The New York Times reports:
The museum has had something of a bumpy road. Mr. Stern was first
selected to design a building for it in 2002, when it was to be in
Valley Forge, Pa., where Washington’s soldiers endured the winter of
1777-78. Carved into a hillside in the Valley Forge National Historical
Park, the building would have had views of the historic encampment, 22
miles northwest of Philadelphia.
But a dispute with the National Park Service over the terms by which the
museum could occupy park land led to a change of plans, and the center
bought a 78-acre parcel of privately owned land that was nearly
surrounded by the historical park, intending to build Mr. Stern’s design
there. Then critics, including the National Parks Conservation Association,
an independent advocacy group, argued that any development would
diminish the site’s history. In September 2010, after more than a year
of negotiations, the center reached an agreement with the Park Service
to move the museum to its current location, the site of a former
visitors’ center in Independence National Historical Park in
Philadelphia. In exchange the center turned over its 78 acres at Valley
Forge to the Park Service.
Now Mr. Stern has produced a new design intended to fit into
Philadelphia’s historic district. The museum will face the First Bank of
the United States, completed in 1795, and sit near William Strickland’s
Merchants’ Exchange Building from 1834 and the United States Custom House from a century later. Anchoring the eastern end of Independence National Historical Park,
the brick building will announce itself with a tower that will be
topped by a cylindrical cupola with a bell-shaped roof. A wall running
along South Third Street will have brick cornerstones and recessed
arches accented with stone.
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