Plans unveiled for Newseum redesign

The design for a new $400-million interactive museum focusing on news and the media was unveiled Tuesday in Washington by the nonprofit Freedom Forum.

Opened in 1997 in nearby Arlington, Va., the Newseum attracted more than 2.25 million visitors in its nearly five years of operation before closing in preparation for the new building.

New York-based Polshek Partnership Architects designed the 531,000-square-foot structure, which will be at Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street N.W., between the U.S. Capitol and the White House and next to the Mall.

Nearly half the space, on six levels, will be occupied by the museum; the Freedom Forum foundation, which promotes “free press, free speech and free spirit for all,” will also move its headquarters to the building.

Polshek Partnership is best known for its acclaimed design for the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Like that design, the Newseum will include a large window facade highlighting displays inside.

The museum will continue its popular “Today’s Front Pages” exhibit, showing daily international and national newspaper front pages, and have numerous permanent and changing exhibitions of newspaper and broadcast history.