"The idea behind the Center is simple – the Constitution is the greatest and most influential form of government ever devised," said Dreyfuss. "Those who can copy it, those who can yearn for its gifts, and those who live under it should know it, appreciate it. Understand we owe many things to our children. We must give them the tools they’ll need to make their way through a perilous world; and we must teach them much more than the three R’s," Dreyfuss added.

The Constitution Center will be the world’s first museum devoted to what is surely the world’s most influential political document – the United States Constitution. The Center is part of Independence National Historical Park’s (INHP) redevelopment of America’s most historic square mile. In 1998, the National Park Service (NPS), which administers INHP, completed a Master Plan for Independence Mall. It is the first redesign of this important public space since the Mall was created, will determine the shape and character of the Mall into the 21^st century. The plan lays out an ambitious vision for a revitalized Independence Mall, including a new Liberty Bell Pavilion, a regional Gateway Visitors Center, Independence Park Institute, new visitor amenities, and a complete redesign of the overall landscape.

The Center is being designed by two of the most distinguished names in American architecture and museum design. Henry Cobb, a founding partner of Pei Cobb Freed and Partners has designed dozens of international projects including the recently completed and nationally acclaimed U. S. Courthouse in Boston. Cobb’s firm is notable for its striking designs of public buildings. Previous projects include the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC; the expansion of the Grand Louvre, Paris, France; the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ralph Appelbaum of Ralph Appelbaum Associates has designed the visitor experiences and exhibition halls for the most exceptional museums developed and built in the last two decades. His firm is best known for museums with complex educational content and his recent work includes the exhibitions in the Holocaust Museum; the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the Newseum, Arlington, Virginia; and the Museum of African American History, Detroit, Michigan.

"The National Constitution Center will be an American treasure and an icon of freedom," said NCC President, Joseph M. Torsella. "It is an exquisite symbol of what the Constitution means to us as individuals, what it means to our country, and what it means to the world."

The 130,000 square foot, two-story, stone building will be the northernmost anchor of a redeveloped Independence Mall and will be sited on axis with Independence Hall. This arrangement gives the Center tremendous physical and symbolic significance, and creates interplay between the three great icons of American freedom: Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Constitution.

Mr. Cobb’s design emphasizes the active and engaging nature of the Center from every exterior view. Visitors to Independence Mall encounter the words of the Constitution’s Preamble emblazoned on the front façade, announcing the Center’s core idea – We the People. Also visible is an American flag suspended from the second floor space which serves as a reminder of the union and the government created by the Constitution. A glass wall, 24 feet high and 80 feet wide, allows the interior space filled with visitors – We the People –t o be seen from the exterior. Both the Arch and the 6^th Street entrances, accent the transparency of the building which is designed to draw visitors into the Center.

Upon entering, visitors quickly become an integral part of the Center’s exhibits and activity. Whether coming to see the Center’s exhibits, or to simply take in the extraordinary public space, each visitor walks into Constitution Hall, the Center’s 45 feet high grand lobby. Constitution Hall is filled with natural light filtered through the glass facades and from three faceted, triangular skylights twenty-five feet on each side, above. The natural light flowing into the space reinforces the sense of openness so important to the Center's interpretive mission, and the overall lightness and transparency connect the building visually to the park that surrounds it.

The interior spaces continue to evoke the sense of strength and security portrayed by the exterior stone cladding by using the same material on the interior walls. In addition, the floors of Constitution Hall are bluestone, as they are on the exterior entrance ways. Within Constitution Hall’s soaring space, visitors quickly become part of the Center’s on-going activities. Guides and an information desk will greet visitors, to tell them about the Center, and inform them of the activities that day – live performances, movies, lectures, debates, and other special events.

Constitution Hall provides a spectacular view of the second floor Signers Hall visible through the semi-circular opening, 116 feet in diameter that connects the two important public spaces. Signers Hall is a commemorative space designed for every visitor to the Center. This space, on axis with Independence Hall, is laid out underneath the flags of our 50 states displayed adjacent to the American flag. It is here that each visitor will have the chance to sign the Constitution on one of fifty electronic signature pads that will record each visitor’s signature for the Center’s archives as well as illuminate each signature within the public space. Each visitor will leave the Center with a copy of NCC’s trademark pocket-sized Constitution.

"The conceptual wellspring of our design has been our understanding that the purpose of the National Constitution Center is not to enshrine that document as an object of worship, but rather to proclaim its active engagement with the ongoing life of the people and nation it serves," said architect, Harry Cobb. "Our task then has been to so shape the building – its exterior forms and interior spaces – that it will communicate to the visitor a sense of that engagement while at the same time celebrating its position of honor opposite Independence Hall."

This extraordinary building sets the stage for the heart of the Center – the exhibits, designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates. To conceptualize the main exhibit experience, NCC created a Senior Advisors Panel. The Panel is made up of a diverse range of constitutional scholars and educators, including three Supreme Court justices and Pulitzer Prize winners. This collaboration resulted in the idea that it is the visitors who will provide the Center’s core and meaning – We the People, who will form the essence of the exhibit experience. In addition, the panel defined the themes to be highlighted in the exhibit galleries.

An estimated one million people each year will visit the core exhibit space. These visitors will begin their journey of discovery in the We the People Theater, a star-shaped theater-in-the-round, that will include a 360-degree, panoramic screen and five individual large screens as well as live actors. Here, the "how’s" and "why’s" of the creation and ratification of the Constitution will be told through The Founding Story. At other times, the We the People Theater will serve as the venue for participatory discussions and debates, evening events, and major broadcast events.

