World-Renowned Silver Spring-Based Museum Design Firm Completes Major Installation for 150th Anniversary of National Museum of Health and Medicine

May 16, 2012, Silver Spring, Md.: Gallagher & Associates, a world-renowned museum planning and design firm based in Silver Spring, Md., was the lead exhibition designer for the inaugural exhibition at the new National Museum of Health and Medicine. NMHM re-opens on the occasion of its 150th anniversary on May 21, 2012.

Exhibition design and installation was a team effort, bringing together the expert design staff at Gallagher & Associates and the Museum's in-house exhibitions and curatorial staff. Gallagher's charge was to design a series of flexible and changeable exhibit environments to enable the Museum to remain fresh and relevant. Working closely with the Museum team, the designers created three main topic galleries: Military Medicine, Anatomy and Pathology and the Core Collections Gallery. The overall design process took nearly two-years, from conceptual drawings to final artwork. Explus Inc. of Chantilly, Va. was chosen to provide exhibit fabrication and installation, including the mounting of approximately 750 artifacts and specimens.

"We are very honored and privileged to have been a part of this ambitious and exciting project," said Patrick Gallagher, President of Gallagher & Associates. "The opportunity to work with such an historic and important collection and such rich and rewarding stories of the accomplishments of military doctors, nurses, scientists and innovators, past and present, comes once in a lifetime for an interpretive design firm."

NMHM's newest exhibit installations will showcase the institution's 25-million object collection, focusing on topics as diverse as innovations in military medicine, traumatic brain injury, anatomy and pathology, military medicine during the Civil War, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, human identification and a special exhibition on the Museum's own major milestone - the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Army Medical Museum. Objects on display will include familiar artifacts and specimens: the bullet that killed Lincoln and a leg showing the effects of elephantiasis, as well as recent finds in the collection - all designed to astound visitors to the new Museum.

Interested media representatives must call Melissa Brachfeld, NMHM Public Affairs Specialist, at (301) 319-3313 or email USArmy.Detrick.MEDCOM-USAMRMC.List.Medical-Museum@health.mil to register in advance to cover the Museum's exhibit opening. Media representatives must present the following information: name, media organization, contact phone number, and vehicle info (tags, year, make, and model).