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Bringing the Country to New Harmonies


Work continues on the Museum on Main Street (MoMS) exhibit New Harmonies. The OEC Fabrication shop is currently working on the components for the kiosk featuring country music. There are many design features that make this kiosk visually interesting for visitors, and technically challenging for OEC staff.

Our staff had to get creative in designing and constructing the components due to some pretty strict size and weight constraints, which make the exhibit less costly to ship. Components need to be strong enough to stay together while on display, but easy to assemble and disassemble for rural museums with small staff and tight spaces. Our staff found innovative ways to customize the plain, ready-made Scenario panels used as the framework of the show. This exhibit also included sound interactives that play snippets of the different types of music featured.

SEE MORE PICTURES of OEC Fabrication at work.

photo: Rob Wilcox and Adam Metallo of Fabrication place the roofing frame on top of the Scenario panel to check the fit.

Orchids Gone Wild!

OEC began working on Orchids: Take a Walk on the Wild Side with the Smithsonian Horticulture Services Division in June 2005. Our Design and Editing department worked with staff from Horticulture Services and the Natural History Museum’s Botany Department to develop the script and design concept. Our Fabrication and Model Making shops built a walkway, panels, a “research station,” trees, vines, and even rain!

See pictures of the OEC team installing the components in the gallery space.

Orchids: Take a Walk on the Wild Side opens Saturday, January 27, 2007, and runs through April 22, 2007, at the National Museum of Natural History.

photo: OEC and Horticulture staff and volunteers put the finishing touches on the orchid exhibit.

Smithsonian Staff Tour OEC

Staff tour at OEC
On November 16, 2006, the Smithsonian Community Committee (SCC) sponsored a behind-the-scenes tour for SI staff to see the work that the Office of Exhibits Central (OEC) is doing for Horticulture Services’ upcoming exhibit, Orchids: Take a Walk on the Wild Side, which opens January 27, 2007, in the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).

An intrepid group of about 30 employees from around the Institution braved the rainstorm to learn about how OEC’s modelmakers are creating foam tree trunks, a wooden walkway, and the didactic panels for the show. Staff also saw a variety of other projects underway, such as New Harmonies for the Museum on Main Street (MoMS), Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service; and America By Air at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM).

photo: Carolyn Thome, modelmaker, discusses how she turns a large column of fire-rated urethane foam into a tropical tree trunk for the Orchids exhibit. Photograph by David Liston, OEC.