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Colonial Williamsburg museums expanded with new entry pavilion

2020-08-05T16:57:00-04:00

Samuel Anderson Architects has completed a 65,000-square-foot addition to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum (AARFAM) complex located at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

The updated art museum experience includes a new entrance for the complex that is situated across from the John Custis House and Garden. The addition is the first major expansion that the museums have received since they were joined under the same roof back in 2007. Previously, visitors entered the complex through a circuitous underground route running through the former Public Hospital of 1773.

Inside the building, a new lobby and supplemental orientation spaces connect the two existing museums while a new cafe and museum store offer visitor amenities that are "significantly enlarged and bathed in natural light through expansive, new windows overlooking the picturesque Bicentennial Park," the architects write.

The new wing brings a 25% increase in gallery ...

Colonial Williamsburg embraces its queer histories

2019-12-20T13:00:00-05:00

Alongside a wider effort to uncover and rediscover the lost and forgotten histories of historically marginalized groups and populations, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia has recently taken steps to uncover the 18th century living-history museum's queer legacies.

In a recent report, Atlas Obscura takes a look at the nascent efforts being undertaken at Colonial Williamsburg to shed light on these historical narratives in order to present a more complete picture of the time.

Photo of the Raleigh Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Humberto Moreno.

A recently formed research committee is digging through court records, historical accounts, and other forms of documentation pertinent to the era of the museum in order to better understand and communicate the lived experiences of people who did not conform to the gender or sexual norms of the time, with the eventual goal of incorporating these stories into the "living" aspects of the museum in some way.

Of par...