Dive Brief:
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Construction began this month on what will become the largest Bible museum in the world.
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The eight-story, $400 million Museum of the Bible will be a stone’s throw away from the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and is slated to open in November 2017. It will occupy a historic brick warehouse built in 1923 that was the city’s first massive refrigeration center for perishable food.
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Spearheading the creation of the 430,000-square-foot museum is Steve Green, the president of craft store chain Hobby Lobby, who owns one of the largest collections of Bible artifacts in the world.
Dive Insight:
For some, the design and construction of the building are as interesting as the artifacts, artwork, and reams of historical texts that it will house.
Contractors are already demolishing part of the old Terminal Refrigerator and Warehousing Co. and plan to gut the rest of it and add a wing, according to The Washington Post. But the general contractor, Clark Construction, has said the goal is to preserve the building’s historical features.
Six design firms have created the plans for the building, which will feature a curving glass roof originally designed to resemble a biblical scroll.