

							VernerJohnson's Design for Bollywood Museum wins international Competition Boston, MA - January 2012 VernerJohnson’s design for a new World Class Bollywood Museum at Film City was recently selected as the winner of an international competition. Brad Nederhoff, the firm's Managing Principal, led the architectural design and coordinated the project team that included Mumbai architectural firm Shashi Prabhu Associates, Boston-based site designers ZNA, Boston-based exhibit designers Christopher Chadbourne Associates, and Bollywood film expert Pravin Nadkar. The winning proposal includes a campus of buildings that are light, airy, colorful, grand, dramatic, refreshing, and full of motion — a destination where visitors can spend an entire day exploring and learning about Bollywood filmmaking. This concept integrates several major elements: the Bollywood Museum, the Bollywood Theatre, Museum Gardens with an Amphitheater and a Conference Center. The 110,000 SF Bollywood Museum includes 45,000 SF of state- of-the-art interactive exhibits, a special effects theatre, a 300-seat auditorium, a temporary exhibit gallery, a film library, a gift shop, and dining options. On this spectacular and strategically placed site at the very door to Film City and Bollywood itself, the approach to the Museum reveals terraced pools of water leading toward a set of curved filmstrips that seem to float over a light-filled, poetic complex. It is a site and building built as a metaphor for the structure of Bollywood films themselves. (pdf of project page)

















							VernerJohnson selected as a Finalist for New Children's Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria Sofia, Bulgaria - January 2012 VernerJohnson was named one of three finalists for an international design competition to design a new Children's Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, a not-for-profit corporation established in 1991 by the U.S. Congress under the Support for East European Democracy Act of 1989 (SEED Act), will be funding and administering this museum project. VernerJohnson has teamed with exhibit design firm Thinc Design, engineering firm WSP Klack + Kurtz, landscape architect Ritchie Smith Associates and Structural Engineers Souza True & Partners.
							Opening Date Set for Flint Hills Discovery Center Manhattan, KS - January 2012 The opening of Kansas' next major tourism attraction, the Flint Hills Discovery Center has been set for April 14, 2012. Planning is underway for public festivities that underscore the importance of this much-anticipated cultural institution in Manhattan's downtown redevelopment district -- View Full Press Release Full a video presentation of the new museum project
							Boston Architects Speak Boston, MA - December 2011 Brad Nederhoff, VernerJohnson's Managing Principal, was included in a recent Design Bureau Magazine feature article on Boston-based Architects and "why they love designing in their hometown." (pdf of full article)
							VernerJohnson Selected for Several Museum Master Planning Projects Boston, MA - December 2010 COLUMBIA MUSEUM OF ART, Columbia, SC - Services include Visitor Research Surveys, Business Plan, Conceptual Design Options for Reorganization and Expansion, Programming and Operations Recommendations, and Budgeting for the 130,000 sq. ft. Museum of Art in downtown Columbia. FLINT HILLS REGIONAL WELCOME CENTER, Flint Hills, KS - Services include Site Analysis and Selection, Programming, Conceptual Design, Business Plan, Operations Planning and Budgeting for a state-of-the-art Welcome Center along I-70 in the central Kansas grasslands. LYNN MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Lynn, MA - Services include Programming, Conceptual Design Options, Interior Lighting and Design for Renovated Exhibit Galleries and Support Spaces for an historical museum in Lynn, MA.


