Avenir Foundation Conservation and Collections Resource Center

Construction began November 5, 2012 on GW’s new dual-purpose building on the Virginia Science and Technology Campus.  Located at the intersection of Presidential Drive and George Washington Boulevard, the building features a 22,000 square foot state-of-the-art collections and conservation resource center and an adjacent 30,000 square feet of additional space, to be designed and built out for future academic and research activities. The separate buildings share a common entrance and some support functions.

The collections and conservation resource center is an environmentally controlled structure especially designed for the long term protection, study and care of the university’s own collections; those of the Textile Museum, which entered into a partnership with the university last year; and the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection, an unparalleled compilation of more than 600 maps, prints and other documents related to Washington, D.C.’s, history as the capital city. The Textile Museum’s collection includes more than 19,000 objects, including carpets and rugs from Egypt, Spain and central Asia; a group of 17th-century Caucasian dragon carpets and fragments that is one of the world’s best outside of Turkey; an extensive collection of pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles, early Islamic textiles; and many other examples from China, Japan and Africa.

The project completed during the fall of 2013. 

Avenir Foundation Collections and Conservation Resource Center Construction Updates