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Dinosaurs in Their World's three-story
atrium now stands completed, but with plenty of construction
still going on beneath it.
One
year ago, construction began on the massive expansion of
Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s now-extinct
Dinosaur Hall. The final product, Dinosaurs in Their World,
will be an awe-inspiring creation of Mesozoic proportions:
nearly triple the size of the old hall, with a soaring
three-story atrium, spread across 22,600 square feet, with
ample space for more than 15 standing dinosaurs to linger—and
seemingly live again—in authentic-looking, lush environments.
Jendoco Construction Corp., the construction manager for
Dinosaurs in Their World, is currently more than halfway
done with its task, which includes the construction of
the new dinosaur exhibit halls as well as the construction
of a new Museum of Natural History library and molecular
lab. By August of this year, construction is scheduled
to be complete, and in the months to follow, Carnegie’s
dinosaurs will begin their journey back from New Jersey,
where they’ve been undergoing an extreme makeover
in the hands of Phil Fraley Productions.
It was exactly
100 years ago that the original Dinosaur Hall was being
constructed as part of Carnegie Museums’ first
major expansion. Andrew Carnegie’s “palace
of culture” was barely 5 years old when its founder
decided he already needed to expand it. One of the reasons:
Carnegie had discovered dinosaurs.
 Carnegie
Museums' 1904-1907 expansion included the addition of Dinosaur
Hall.
In 1897, after reading
a New York newspaper report about the bones of a “colossal” creature
found out West, Carnegie ordered then-museum Director William
Holland
to “buy this for Pittsburgh.” Unable to purchase
a specimen, Holland, with the financial backing of Carnegie,
dispatched a team to Wyoming in 1898. A year later, the
group hit pay dirt: the well-preserved bones of a new species
of dinosaur that would eventually be named after Carnegie,
Diplodocus carnegii (aka, “Dippy”). But where
would the museum put the gigantic creature once its scientists
pieced him back together again?
By 1901, Carnegie committed
to the expansion of his Institute, and plans for the
addition that would become home to his
namesake included a new foyer for the Music Hall, a Hall
of Architecture, and a Hall of Sculpture. Cost estimates
quickly went from $1.75 million, to $3.6 million, to
a final cost of more than $5 million. Excavation began
on
November 1, 1903, and it took the better part of the
next four years to complete the project. The new building,
much
as it stands today (without the Scaife wing, which was
added in 1974), was opened with great pomp and circumstance
on April 12, 1907.
It’s a sure bet that in late 2007,
the celebration for the opening of Dinosaurs in Their World
will be every
bit as elaborate. But this time, Pittsburgh will be celebrating
the return of Carnegie’s dinosaurs—in a setting
bigger and better than even Andrew Carnegie could have
ever imagined.
To
get a glimpse of the progress being made on Dinosaurs
in Their World, check out the special WebCam on
the Carnegie Museum of Natural History website.
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Copyright (c)
2006 CARNEGIE Magazine. All rights reserved.