New Leonardo Director a Veteran of Humble Beginnings

Aug 15, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) The Leonardo's new plan isn't scaled back, it's a phased-in approach says the Leonardo's new executive director Peter Giles. The new $11 million plan to immediately move into the old library building is less than half the museum once thought it needed to get up and running. Giles says the building doesn't need as much work as they once thought.

"As we invested some money to prepare for Body Worlds, and we began looking and turning on the air conditioning, turning on the systems, making the escalators work, we realized this building is in a lot better shape than we had assumed," Giles says. "And so we said, ‘Why don't we see if we can do it with the money available, rather than asking the donors to go above and beyond what the voters have already approved?'"

Giles will ask the city to release a $10 million voter-approved bond so the museum can officially start operating in the city-owned facility after staging the Body World exhibit, which opens in September.

The start-small approach Giles is advocating is reminiscent of his experience at the helm of San Jose's Tech Museum of Innovation.

"You know, Silicon Valley is famous for big businesses starting out in garages - Apple Computer and Hewlett Packard to name two. And so we came up with a garage model," Giles says. "And guess what? We learned a lot. Over the course of about five years, over 500,000 people come to visit the garage."

Eventually, Giles says the San Jose museum proved itself to donors and the public and moved out of the garage into its own building. He says now's the time for the Leonardo to prove itself. And, he adds, the Body Worlds exhibit in September will be a good starting point. He anticipates more than 1 million people will come to the exhibit.

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