Building on our Chapters
The vision for this landmark museum addition to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum – Foreword – builds on the chapters of the April 19, 1995 story. Since the 2001 opening of the Museum which is housed within the historic Journal Record Building, visitors have explored the personal stories of those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. The number of visitors has increased over the years, and the need for us to continue to evolve alongside societal trends remains as strong as ever.
Foreword introduces new and expanded programming spaces in an engaging architectural work. This new space will add more than 12,700 square feet. Designed to be purposefully inviting and visible, the architecture embraces the site and signals to the community that a new experience awaits. Contemporary security procedures seamlessly greet visitors arriving from an adapted outdoor landscape, pathway system and Children’s Area through two new sets of entry doors.
Visitors ascend to the new lobby level, greeted by curated art from the Murrah Federal Building itself and an overview of the Museum’s ensuing chapters. The light-filled lobby embraces large crowds and small groups, connecting the Outdoor Memorial through vision glass to a relocated Mission Statement. Visitors’ eyes are drawn upwards and outwards. Across from a bright circulation stair and a pair of transparent elevators, visitors are greeted at a newly positioned ticketing desk. Lockers and an adjacent family restroom complement the enhanced visitor experience.
We invite you to embark on this extraordinary journey with us by donating to the Foreword Capital Campaign.
Foreword Features
Granite salvaged from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, much like what is used to frame the walkway around the Field of Empty Chairs, will be the floor of this new lobby.
Salvaged artwork from the the Murrah building will remind us of the first United States “Art in Architecture” project.
New media that continues to tell the story with the latest technology.
Contemporary security procedures seamlessly greet visitors as they enter the Museum arriving from an adapted outdoor landscape or through the Children’s Area.
Additional elevators to help move visitors through the Museum, made of glass to connect the Museum experience with the Outdoor Memorial. This was not available 24 years ago when we built the Museum, but is necessary today to have more than one elevator to move our visitors and staff throughout the building.
A new expanded Orientation Gallery on the second floor which will be an introduction to this story as you begin experiencing the 10 Chapters of the Museum.
A state of the art Civics Lab for students will anchor the Education Center on floor one. We have worked so hard to teach STEM the last decade, we are also committing to joining a national effort at history museums to teaching Civics. We will have a collaboration space for groups wanting to learn how levels of government and the people worked together following the bombing. It will show how 30 years later we stand as an exemplary example of working in collaboration across agencies to ensure we protect our country and democracy, even when the perpetrators sought to divide us. These historic lessons and ties to them are still impacting us today.
A new film studio as our effort to record oral histories and capture stories not known so that we can continue to teach and remember.
Most importantly this new addition will be a space to gather large groups and welcome five times more people in the lobby and be able to bring large groups inside as they come to learn this story, many for the first time. While most of the current exhibition spaces within the historic brick walls of the Museum will remain intact, visitors will discover this story like never before and understand the senselessness of violence.
Watch for more details to follow and groundbreaking to take place in late 2025.
