FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 15, 2006

The Institute's new headquarters will be built at the Northwest corner of the National Mall. Construction is to begin in 2007.

The United States Institute of Peace has selected Christopher Chadbourne & Associates (CCA), a Boston-based exhibit design firm to help develop the Public Education Center of the Institute’s new headquarters, which will be built at the Northwest corner of the National Mall at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and 23rd Street in Washington, D.C. The site faces the Lincoln Memorial and is adjacent to the Korean War and Vietnam Memorials.

“We are very excited to begin working with CCA on a master plan for the Public Education Center, which will be dedicated to the theme of peacebuilding,” said Richard Solomon, president of USIP. “The Public Education Center will serve the American people, the federal government, and the international community as a national center for research, education, training and policy and program development on issues of international conflict,” added Solomon.

The Public Education Center and the Institute’s headquarters project are public-private partnerships. Construction is to begin in the spring of 2007. The architectural firm of Moshe Safdie and Associates has completed the design concept for the headquarters, which will be visible from many locations along the National Mall as well as the bridges and roads leading into the nation’s capital. The Center will provide exhibits, interactive displays, case studies and other visual media to educate the public about peacemaking and peacebuilding, using state-of-the-art technologies and programs.

“We are delighted and honored to be working with the United States Institute of Peace on its Public Education Center," said Christopher Chadbourne, President of CCA. “This is a very important project for our nation and for the world.”

Christopher Chadbourne & Associates is an internationally renowned design firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. In the last year the firm’s work has set attendance records both at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History with its exhibition, Price of Freedom: Americans at War and at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry with its exhibition, Capture of the U-505. Chadbourne & Associates are also the designers of two major museums that opened in the last month—the Donald Reynolds Education Center in honor of George Washington at Mount Vernon, and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, which just opened on Veterans’ Day weekend. Other projects include visitor centers at the Grand Canyon, Great Salt Lake and Old Faithful at Yellowstone Park, the Louisiana and North Carolina State Museums, and the National Law Enforcement Museum, now in progress in Washington, D.C.

For more information on the building project visit www.usip.org/building.