Children's Museum of Houston - History

History

The Museum was founded in 1980 by a group of Houston parents who hoped to elevate early childhood development to a community-wide priority. The museum opened in 1984, and it originally leased space from the Blaffer Gallery of the University of Houston. Several years later, it moved to 11,000-square-foot (1,000 m2) of leased space in a building on Allen Parkway. The current facility, located at 1500 Binz in Houston’s Museum District, opened in November 1992. Patricia C. Johnson of the Houston Chronicle said that the facility is "colorful." It was designed to accommodate 350,000 annual visitors. The building was designed by Robert Venturi, who studied child psychology and wanted to instill an idea of universality within the Museum. By 1997 the museum was having up to 700,000 annual visitors. Tammie Kahn, the executive director in 2009, said that by the year 1997 it was, as paraphrased by Jennifer Leahy of the Houston Chronicle that "apparent that the popular place needed more space." The museum began plans to move to a new location in the late 1990s.

In 2006 the museum had 600,000 annual visitors, making it over capacity. A 47,000-square-foot (4,400 m2), $35 million expansion increased the museum by over twice its original size. The expansion opened in 2009. The museum now has 90,000 square feet (8,400 m2) of space.

After 1992, the museum's administrative and support offices were on the second floor of the facility. As of the 2009 move, the administrative and support offices moved to a 17,000 square feet (1,600 m2) newly constructed facility at the intersection of Binz and Crawford, one and one half city blocks from the museum facility. The outreach program Institute for Family Learning now occupies the second floor.

Since the building’s expansion in 2009, the Museum has served more than 1,100,000 people annually and operates as a 501(c)(3) under the direction of a Board of Directors.