In July 2016 the Children's Museum of Winston-Salem and SciWorks merged to become Kaleideum, the museum in front of you. The two old properties closed in December 2023, and the new unified museum opened here in downtown Winston-Salem on February 7, 2024. Listen for the echoes of the earlier story: Kaleideum North began in 1964 as the Nature Science Center, started by the local Junior League and originally housed in a barn at Reynolda Village.
In 1972 the Nature Science Center moved to 400 West Hanes Mill Road, into a campus that had once hosted the Forsyth County Home and Hospital, the precursor to Forsyth Medical Center. In 1992 the center closed for a major renovation and re-opened as SciWorks, and in 2001 the museum upgraded facilities, doubling the space of one main gallery and adding an indoor eating area. SciWorks came to include a building with 30,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 15-acre environmental park, and a planetarium.
Picture the layers of community effort and science education built here, from the barn at Reynolda Village to this downtown museum façade.