The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial was designed by James Earle Fraser from 1906 to 1911 and dedicated in Memorial Hall, a rotunda in the Franklin Institute, in 1938. The 20-foot statue of Ben Franklin weighs 30 tons and is seated on a 92-ton pedestal of white Seravezza marble. Memorial Hall, designed by John T. Windrim after the Roman Pantheon, is 82-feet in length, width and height, with a 1600-ton domed ceiling and marble walls, ceilings and columns.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum opened on January 1, 1934 in the expansive neoclassical building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway designed by John T. Windrem. Owing to the effects of the the Great Depression, only two the wings envisioned by Windrem, surrounding the Benjamin Franklin Memorial, were built. Today the Institute offers 12 permanent hands-on exhibits and hosts renowned traveling exhibits in its more than 400,000 square feet of exhibit space, two auditoriums, and the Tuttleman IMAX Theater.
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