying programatic priorities amidst the many opportunities and currently successful programs at the museum. Then, we identified where facilities were—and were not—meeting the needs of those programatic priorities. The final master plan provided both short and long-term solutions to modify and expand the museum’s facilities to meet the programatic priorities.