After the Founding Story, each visitor will exit the theater to the second floor exhibit space, the interpretive heart of the Center. Here the exhibits are organized in three concentric, thematic circles: 1) the outside ring will embrace visitors with the text of the Constitution. 2) the inner ring displays the chronology of the Constitution from 1787 to present day, and 3) the middle ring contains themed galleries based on the words of the Preamble. The exhibits will offer a range of activities and media choices where the information will be layered in progressive levels from simple to complex, for kids and adults, and for visitors of all interest levels, whether a "streaker", "stroller" or "studier."

Embraced by the text of the Constitution and its history, the theme of the nine exhibit galleries is inspired by the evocative and poetic phrases of the Constitution:

• We the People of the United States,
• in order to form a more perfect Union,
• establish Justice,
• insure domestic Tranquility,
• provide for the common defence,
• promote the general Welfare,
• and secure the Blessings of Liberty
• for ourselves and our posterity
• do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

And the exhibits are organized and dedicated to the Constitution’s big ideas: popular sovereignty, checks and balances, and the rule of law. Each gallery will present unique opportunities to learn and to be entertained. Each gallery is bounded on one side by an interactive video mural almost 15 feet high and 18 feet wide.

What we see changes, depending on what stories we choose to bring up on the video murals to explore. In this sense, we leave our mark on the exhibit for the next visitor — a metaphor for our individual impact on our constitutional democracy. On the other side of each gallery, more traditional exhibit cases use artifacts and documents to make ideas real. Here visitors might find a ballot box used in Lincoln’s first election, James Madison’s writing desk, and a civil war soldier’s medal. And in the center of each zone is an interactive exhibit about the gallery’s main idea.

To further highlight the meaning of the Constitution's history and its role in our daily lives, prior to leaving the exhibit space, each visitor will enter the gallery, Our Posterity. Here, in an audio theater, visitors will learn about one of the Founders' most daunting objectives: to establish a government that would endure for many future generations. The signers of the Constitution will be represented as life-size, bronze figures poised to sign the Constitution. In this quiet and reverential space, audio testimonies of famous voices will segue to those less well-known, all of whose actions helped advance democratic ideals. Visitors will learn about those who won their battles as well as those who lost, but who succeeded in setting the stage, and helping to ensure a sound republic, for future generations.

The last stage of the visitors’ journey will be Signers Hall, a visual and thematic summation of the visitor experience at the Center. The Center's second floor will be a celebratory, elegant and generously sized space, encircled by the flags from each of the fifty states. The date on which each state ratified the Constitution or joined the Union will be embedded in the floor under its flag. Here you will be invited to "sign" your name, using a laser pen on computer touch pads mounted on the central railing. In doing so, you will both reaffirm your citizenship or allegiance to democratic principles, and participate in the creation of a permanent electronic record that will include millions of signers from all over the country. In addition, Signers Hall will offer twelve interactive learning stations to explore a data bank of information on constitutional issues and facts. And each visitor will leave this space with a pocket Constitution to take home.

"In what is sure to be a new landmark for the city of Philadelphia, visitors will find themselves immersed in America's story. In an extraordinary setting that speaks to the future, they'll use state-of-the-art interactive technology to explore one of the greatest documents written to guide a free people," said exhibit designer, Ralph Appelbaum. "They'll hear and see the great debates that have driven our experiment in self-government and encounter moments in history that are instructive and inspiring, that touch real people in profound ways. By the end of the journey, visitors will have a deeper appreciation of democracy and what it means to be part of 'We the People.'"

By engaging American and foreign visitors alike in the story of American freedom, the Constitution Center will be a powerful tool to revitalize democracy. Visitors will leave the Center understanding that political freedom is neither a gift nor an abstraction, but the sum of thousands of courageous individual actions that have advanced our liberty – and that each of us has an important role to play in securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves…and for our posterity.

[INSERT MORGAN LEWIS INFORMATION ON PUBLIC ACCESS TO MODELS]

While a million visitors will pass through the Center’s doors annually, millions more will enter the Center through its innovative and far-reaching programming initiatives. The Center for Outreach and Education –approximately one-half of the Center – will be devoted to a program of national education and outreach. There will be:

• nationally-televised programs, debates, and discussions on constitutional issues – with participants ranging from high school debate team to presidential debates – originating from in-house production studios and those done with NCC's broadcast partners;
• regular radio programming covering up-to-the-minute issues;
• an online "virtual museum" that will allow technology visitors to explore the Center from afar, and to interact directly with each other and with those in the physical museum;
• a study center developing and distributing teaching tools such as lesson plans and real-time lectures;
• a scholars-in-residence and research fellows program, with a special emphasis on making the research and insight of leading academics accessible to a broad popular audience; and
• a center for public opinion research on constitutional issues, which will conduct regular knowledge and opinion polling.

Through these programs, the Center will make the Constitution accessible to all – even those who cannot visit Philadelphia.

The total capital campaign goal for the Center is $130 million, which includes a $25 million endowment to be used to ensure the Center will operate successfully. A total of $28 million has been secured to date. The City of Philadelphia provided $5 million toward the Center, NCC has received $3 million from private sources, and $20 million of the planned $65 million from federal funding sources was secured in the FY99 budget. The remaining $45 million is expected to be included in federal appropriations over the next two years. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appropriated $30 million that is awaiting release by Governor Ridge.

The operating budget for the Center is projected to be approximately $8 million per year. A three-year operating budget, from opening in 2002 through 2005, has been developed which demonstrates the viability of planned operations as well as sources of revenue. Funds for operation will come from the endowment, admissions, facility rentals, museum shop sales, restaurant sales and ongoing development efforts.

The National Constitution Center (NCC) was established by Congress through the Constitution Heritage Act of 1988. NCC is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution, the Constitution’s history, and the Constitution’s relevance to our daily lives so that "We the People" will better understand and exercise our rights and responsibilities.