							National Infantry Museum Wins 2010 THEA Award Burbank, CA -17 November 2010 Designed by Verner Johnson, Inc. and opening in 2009, the National Infantry Museum is the proud recipient of one this year’s coveted Themed Entertainment Association awards for Outstanding Achievement. The award celebrates those organizations that “engage, enchant, educate and entertain their guests and visitors with the creators of compelling places and experiences worldwide.” In collaboration with Christopher Chadbourne & Associates and Donna Lawrence Productions, Verner Johnson created a museum that is home to over 30,000 military artifacts, a fitting memorial to Infantrymen everywhere as well as a place to educate the American public on the role of a military branch that parallels the nation’s history. Reverent, artistic and experiential, the National Infantry Museum is “the finest attraction devoted to the American Soldier anywhere,” according to General (ret.) Colin Powell. Finding a way, through architecture, to adequately honor the hundreds of thousands of Infantrymen who have sacrificed so much for their country was a humbling and educating experience for our firm, so it is with great pride that we celebrate the Museum’s THEA award. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/11/prweb4787384.htm
							National Infantry Museum Featured in Insite Magazine Magical Museums Insite- Bansri Pandey - August 2010 Having more than 200 museums in their portfolio, Boston-based Verner Johnson Inc. has planned and designed more museums than any other firm. Thus, while selecting an architectural firm with its unsurpassed museum expertise, Major General White knew he could trust the decisions Verner Johnson Inc. would make in designing an appropriate museum for the Infantry on a grand civic scale. “The National Infantry Museum is one of those life-time projects that showcase our firm’s museum planning and architectural design process. Finding an appropriate way, through architecture, to adequately honor the hundreds of thousands of “ordinary soldiers” who have sacrificed so much for their country was a very humbling endeavour.” says Bradley Nederhoff, Managing Principal of Verner Johnson Inc... (pdf of full article)
							National Infantry Museum Featured in Boston Globe Georgia Museum Honors the Battleground Warriors The Boston Globe - Paul E. Kandarian- 18 July 2010 COLUMBUS, Ga, - There are telling moments to be found in the new National Infantry Museum just outside Fort Benning. One is inside a re-created Vietnam jungle exhibit, a dark and moist place of near stifling humidity. Helicopter sounds throb overhead, and veterans’ voice-overs on small video screens provide commentary on the horrors of battle. Watching on a day I visited were fresh-faced young infantrymen, somberly taking in the images of war far from the grounds upon which they hone their battle skills at Fort Benning, site of the US Army Infantry School... (pdf of full article)
							Cade Museum Receives City Funding Gainesville, FL 15 July 2010 www.cademuseum.org The Gainesville Sun reported that two more projects will now get a piece of the money generated by the 2-cent increase in the county's tourism development tax. On Tuesday, July 13th, county commissioners decided the county's future fairgrounds and the planned Cade Museum for Innovation and Invention would receive some bed tax funding for construction... According to the Museum's website, Verner Johnson museum architects and planners developed the initial vision for the Cade Museum for Innovation and Invention. The firm has conceived a building that seems to flow naturally into the landscape and master plan for the reclamation and renovation of Depot Park. In addition to state of the art galleries, the three story, 55,000 square foot facility will include a theater, science labs for use by schools and others, a restaurant and a dedicated space for hosting top traveling exhibits. The building is also designed to serve as a venue for meetings and community events... Full article:

							Flint Hills Discovery Center Breaks Ground Construction begins on Manhattan's Discovery Center KTKA.com- Lindsey Elliott - 7 July 2010 Wednesday, Manhattan city officials broke ground on a project they have been working on for seven years. Lieutenant Governor Troy Findley, as well as officials from counties across the Flint Hills, came together to kick off the construction of the Flint Hills Discovery Center... Local poet Ron Wilson wrote a poem describing the new center called Discover. This is an excerpt he recited. "So when that traveler stops, he will discover much, much more," Wilson says. "The culture and the people that this region has in store. And it’s not just for the traveler who might be passing through, it will be a focal point for our local people too. Now we celebrate this groundbreaking and the need that it fulfills. For this new center to help more people discover the Flint Hills." The center is designed to draw in tourism and is expected to open in Spring of 2012...
							New Discovery Park of America Design Unveiled at Public Event Discovery Park building momentum; training plane arrives The Messenger - Glenda Caudle - June 22, 2010 Sizzling summer temperatures couldn't diminish the enthusiasm of those who turned out for the special Discovery Park of America event staged this morning at Everett-Stewart Regional Airport between Union City and Martin. The site was chosen because one of the most exciting of Discovery Center’s exhibits — a Stearman plane identical to those used to train World War II cadets at the former Embry-Riddle Field — was flown into the site by local pilot Mike Rinker. The former flight school location was carved out of Obion County farm acreage in 1942 and was later turned over to the county, once the need for trained pilots to help wage the battle in the skies over Europe, Africa and Asia was no longer urgent. Obion County — and more recently, Weakley County — benefited from the gift because the former training ground has grown into an impressive regional air field with a runway extension groundbreaking recently celebrated. The plane, which was located and purchased by the volunteer-staffed Military History committee, will be showcased at Discovery Center when the Discovery Park of America 50-acre educational-entertainment-tourism complex opens in 2012 in Union City’s northwest quadrant...

	Louis Sirianni and Brad Nederhoff of VJI present the new Discovery Center design