Home & Design
Spoken Word globe in gallery
Spoken Word globe in gallery

A globe made of 5,000 LED lights is a focal point in the Spoken World gallery.

Planet Word multi-paneled city park image
Planet Word multi-paneled city park image

A multi-paneled image of a city park delights viewers in the Word Worlds gallery.

Speaking willow tree in courtyard
Speaking willow tree in courtyard

The “Speaking Willow Tree” occupies the new courtyard entrance.

Planet Word Museum
Planet Word Museum

The Library gallery is a space for reading.

Planet Word kid friendly interactive exhibit
Planet Word kid friendly interactive exhibit

A diorama intrigues a visitor.

Planet Word Diorama
Planet Word Diorama

The Where Do Words Come From? gallery boasts a wall of more than 1,000 three-dimensional words.

Planet Word voice interaction exhibit
Planet Word voice interaction exhibit

Kids interact in the Where Do Words Come From? gallery.

Planet Word

A museum in DC’s landmark Franklin School celebrates the wonders of language

Planet Word - In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell performed the first wireless voice transmission from the roof of downtown DC’s Franklin School—making this historic building an apt location for Planet Word, a new museum that utilizes technology to inspire a love of language.

“There’s never been a museum showcasing the fun and power and beauty of words and language,” notes founder and CEO Ann Friedman, a philanthropist and former reading instructor who is married to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “Words are the overlooked and under-appreciated artifacts of our lives. Planet Word will change all that.” The project was funded in part by AT&T, which evolved out of Bell’s long-ago invention.

Conceived in Renaissance Revival style by Adolf Cluss in 1869, the five-story, 50,000-square-foot structure is designated a National Historic Landmark. To make way for the museum, architects at Beyer Blinder Belle restored the building, preserving two grand staircases, some classrooms and the original frescoes that adorned the walls. They also renovated the fourth floor to create event space. Interiors were repurposed by Local Projects, an exhibit-design firm, to establish 10 immersive, voice-activated learning galleries that ingeniously employ technology. A 22-foot-tall talking word wall shares the story of language; a karaoke lounge teaches songwriting; and teleprompters in an acoustically sealed room help budding orators deliver historic speeches. In the courtyard entrance, a “Speaking Willow Tree,” sculpted in metal by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, plays hundreds of languages on 364 speakers hung from its branches and delivered via 3.6 miles of ethernet cable.

While Planet Word opened briefly in October 2020, its doors have since closed due to the pandemic. For updates on reopening plans, visit planetwordmuseum.org.

Planet Word - Photos and renderings courtesy of Planet Word.

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