Gettysburg National Battlefield
Museum and Visitor Center
Gettysburg, PA
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers
Completion Date: 2005

Architects: Cooper, Robertson & Partners (Peer Review)


A new 138,000 square foot Museum and Visitor Center building is currently being planned. The new Center will serve to educate and orient the 1.8 million annual visitors to the town of Gettysburg and the historic civil war battlefield. The building program includes two orientation theaters, a food service facility, retail shop, and museum. In addition the United States Park Service's collection of civil war artifacts and historic documents will be stored and preserved here.

The new Visitors Center will provide a home for the "Battle of Gettysburg" Cyclorama painting, a 360 degree by forty foot diameter painting dating to 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux. The painting will be installed in a new climate controlled space on the second level of the new building. The painting will be protected in a "state of the art" climate controlled environment, including systems for precise temperature and humidity control as well as gas phase and particulate filtration.

Construction of the new building will permit the demolition of the current visitor center and parking lot, which covers an historic section of the Battlefield. The cleared site will then be restored to conditions, which existed on July 2, 1863.

A 450-ton geothermal heating and cooling plant is planned to reduce energy consumption as well as eliminate the need for exterior mechanical equipment. A new central outside air processing system will be specified for climate control redundancy as well as to provide a secure ventilation system for the visitors.

The estimated construction cost will be approximately $ 30M.