Anchorage Museum expansion: looking back, building out, moving forward.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: PHILANTHROPY

The Anchorage Museum has watched me grow up. I remember as a young child I was barely tall enough to view some of the dioramas in the Alaska exhibit, but I would stand up on my toes and plaster my face to the glass to get the best view I could of the sled dogs or tiny campfires. I was fascinated by the life-size houses full of clothing and tools, and wished I could climb inside. I stood under the canoe suspended from the ceiling and thought that if I had made a bladder from a seal, I somehow would have kept the head. I sat in front of the massive portrait of Denali and felt dwarfed. I played in the Imaginarium (before it was integrated into the Anchorage Museum as the Discovery Center), climbing on the "glacier" and swinging the giant hanging table used to draw pictures (I admit I missed the physics lesson on that one, but I enjoyed it). Time and time again, as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult, I have come to the Anchorage Museum to read and observe and learn and feel. It has been so exciting, in turn, to see the Anchorage Museum quite literally growing up and out.

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The New Rasmuson Wing

This month the Anchorage Museum is opening its newest expansion, the 31,000-square-foot Rasmuson Wing, which is the museum's fourth addition since it was built in 1968. The others opened in 1975, 1986, and 2010.

Anchorage Museum CEO and Director Julie Decker says the primary goal of this newest expansion was to gain as much gallery space as possible. She says, "Our last major construction project was completed in 2010, and that allowed us to add temporary gallery space for changing exhibitions, the Discovery Center, and allowed us to bring the Smithsonian Alaska collections to Anchorage, which was 600 objects. But what we didn't gain room for was all of our core mission, which is art, history, culture and science. There was still a lot of artwork that was in storage and not available to be on public view. The donor who provided funds for this new wing was interested in bringing as much artwork into public view as possible."

The Rasmuson Wing was made possible entirely through donations from the Rasmuson Foundation and the Rasmuson family. The new wing cost in its entirety approximately $24 million, of which about $18 million was construction costs, Decker says.

Davis Constructors & Engineers, Inc. Project Manager Luke Blomfield says the project team for the new wing was 100 percent local; Davis Constructors & Engineers was the general contractor, McCool Carlson Green was the architect, and local subcontractors were used throughout the project. "All the groups have worked together; it was an excellent partnering relationship," Blomfield says.

While an Alaska-based construction team is unique for a project of this magnitude and scale, it's only one of many fascinating aspects of the new Rasmuson Wing and other additions and renovations that took place throughout the museum.

In January 2016 ground was broken for the new wing. Blomfield says, "We had six...