The Wolfsonian–FIU Case Statement

THE WOLFSONIAN–FIU

THE CAMPAIGN FOR FIU Next Horizon—The Campaign for FIU is the University’s groundbreaking fundraising effort. The campaign’s $750 million fundraising goal is ambitious and represents just how high FIU has set its sights.

The Wolfsonian–FIU plays a critical role in achieving this goal.

Through the campaign, we will secure the investment necessary to improve the future of every FIU student, our Miami home, and those we reach across the world via our collection, research, and educational programs at The Wolfsonian.

The Next Horizon of discovery and innovation; health and society; environment and resilience; influence and enterprise; and community, arts, and culture will be achieved by focusing on two pillars—student success and research excellence—and attracting investments in the following campaign objectives:

• INCREASE SCHOLARSHIPS AND STUDENT SUPPORT • OPTIMIZE 21

-CENTURY TEACHING

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• ADVANCE A VIBRANT, HEALTHY MIAMI • ACCELERATE RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES • ESCALATE DISCOVERY TO ENTERPRISE

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A MUSEUM OF IDEAS, WE ENGAGE PEOPLE IN MAKING MEANING FROM THE MATERIAL WORLD THEY ENCOUNTER—IN THE ITEMS THEY USE, THE BUILDINGS THEY INHABIT, AND THE IMAGES THEY VIEW. A museum, library, and research center, The Wolfsonian–FIU uses objects to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design, to explore what it means to be modern, and to tell the story of social, historical, and technological changes that have transformed our world.

The Wolfsonian is at an exciting transition point. Since our inception as a private collection, we have evolved to become a public museum, one that became part of FIU in 1997. We are now poised for our next phase of growth.

Fueled by FIU’s $750 million Next Horizon campaign, we will link our collection to FIU’s academic mission in new ways, engage more people in creative inquiry, and use technology to open our collection to visitors across the globe.

Photo credit: Celia D. Luna

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180,000+

Our permanent collection has more than 180,000 objects.

4TH

The Wolfsonian has the fourth-largest university art collection in the U.S.

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In 2017, we celebrated 20 years as a public museum that is part of FIU.

$57M

The Wolfsonian Next Horizon Goal

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THE WOLFSONIAN–FIU In our relatively short history, The Wolfsonian has become an intellectual and cultural beacon for Miami.

For thousands of visitors every year, The Wolfsonian represents their first introduction to FIU. Our collection comprises approximately 180,000 objects from the period of 1850 to 1950—the height of the Industrial Revolution through the aftermath of the Second World War. Our holdings follow several key themes in the humanities, addressing war, propaganda, and racial and ethnic identity. Major political and aesthetic design movements figure significantly in the form of posters, books, brochures, tickets, and other ephemera. World’s Fairs and maritime materials form other core elements of the collection.

The Wolfsonian’s holdings in these fields are some of the world’s most comprehensive.

The museum supports scholarship and critically acclaimed exhibitions, publications, and K-12 and university educational programs that highlight the impact of design in shaping the modern world.

Now entering our third decade, The Wolfsonian is undergoing a dramatic evolution. Through the campaign, we seek partners to broaden our public appeal and access; protect, research, exhibit, and publish the collection; and solidify our educational mission in relation to both the general public and the FIU community.

“We are not a typical art museum, and that is what makes The Wolfsonian special and memorable. We are an institution that values all things made by humans because our creations represent the ideas we hold. For those of us who like to ‘see’ ideas as much as read about them, The Wolfsonian’s wide range of objects allows us insight into the past as well as the present.”

Photo credit: Lynton Gardiner

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― TIM RODGERS, PHD Director, The Wolfsonian

AMERICA’S PREMIER DESIGN MUSEUM “[The Wolfsonian] has become one of Florida’s most surprising cultural treasure troves, not only for the local community but for international scholars. The Wolfsonian’s holdings . . . shed light on intersecting currents of mass culture absent from other historical study centers in the country.

“One of the reasons scholars are turning to The Wolfsonian . . . is its accessible store of objects illustrating how the darker 20th-century ‘isms’ were so brilliantly yet diabolically designed.

“Perhaps the most valuable Wolfsonian contribution is the window it has opened on how such historical moments and movements were manifest, promoted, and chronicled through type and image— which arguably makes it America’s premier design museum.”

—Steven Heller, Eye magazine

<2% The Wolfsonian received the 2018 Experts’ Choice Award from TripExpert, given to fewer than 2 percent of attractions worldwide.

