The Independence Visitor Center is a 55,000-sf exposed-steel structure located on Independence Mall.
The product of a partnership among the National Park Service, city, state, and private foundations, the center serves visitors to Independence National Historical Park and to the Greater Philadelphia region.
The visitor center features exhibit, theater, food service, retail, office, and special event spaces housed within a long, narrow structure with details evocative of the nearby colonial-era buildings. Half of the building sits atop a pre-existing underground garage (designed by Keast & Hood in 1963 – although not for an overbuild) and features a “great-room” lobby that permits visitors to enter directly from the garage. Significant structural features include an intricate lateral-force distribution system to resist wind loads on the tall, but narrow and essentially hollow, structure; minimally invasive modifications to the existing garage structure to accommodate the new building loads; and creation of the great room within what was once a vehicle ramp into the garage.
The project earned a 2001 Pennsylvania Construction Review Award.
The Independence Visitor Center is a 55,000-sf exposed-steel structure located on Independence Mall.
The product of a partnership among the National Park Service, city, state, and private foundations, the center serves visitors to Independence National Historical Park and to the Greater Philadelphia region.
The visitor center features exhibit, theater, food service, retail, office, and special event spaces housed within a long, narrow structure with details evocative of the nearby colonial-era buildings. Half of the building sits atop a pre-existing underground garage (designed by Keast & Hood in 1963 – although not for an overbuild) and features a “great-room” lobby that permits visitors to enter directly from the garage. Significant structural features include an intricate lateral-force distribution system to resist wind loads on the tall, but narrow and essentially hollow, structure; minimally invasive modifications to the existing garage structure to accommodate the new building loads; and creation of the great room within what was once a vehicle ramp into the garage.
The project earned a 2001 Pennsylvania Construction Review Award.
CLIENT: Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood Architects
LOCATION: Philadelphia, PA
TYPE: Cultural, SERVICES: New Construction, MATERIALS: Concrete, Steel, SUSTAINABILITY: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Completed project photography © Jeffrey Totaro
