
The National Music Museum (NMM) undertook a massive project, renovating and expanding its historic building to include a new performance hall, new labs, and more archival storage. Ravenswood Studio was brought onto the project to fabricate and install the new permanent across seven galleries. Ravenswood Studio built custom casework used to display and protect artifacts, developed multiple hands-on interactives, and produced over 600 graphics ranging from intricate wall murals, reader rails, interpretive graphics, historical photographs, and more.
Working with case manufacturer Click Netherfield, Ravenswood Studio engineered and constructed several custom cases, protecting more than 600 artifacts. The cases are unique in that the Portal System doors provided by Click Netherfield were incorporated in an unconventional and new fashion. Ravenswood Studio used the doors as side panels so that visitors could see the instruments from as many viewpoints as possible.
In addition to reader rails with integrated touch screens and listening stations, Ravenswood Studio developed several interactives for the galleries. At one of them, visitors use push buttons on an “A” Note map graphic. Patrons can push various buttons to compare the sound of “A” from different periods and locations. Another interactive explores the construction of instruments, taking visitors from raw materials to finished pieces. Ravenswood Studio used materials, such as mahogany and pine, to make string instruments, and to showcase polished, completed samples of musical instrument surfaces and finishes.
Ravenswood Studio will be fabricating an additional four galleries for the second floor of the National Music Museum. The second set of galleries are planned to open at a future date.





More Projects
- In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World
- Small Fry Fish Camp
- Spokane Library Playspaces
- Life! Beginnings
- Many Voices, Many Stories, One Place
- Mars: The Next Giant Leap
- Curiosity Spot
- Health Connections
- BodyWorks
- 007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond
- Circusville
- Four Rivers at The Confluence
- Riveting Robots
- Moonshot Museum
- Experience Gallery
- Asian Cultural Series Exhibit
- The CELL
- Publishing House Experience
- Hartwell Memorial Window
- Ford House Visitors Center
- Healthy Me
- Pioneer Zephyr Updates
- Alif Ba Exhibition
- Victoria the T. rex Exhibition
- The Gun Violence Memorial Project
- Numbers in Nature
- Antarctic Dinosaurs
- Karkomi Holocaust Exhibition Updates
- Perfume Passage
- Van Gogh For All
- Heroes Hall
- Duty First Gallery
- First In War Gallery
- Take A Stand
- Mythbusters: The Explosive Exhibition
- The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes
- Halls of the Pacific
- The Science Behind Pixar
- Chicago Sports Museum
- U-505 Dive Trainer
- The Machine Inside: Biomechanics