Virginia Museum of History and Culture

The Virginia Museum of History and Culture (VMHC) was founded 1831 as a private intellectuals club and is now a museum dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of Virginia history to the general public. Originally known as the Virginia Historical Society, the museum is located on the Boulevard in the same super block as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, helping to lend its neighborhood the name of ‘Museum District’. It is a private non-profit organization and has been funded entirely by private sources since it’s founding.

The current museum’s central section, known as Battle Abbey, was built in 1913 by the Philadelphia firm Bissell and Sinkler. It has since been added to four times, first in 1959, and in 1992, 1998, and 2006 by Glave & Holmes. The museum now includes generous event and lecture halls as well as exhibition space for the largest collection of Virginia artifacts on permanent view anywhere.

Visually, the VMHC is imposing and austere, bordering on architectural brutalism. Its additions have only intensified this impression. Together, they form an uninterrupted plane of stone and concrete that do not reveal the function or delegation of inside space. A sparse, planar lawn sets the museum back from the street and matches the formal qualities of the structure. While there is no interaction between the Virginia Museum of History and Culture and the neighboring Virginia Museum of Fine Arts campus, its relationship to the other grand structures on the Boulevard give the museum a sense of place and prominence.

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