The Leonardo is unique – a new kind of museum in downtown Salt lake City.
Our mission is to “fuse art, science and technology in experiences that inspire creativity and innovation in people of all ages and backgrounds”. We opened our doors in October of 2011 and have slowly built our organization on the pure passion of our team and board since then.
Why do we matter? In an age of rapid change, social division and mind-bending technological advances, we are a new breed of ‘museum’. As a public institution and 501(c)3; we exist not to impart knowledge in a way that old-school museums do … but rather as a place that inspires people to ask new questions and therefore to become literate and engaged citizens in the world.
Leonardo da Vinci is our namesake and his boundless curiosity is the inspiration for what we seek to do for our visitors: to get visitors to look around and be interested! To be inspired to try something new or to simply to ask a new “What If” question in their life. Like Leonardo, we are interested in looking beyond the surface, in integrating new science and new knowledge as we create our exhibits and programs.
Our vision with all this is to embolden our visitors in finding new ways of being, seeing and doing – by connecting dots they perhaps have not connected before and by approaching the world with more curiosity.
This seems deeply important to us, especially now as the old ways of being and doing have created a world that faces numerous challenges. We need innovation and new ways of thinking to forge a better future for all, and we see our part in this as being a catalyst for curiosity for people from ALL walks of life.
That curiosity then can become a driver in our visitors’ lives long after they leave the museum. And we truly believe that every person has the capacity for creativity, innovation and new ideas.
Over the years, we have created and hosted over 65 exhibitions and many hundreds of programs that are designed to take a new look at what we call the ‘big topics of today’. These could be A.I.; the Future of Water, a new look at the human body, and much, much more. We are unique in this model of applying different “ways of knowing” and different perspectives and – with the exception of large traveling exhibits we have hosted here – all of our content is original, and design and built by our team.
To date, we have seen over 2.5M visitors, and have slowly built The Leonardo as a main cultural destination in the heart of Salt Lake City.
We invite you to join us – visit the museum and share our content. Together, we can inspire generations of innovators and creators!
