Photo: courtesy of Boston Globe/ Springfield Museums.
The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss, the first museum dedicated to the literary figure’s life work, will open its doors in June 2016. It will be an interactive and bilingual experience, focusing on literacy and reading activities for people of all ages.
The museum will operate under the Springfield Museums’ umbrella, an institution that oversees four other museums, according to the Boston Globe, which had the story. Situated in the author’s own hometown, the museum’s estimated cost is $3.5 million.
Rooms at the museum will be divided into reading rooms and spaces dedicated to specific books; for instance, the first floor will highlight the author’s first book, To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, which is based on the real Mulberry Street which is just around the corner from the museum.
The second floor of the museum, slated to open in 2017, will be turned into “Ted’s Room” (Dr. Seuss’s full name was Theodor Seuss Geisel), and will be a reproduction of the author’s space. Complete with his oil paintings, drawing, and furniture, the museum hopes to recreate the author’s space in which he wrote some of his most famed stories.
While the museum has yet to open, eager fans can still visit the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden, which features three-dimensional figures from his most famous books such as The Lorax and The Cat in the Hat—it has already seen more than three million visitors since its debut in 2002.
Not only is the museum dedicated to one of the literary world’s most beloved characters, but it will serve a much needed educational function to Springfield’s children. Following the economic crisis in 2008, poverty fell to 27 percent in Springfield, according to MassINC, and literacy issues came as a consequence. The institution hopes to fight these literacy issues in the local community with their new museum and its activities.
“We want to introduce people to him,” Kay Simpson, vice president of the Springfield Museums, told the Globe. “Ted was all about getting kids excited for reading.”
Hugo Boss Prize-winning artist and publisher, Paul Chan recently said in an interview with Modern Painters, “public art isn’t about gargantuan steel monuments in the corner of some park, it’s actually books—books that people can afford, books that are accessible.”