The Museum received this award this for its community-wide initiatives that reach out to community members to improve the lives of children and families in our neighborhood and region. One such initiative is the Charm Bracelet Project, which seeks to unite amenities on the Northside and make it a safe, vibrant place for families and community members. The only other Pittsburgh organization to receive the award since its inception in 1994 is the Carnegie Science Center, which won in 2003,
See a video from IMLS on all of the 2009 National Medal Winners:
Charity Navigator Four Star Rating
The Museum was awarded a four-star rating (the highest) from Charity Navigator for its FY08. This non-profit organization evaluates the financial health and operational efficiency of over 5,000 charities using IRS 990 forms. For more information, please visit www.charitynavigator.org .
Breastfeeding Friendly Place Award, Public Place
This award is given annually by the Allegheny County Health Department to a site that promotes breastfeeding by providing a supportive environment that accomodates the special needs of nursing mothers.
Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums Buildy Award
The Buildy award recognizes excellence in design, planning, project management, financing, fundraising, leadership, community engagement and public response. The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh was selected from a pool of over 100 museum projects that were featured in the programs of Building Museums from 2005-2008.
2008 Awards
Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFUTURE) Platinum Green Power Award
This award recognizes the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh for purchasing 100% of its electricity from green energy sources, including wind and hydro power.
Western PA Environmental Award
This award recognizes and honors the outstanding achievements of organizations, businesses, schools and individuals in their commitment to environmental excellence, leadership and accomplishment in their respective fields. The Museum received this award for its continuing educational and institutional efforts to
promote green practices and messages, and "live beyond" its Silver LEED certification achieved in 2006 for its expansion.
The Children’s Museum received this honor as this year's top urban place distinguished by quality design and social, economic and contextual contributions to the urban environment. The Museum was cited for its historic preservation, innovative architecture and unique partnerships created as part of its expansion completed in November 2004.
The Museum's role as a catalyst for urban redevelopment in its neighborhood was also cited, in its collaboration on the recent renovation of the Hazlett Theater, developing the Charm Bracelet project to create a North Side family district by connecting its cultural institutions, and launching a design competition for the renovation of Allegheny Public Square Park.
For more information about the award and the Rudy Bruner Foundation, click here .
2006 Awards
National Preservation Honor Award
The Museum received this honor from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for giving new meaning to our community through determined and skillful preservation of its architectural and cultural heritage. Learn about all of the winners here.
Silver LEED Certification
The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh received Silver LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in March 2006, making it the largest Silver LEED-certified museum in the country. Learn about the features make the Museum a green building.
2006 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Honor Award for Architecture
Design Architect Koning Eizenberg Architecture of Santa Monica, CA, and Executive Architect Perkins Eastman of Pittsburgh, PA, received this honor for excellence in architecture - considered the highest recognition of works in the field - for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh's expansion, completed in November 2004. They also received this honor from the AIA chapters in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, and the AIA California Council.
Read more about the AIA Honor Award, including this year's other recipients, here.
Read more about the Children's Museum's project, including AIA jury comments, here.
Green Building Alliance 2006 Shades of Green Leadership Award
Children’s Museum Executive Director Jane Werner received this award which celebrates leaders who have helped transform the Pittsburgh region into a more sustainable place to live and work. Jane's contributions cited include launching a new program/initiative supporting green-building related activities; raising significant community awareness and outreach of green issues through materials, programs and events; and influencing the adoption of a program/policy through advocacy efforts and implementing green management and operation policies within the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
Charity Navigator Four Star Rating
The Museum was awarded a four-star rating (the highest) from Charity Navigator for its FY05. This non-profit organization evaluates the financial health and operational efficiency of over 5,000 charities using IRS 990 forms. This made the Children's Museum one of only two four-star children's museums and one of only 41 four-star museums in the country. For more information, please visit www.charitynavigator.org .
Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau 2006 Tourism Partner of the Year
Children’s Museum Executive Director Jane Werner received this award in April 2006 for outstanding partnership, collaboration and diligent efforts to enhance the richness and quality of life of the Pittsburgh region, enjoyed by both residents and visitors alike.
