Museum puts freedom first

Apr. 5--Freedom, as a new museum in Chicago takes pains to say, is an inalienable right of all humans that is difficult to achieve and sometimes disagreeable to live with.

The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, opening to the public Tuesday in Tribune Tower on North Michigan Avenue, is designed to make visitors confront some uncomfortable, sometimes volatile topics.

Do high school students have the right to wear T-shirts to school showing their support for gay rights? Can the Nazi Party stage an uninvited march into a town heavily populated with Jewish people? Were the lyrics to the Everly Brothers' 1950s hit song "Wake Up Little Susie" so morally subversive that it should not have been played on public airwaves?

Built at a cost of more than $10 million, the museum primarily focuses on the 1st Amendment freedoms granted to all Americans by the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. That amendment guarantees five basic freedoms--of speech, of religion, of the press, of assembly and to petition for redress of grievances.

The two-story, 10,000-square-foot museum avoids sanctimony and flag-waving, instead offering a candid look at 1st Amendment ideals and how difficult they are to uphold. It is funded by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, an independent, non-profit foundation with substantial stock holdings in Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune.

"We view our mission as a fairly straightforward," said Dave Anderson, the museum's executive director. "We want to get our visitors to understand, value and protect freedom."

The museum employs an array of audio-visual and interactive technology to examine incidents in which 1st Amendment freedoms have been challenged. Visitors are nudged to make up their own minds on the issues.

Engaging for all ages

Its primary audience, said Anderson, is middle school and high school students, whom the museum hopes to bring in by the busload. But museum designers also want to attract a significant public audience beyond students and sought to make its exhibits engaging for all ages.

A national survey commissioned by the museum for its opening showed that Americans can name the five main family characters in the cartoon "The Simpsons" far more easily than they can name the five 1st Amendment freedoms.

"The museum is an idea that grew out of the Tribune Co.'s past with [former editor and publisher] Col. Robert McCormick, who was a great, powerful advocate for the 1st Amendment and civic involvement," said Anderson. "His interests melded perfectly with the Freedom Museum."

Anderson, who said he believes his museum's location at 445 N. Michigan Ave. is "ideal," acknowledges there are some critics who question "whether or not folks on Michigan Avenue are in a frame of mind to want to go into a museum."

Some thought the 2004 closure of the Terra Museum of American Art two blocks north of Tribune Tower was due to its location, though others blamed a weakly conceived vision of the museum's purpose.

Officials at the Loyola University Museum of Art at 820 N. Michigan Ave., which opened Oct. 8, believe it owes much of its success--17,500 visitors to date--to being on the busy avenue.

"It has been really wonderful," said Lisa Torgerson, the Loyola museum's director of development. "Being on the avenue gives us a lot of exposure to tourists and shoppers looking for a little bit of culture."

Julie Burros, director of cultural planning for the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, said she thinks the Freedom Museum will benefit greatly from its location.

"There is a tremendous amount of foot traffic there and big windows to peer into to see what's inside," she said. "Tribune Tower is such an important building, an icon of the city that people go out of their way just to see, so that helps too."

The museum relies on exhibit techniques rather than artifacts to get its ideas across. Burros called it "the first museum in Chicago that works with ideas and not with stuff."

A 21st Century concept

"It is a sort of 21st Century concept for museums that also should attract people," she said.

The museum also will feature a revolving collection of historical artifacts connected to 1st Amendment issues, most on temporary loan from other museums and individuals. Among them is one of 25 existing copies of the Dunlap Broadside, the Declaration of Independence as it was published by Philadelphia printer John Dunlap on July 4, 1776. It is on loan from the Chicago History Museum.

Visitors 6 and older will be charged a $5 admission fee. "We have seen research that shows visitors appreciate the museum more if a value is assigned to the visit," Anderson said.

But any passerby can look for free at the museum's dramatic centerpiece in its entryway rotunda: a two-story sculpture titled "12151791," taking its name from the date the 1st Amendment was ratified, Dec. 15, 1791.

The work of San Diego artists Peter Bernheim and Amy Larimer, it is composed of 800 reflective, stainless-steel plates the size of a piece of writing paper, suspended from the ceiling by steel cables. Each cable represents a 5-year segment of history following the amendment's ratification, and each plate is inscribed with thoughts on freedom by people living in that time. It will be added to until the 250th anniversary of the ratification on Dec. 15, 2041.

All school groups will be admitted free, and teachers will be offered free curriculum plans to prepare their students for the visit. The museum is offering bus scholarships to qualifying schools to pay for bus rentals.

wmullen@tribune.com

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

NYSE:TRB,