Architect Moshe Safdie discusses the design of the Peabody Essex Museum. Constructed in several phases over the past 200 years, it is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States. The objectives of Safdie's architectural expansion and re-organisation were to create a dramatic addition emblematic of the institution’s new identity as a center of art and culture; to unify a disparate group of buildings and join them with newly doubled gallery space; and to present the museum to visitors as a coherent, welcoming whole.Â