2005 Awards
Master Builder's Association of Western Pennsylvania's 2005 Building Excellence Award - Over $5 Million
Mascaro Construction Co., LP, received this award, that honors Western Pennsylvania contractors and their project teams, for exemplary work on the Museum's expansion project. Criteria include design and craftsmanship, teamwork, challenges, client satisfaction and the integration of green building practices.
Children's Museum of Pittsburgh received one of six "Edgie" awards for its unique and innovative partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE). The award distinguished this partnership as a model for nonprofit collaboratations that advance each organization's goals and positively influence visitor experiences. ASTC numbers more than 540 members in 40 countries, including science-technology centers, nature centers, children's museums, zoos, aquariums and natural history museums.
Charity Navigator Four Star Rating
The Museum was awarded a four-star rating (the highest) from Charity Navigator for its FY04. This non-profit organization evaluates the financial health and operational efficiency of over 5,000 charities using IRS 990 forms. For more information, please visit www.charitynavigator.org .
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
PHMC awarded the Children’s Museum a $127,500 general operating grant, one of its highest allocations in Pennsylvania.
American Association of Museums' MUSE Award
Children's Museum of Pittsburgh's redesigned website, www.pittsburghkids.org, received one of four Gold MUSE Awards, which recognizes excellence in all varieties of media programs produced by or for museums. Wall-to-Wall Studios, Inc., designed the Museum's new website.
Forbes.com’s 2005 “Best of the Web"
The Museum's website, www.pittsburghkids.org, was included in the Top Ten list of children’s museum websites.
2005 American Architecture Award by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design
Among several hundred submissions, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and Koning Eizenberg Architecture received one of 33 awards as selected by a jury of architects representing the National Association of Norwegian Architects in Oslo. Also awarded was Morphosis’ Cal Trans building in Los Angeles, Zaha Hadid Architects’ Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s The Barn at Fallingwater and Gluckman Mayner Architects’ Museo Picasso Malaga in Spain.
2005 American Institute of Steel Construction – Innovative Design and Excellence in Architecture with Steel (I.D.E.A.S.) Merit Award
Recognizing designs where structural steel forms a prominent architectural feature of a building, this award for the Children's Museum's expansion was one of two Merit Awards given in the "Less Than $10 Million" category.
Metropolitan Home Magazine’s 2005 Design 100 List
Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh was ranked Number 1 in this annual list of “great design in all senses of the word, from the breathtakingly beautiful and the astonishingly well made to the innovative, heartfelt and inspiring."
Society for Environmental Graphic Design’s 2005 Design Awards
Pentagram Design’s way-finding signage in Children's Museum of Pittsburgh received an Honor Award for excellence in environmental graphic design from amongst hundreds submitted from around the world. Fabrication of the signage was by Sign Innovation.
Cool Space Award
The Museum was one of 45 projects presented the first Cool Space Award by the Cool Space Locator and PNC Bank to celebrate Southwestern Pennsylvania's unique "walkable" urban neighborhoods and encourage adaptive reuse of urban locations.
2004 Awards
National Science Foundation
The Children’s Museum was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the NSF to create the new traveling exhibit How People Make Things, based on the popular factory visit video segments from the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood television series. In visitor experiences created in collaboration with Family Communications, Inc., the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE) and Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design, the exhibit will highlight the science, engineering, math and technology used in manufacturing everyday objects found in a child’s world.
MetLife Foundation and Association of Children’s Museums Promising Practice Award
The award honors innovative management and programming practices in children’s museums. The Children’s Museum received this award for its partnership with Dr. Kevin Crowley of UPCLOSE and the development of an in-house, university-based department of research and evaluation at the Museum.
American Association of Museums
Children’s Museum was awarded Second Place in the AAM Museum Publications Design Competition for its Expansion newspaper insert and Capital Campaign advertisement series, both designed by GBL.
Coming Up Taller
The Museum’s YouthALIVE! program was one of 50 semifinalists recognized by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and its partner agencies, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.
Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Museum received a Museums for America grant in 2004 and a National Leadership grant from IMLS, a federal grant program for museums and libraries. These prestigious grants are awarded to institutions considered at the top of their field.
