Special behind-the-scenes tours at the Southwest The Preservation Project: Saving the Collection at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian. Click here
The Southwest Museum Dioramas are Conserved for the Future and The Community and City Councilman José Huizar Come Together for the Southwest Museum Beautification Project. Click here
The Autry National Center Honors Southwest Museum Founder Charles Fletcher Lummis for Lummis Day. Click here
The galleries at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian are closed to the public at this time. However, the Museum Store is open on Saturdays and Sundays and we will continue to offer great programs and events throughout the year.
The galleries are closed due to extensive rehabilitation of the building and conservation of its rare collection of Native American artifacts, with the goal of moving most of the collection to a new state-of-the-art home by 2009. Plans call for the infrastructure improvements to the Southwest Museum to be completed by 2010, when the building will be open for a new cultural use, fulfilling founder Charles Lummis' vision and belief that all indigenous peoples be understood.
The Museum Store is open on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. and entrance to the museum is free. Visitors can enjoy a variety of entertaining and educational events. Members can enjoy monthly Southwest Preservation Tours and special interest lectures on the fourth Saturday of the month, with advanced registration strongly encouraged. Family activities take place on weekends, including Storytime on the first Saturday, DigIt! Family Style, a hands-on archaeology program on the second Sunday, and Kit and Kaboodle, a craft-making project in the Museum Store, on the third Saturday of each month.
The Braun Research Library, located in a separate building at the Southwest, will continue to be open by appointment. The Casa de Adobe on Figueroa Street, remains open for special activities and tours.
The Southwest Museum currently holds one of the nation's most important collections related to the American Indian. However, some of the collection has been damaged, while other objects have been put at risk due to over crowding and the significant deterioration of the Southwest building. Most recently, water leaked into the museum building necessitating the entire pottery collection and tunnel dioramas to be moved for their protection. The elevator tower was flooded, causing it to be shut down because it posed a temporary electrical threat. Vermin, including silverfish, have infested both the artifacts and the containers in which they are stored.
Insufficient and antiquated storage facilities have imperiled the collection. The inadequate exhibit space in the Southwest Museum requires 98% of the 250,000 items in the collection to remain in storage at any given time. Currently, the collection is largely stored in the seven-story Caracol Tower, which is inappropriate in size and condition for the conservation, documentation, and scholarly requirements of the collection.
Until new facilities are constructed, the collection will be moved into the exhibition galleries until proper storage and exhibition facilities are built as part of an expansion of the Autry's Griffith Park campus. Relocating the collection will result in more than five times the current gallery space, as well as state-of-the art storage and scholarly facilities.
The inadequate exhibit space in the Southwest Museum requires 98% of the 250,000 items in the collection to remain in storage at any given time. Currently, the collection is largely stored in the seven-story Caracol Tower, which is inappropriate in size and condition for the conservation, documentation, and scholarly requirements of the collection.
"Storing and displaying artifacts of this importance in space as inadequate as the Southwest currently offers is not acceptable," said Southwest Museum Director Dr. Duane King. "The Southwest buildings will never be able to provide the modern, museum-standard storage and exhibition areas that a collection of this value, age and significance requires."
The current rehabilitation work at the Southwest is made possible by a $936,000 grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment, as well as a FEMA grant to repair damages resulting from the Northridge earthquake. The plan for the first phase of the work will focus on securing the "building envelope," making repairs to the exterior walls, skylights, windows and doors focusing on a comprehensive waterproofing program as well as long-overdue earthquake retrofitting.
“Storing and displaying artifacts of this importance in space as inadequate as the Southwest currently offers is not acceptable,” said Southwest Museum Director Dr. Duane King. “The Southwest buildings will never be able to provide the modern, museum-standard storage and exhibition areas that a collection of this value, age and significance requires.”
The second phase will involve overhauling the building's electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems, and the final phase will be to ensure handicap accessibility and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
To enable the rehabilitation project, the Caracol Tower will be emptied, and the artifacts will be stored in the existing public galleries. The current exhibition areas will be retrofitted for a conservation effort that will include pest eradication, sophisticated electronic cataloguing, and storage of the collection.
This important conservation project comes in the midst of a longer term planning process through which the Autry National Center is pursuing a new cultural use for the Arroyo site that includes exhibition of part of the Southwest collection, public programs, and educational uses. At the core of the new use is maintaining historic integrity of the existing structures, as the Southwest Museum building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
As part of its evaluation of new cultural uses, the Autry National Center will seek the input of Autry members, Native American representatives, community members, cultural leaders, and government officials before making a final decision about the future of the Southwest Museum.
This important conservation project comes in the midst of a longer term planning process through which the Autry National Center is pursuing a new cultural use for the Arroyo site that includes exhibition of part of the Southwest collection, public programs, and educational uses.
During the rehabilitation, the Southwest Museum and Museum Store will continue to be open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 - 5 pm. Although the exhibition galleries will have limited public access, glass doors and "open storage" in the exhibition halls will allow visitors to see into the collection.
"The rehabilitation of the Southwest building is part of a larger $10 to 15 million investment by the Autry National Center to repair the Southwest building and preserve the collection," said Autry National Center CEO John Gray. "At the same time we are offering the unique opportunity to see our conservation efforts as we move forward in preparing to relocate the collection to its new home."
To encourage weekend public visitation during the rehabilitation process, large displays will be constructed to showcase the ongoing work to save the collection and restore the buildings as well as the history of the museum. Color photographs of the dioramas will be mounted on each glass front to display the scenes that were removed from the tunnel due to water damage.
