Millennium Gate Museum

The mission of the Millennium Gate Museum is to preserve and interpret Georgia history, art, culture, and philanthropic heritage, as well as to highlight Georgia's historical and aesthetic significance to the United States and the world. The Millennium Museum Atlanta is a classically styled monumental arch in Atlanta, also known as "The Gate City." It is built in the style of classical Roman triumphal arches that have been built all over the world over the last 2,500 years, and it houses a 12,000 square foot museum that tells the story of Georgia through sophisticated interactive technology, film, period rooms, and exhibitions. The museum is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation and a Palladio Award winner for public space design. The American Urban Design Foundation, now known as the National Monuments Foundation, developed the original concept for Washington, D.C.

The Gate also serves as a venue for world-class art and history exhibitions that travel exclusively throughout Georgia. The museum recently organised an eight-city tour of The Art of Diplomacy: Winston Churchill and the Pursuit of Painting to LaGrange, Sea Island, Columbus, Macon, Atlanta, Rome, Athens, and Savannah, to great national and British acclaim. The museum's mission of showcasing world-class art across Georgia is carried on by connecting the state's arts and history museums, sharing exhibitions, and allowing all Georgians to enjoy our shared cultural patrimony.

The Glenn Gallery

The Glenn Gallery, located just inside The Millennium Gate, pays homage to the incredible history of its Atlantic Station site. Originally, the Atlantic Station site was home to Atlantic Steel, a mill that began in the late 1800s and grew to become one of the region's most powerful companies, employing over 2,000 people. The massive blasting ovens are no longer in use, and the long-dormant steel plant has been replaced by an innovative, bustling new community, a "city within a city," with thousands of homes, apartments, shops, stores, and office buildings.

The Glenn Gallery will feature a series of photographic exhibits that will introduce visitors to the area's dramatic transformation from thriving steel mill to thriving new town, as well as the cultural and physical changes that the site has seen over the last century. The exhibits will pay tribute to everyone who has been involved with the mill since its inception, including ordinary citizens and workers who toiled in hot and clamorous foundries to make Atlantic Steel one of the most innovative and productive mid-century mills in the country. The gallery will show how a new and vital urban area arose from the ashes of a reclaimed brownfield, in reference to the mythological Phoenix, a bird that rises triumphantly from the ashes and has been a part of the City of Atlanta's seal since 1887.

18th Century Georgia Pioneer Gallery

The Georgia Pioneer Gallery focuses on General Oglethorpe's creation of the Colony of Georgia and the enlightenment ideals that were so instrumental in its inception, beginning with pre-Columbian Native American history and 16th century Spanish settlement of the coast. The gallery contains Native American, Spanish, British Colonial, and American Revolutionary War documents and artefacts that complement and add dimension to the museum's history exhibit panels.

19th and 20th Century Galleries

The historic art gallery Atlanta tells the story of Atlanta and Georgia's early history, as well as the bold leadership that has helped them grow into one of the world's most important destinations. The exhibition includes photographs and artefacts from twenty of Atlanta's pioneering families, including Adair, Candler, Glenn, Herndon, Rich, and Woodruff, among others, who helped shape our social, economic, political, and philanthropic landscape.

21st Century Interactive Gallery

The museum has created an Interactive Philanthropy Gallery in collaboration with Georgia Tech's Interactive Media Technology Center, which allows visitors to explore Atlanta and how philanthropy has changed the various neighbourhoods that comprise this thriving metropolis. Visitors can learn about Atlanta's history by using Nintendo Wii technology in an immersive theatre setting. A projection visualises Atlanta's evolution over the past 150 years in the second interactive component, allowing visitors to switch between historic and contemporary images of our city's major landmarks with a simple wave of the hand.

The Tocqueville Corridor

Visitors to the Tocqueville Corridor will learn about the evolution of philanthropy in the United States. Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French social philosopher and observer of early American life, visited Georgia in 1832. This section will include a map of his journey as well as selected quotes from his writings. Tocqueville frequently remarked on the generous spirit of Americans, writing in his 1840 book, Democracy in America, that "Americans gather to hold fêtes, found seminaries, build inns, construct churches, distribute books, and dispatch missionaries to the antipodes." They use the same method to build hospitals, prisons, and schools." This observation on the pioneering and forward-thinking spirit of early Georgians and Americans is an excellent segue into the Philanthropy Gallery.

Period Rooms

The Millennium Gate includes three period rooms: an 18th century Colonial study from Georgia's Declaration of Independence signer Lyman Hall's Midway, Georgia, a 19th century office of Coca-Cola magnate Thomas K. Glenn during his tenure as president of Atlantic Steel and the Trust Company of Georgia at the same time, and a 20th century drawing room of Pink House, the Rhodes-Robinson home designed by Philip Shutze and Edward Vason Jones.