Photo credit: World Red Eye

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Photo credit: World Red Eye

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PRIORITY INITIATIVES THE TRANSPARENT MUSEUM The Wolfsonian will undertake the most significant event in our history: relocating the vast majority of our collection from a storage facility on Miami Beach to a far larger, safer, and temperature- and humiditycontrolled location on the Miami mainland. The Wolfsonian will, in the future, have two locations, one on Miami Beach and the other in Allapattah.

In the envisioned 50,000-square-foot open-storage library, exhibition, and learning facility in Allapattah, we will have room to allow students, faculty, outside scholars, and the general public access to large portions of the collection. The new facility will also house flexible, mixed-use spaces appropriate for collaborative activities with community groups.

The Wolfsonian thinks of this project as The Transparent Museum. The goal is to allow visitors to view—digitally, physically, and from an overhead perspective—every object in the collection. If we can realize this vision, we will be the largest museum in the world that enables visitors to enjoy its entire workings and holdings. Our collection would truly become a public resource available for research and engagement.

Your support through the Next Horizon campaign will help us realize this ambitious project. Funds raised will be used for the physical renovation of the Allapattah warehouse into a state-of-the-art institution. Investments will help with the crating of the collection for moving, its organization in our new home, and the full activation of The Transparent Museum.

#1 The Wolfsonian was named the Miami New Times’ “Best Museum” in 2016.

THE WOLFSONIAN PUBLIC HUMANITIES LAB Our vision for The Transparent Museum is part of a larger FIU initiative—The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab—which seeks to incubate new lines of inquiry, develop innovative programs, and deepen public engagement in the humanities.

Through this initiative, The Wolfsonian Allapattah will become the point of gravity for all humanities work at FIU. More visible and accessible, our permanent collection will serve as raw material for faculty and student research, historical analysis, exhibition development, hands-on collections training, and public engagement.

The museum’s massive, ongoing digitization project supported by the Knight Foundation will provide ample opportunity for students and faculty to engage with the challenges of digital culture and reach new audiences. The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab will also be home to a new interdisciplinary PhD Program in the Public Humanities—one of the first in the country—preparing our graduates to seek employment in creative and innovative industries beyond the academy. We will also take our work outside of the museum walls, collaborating with a variety of community groups on programming such as exhibitions, festivals, concerts, and readings.

The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab capitalizes on FIU’s status as a public urban research institution. It leverages the success of the FIU History Department’s public history efforts and The Wolfsonian’s extensive experience with public exhibitions, digital collections, and community outreach. The Next Horizon campaign provides an opportunity to advance these efforts. Your investment through the campaign will support community programming, a new PhD Program in the Public Humanities, postdoctoral fellowships, student internships, and an annual conference on the public humanities.

“For undergraduate history students, the collection provides an opportunity to learn about past times and distant places through direct observation of objects. It also offers an important professional advantage to graduate students, who have the opportunity to develop skills in material and visual culture analysis that few of their peers at other institutions enjoy.”

— REBECCA FRIEDMAN, PHD Associate Professor, Department of History, FIU Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs; Director, The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab; and Faculty Fellow, Office of the Provost

FIUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Most Impactful Research Programs Preeminent Programs at FIU are multidisciplinary and collaborative endeavors that the University recognizes for their extraordinary success in providing unique learning opportunities, pioneering research, realworld solutions, and best practices.

Emerging Preeminent Programs at FIU address critical issues of growing national and global concern. Their distinctive merits, strengths, and successes make them strategically important, with high potential to earn preeminent designation.

The Wolfsonian is leading the way in The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab, an Emerging Preeminent Program. This lab positions FIU at the forefront of the evolving field of the public humanities by leveraging the resources of the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s three museums, along with the research, teaching, and creative capacities of the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts; the College of Arts, Sciences & Education; and the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, including significantly the Public History Program.

Photo credit: Celia D. Luna

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250

The Wolfsonian has hosted 250 public programs.

#23

The museum is ranked No. 23 out of 50 for amazing college museums

by CollegeRank.net.

Photo credit: Danielle Bender

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ENGAGING NEW AUDIENCES Toasters and vacuum cleaners. Lalique glass and rare books. The Wolfsonian holds items made and valued by people of all classes. Rather than museum-as-temple, we are much more accessible, attracting those who typically do not visit museums.

