Missouri Botanical Garden Recognized With Honor for New Visitor Center
Date Posted: February 25, 2025
Posted In: News,
From Inpark Magazine: The Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums (MAAM) announced the recipient of this year’s Building Museums™ Symposium’s Buildy Award: The Missouri Botanical Garden’s Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center in St. Louis, Missouri. In addition, three outstanding projects have received Honorable Mentions: University of Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art building in Iowa City, Iowa; the Mattatuck Museum expansion project in Waterbury, Connecticut; and the reimagining of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, Arkansas. These projects were selected from a competitive pool of submissions representing institutions across twelve states. The recognized projects showcase a diverse range of museum types and sizes, reflecting excellence in museum design and innovation.
The Buildy Award recognizes the Missouri Botanical Garden for its leadership and exemplary accomplishments in the planning, design, and construction of its facility, as well as its transformational impact on the organization after opening. The Garden’s leadership will accept the Buildy award on March 7, 2025, during MAAM’s 20th Building Museums™ Symposium. The award recognizes the institution, its director and staff, and the design and construction teams whose completed projects demonstrate high achievement in the lessons of the Building Museums™ Symposium: careful, creative planning and diligent implementation leading to institutional sustainability. The purpose of the Buildy Award is to increase awareness within the museum field, and by the public at large, of the value of museums, botanical gardens, and other cultural sites. It underscores the importance of their ongoing creation, rehabilitation, and expansion to serve future generations.
The Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center has been a transformative addition to the Garden, a National Historic Landmark renowned worldwide for its plant collections, research, and public education programs. The new visitor center, along with the Garden’s 79 acres of display gardens, enhances its mission of connecting people with plants. This $100 million project replaced the previous visitor center through a carefully phased construction process, ensuring continuous operations and public access throughout the transition. The new facility now accommodates the Garden’s 1 million annual visitors, a significant increase from the 250,000 visitors the original center was designed to serve.