New National Building Museum exhibit explores the architecture of the Manhattan Project
Secret Cities: The Architecture and Planning of the Manhattan Project is a new exhibition at the National Building Museum that explores the highly classified effort to produce the atomic bomb. The exhibit places an emphasis on showcasing the three new “secret cities” that were built to accommodate the tens of thousands of people who worked on the project.
Oak Ridge, Tenn., Hanford/Richland, Wash., and Los Alamos, N.M., will be explored through original documents, photos, artifacts, maps, and models. The three cities were built from scratch by the U.S. government to accommodate the vast number of people and large-scale, secure facilities necessary for the project.
The cities, which were built in about three years, were heavily reliant on prefabricated construction and helped test and develop emerging ideas about planning and design.
The exhibition also touches on the postwar development of the cities, which remain centers of scientific research today. For more information, click here.