The opening of the new library, exhibition, and learning facility at The Wolfsonian Allapattah will give The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab flexible, mixed-use spaces appropriate for community engagement. Located across the street from the soon-to-be-opened Rubell Museum for Contemporary Art, The Wolfsonian Allapattah will become part of a new cultural corridor in Miami that will effectively link the diverse communities to the east and west, north and south via public transportation, the airport, and the highway system.

Campaign investment will allow us to ramp up our education and programming so that we can take advantage of the additional square footage and reach new audiences. Your support will enable us to hire more staff so that we can increase school activities, lectures, films, tours, and collaborative experiential events, such as workshops.

“The Wolfsonian matters because it is one of the most unique museums in the world in terms of its collection and shows that have been exhibited. In the Miami cultural scene, it stands apart as one of the crown jewels.”

— MARTIN MARGULIES of the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse in the Wynwood Arts District

BUILDING FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY The opening of a new, larger location in Allapattah provides an ideal opportunity to rethink The Wolfsonian’s existing home at 1001 Washington Avenue. Our mission is to encourage people to see the world in new ways, and to learn from the past as they shape the present and influence the future. To reach our Miami Beach audience comprised largely of tourists, we will sharpen the focus of our exhibitions and programming on areas like Art Deco that appeal to this audience’s desire to learn more about Miami Beach.

To further enhance the visitor experience, plans call for re-installing display windows on the ground floor to create inviting retail and rental spaces. The third, fourth, and fifth floors will also be renovated to allow for new galleries and greater public access. These will include pocket galleries for frequent rotation of collection objects.

We will also create an ongoing revenue source for the museum. Renovations of the sixth- and seventh-floor galleries will give way to multiple uses. Currently closed and restricted balconies—which provide sweeping city and ocean views—will be re-opened and enhanced to accommodate public events, parties, conferences, and other gatherings. We will also install a kitchen in an appropriate area for event catering. The resulting revenue streams from greater visitor counts and the retail and event operations will support the museum’s work at both the Miami Beach and the Allapattah locations.

Campaign investment will help fund the remodeling of the Washington Avenue building and support efforts to diversify income streams and expand marketing and promotion for the new direction of the Miami Beach site.

JOURNEY WITH FIU TO THE NEXT HORIZON A young museum, The Wolfsonian has already garnered national and international attention for our collection and groundbreaking curatorial approach that encourages looking at objects in the context of social, political, and technological change. We are now poised for our next stage of development, which includes expanding and improving facilities, enlivening programs, and animating our role as an international center for the study and discussion of modern visual and material culture.

Now we seek the passion and philanthropy of The Wolfsonianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family, friends, and advocates to take our work to new heights. With your generous support, we will become a global hub for a new community of learners and creative professionals who seek to use the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resources on their own terms to create and share new knowledge. We will present leading-edge exhibitions and educational programming that spark inspiration and deepen dialogue. We will build a firm financial foundation so that we can continue to be an incubator for and disseminator of innovative ideas worldwide.

Photo credit: World Red Eye

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CAMPAIGN FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES ADVANCE A VIBRANT, HEALTHY MIAMI

• T he Transparent Museum • R enovation of the Allapattah Warehouse • C ollection Crating and Relocation • D esign and Construction of The Transparent Museum

• E ngaging New Audiences • P ublic Programming and Experiences • P ublic Engagement Staff • B uilding Financial Sustainability • 1 001 Washington Avenue Renovation I NCREASE SCHOLARSHIPS AND STUDENT SUPPORT

• T he Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab • S tudent Internships ACCELERATE RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES

“‘Acres of diamonds in our own backyard’ . . . . The Wolfsonian combines its collection, library, archive, research resources, and educational programs in a magnificent setting. It is open and welcoming to students, scholars, collectors, and museum viewers.

The ongoing programs are unique and stimulating. The Wolfsonian is our primary recommended stop in Miami for our visiting friends in the art and book and museum world.”

— RUTH AND MARVIN SACKNER Co-founders of the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry

• T he Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab • P hD Program in the Public Humanities • P ostdoctoral Fellowships • A nnual Public Humanities Conference AND OTHERS

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Front cover photo: Lynton Gardiner

FIU FOUNDATION, INC. MMC 11200 SW 8th Street, MARC 5th Floor Miami, FL 33199 305-348-6298 NextHorizon.FIU.edu Publication Print Date: March 2019