July 10 (Bloomberg) -- A sleek glass, copper and concrete visitor's center in the new headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation may become a Seattle tourist attraction when it opens in 2010.

The foundation, the largest in the world with $33.4 billion in assets, has given museum design firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates the task of creating a 15,000-square-foot center that explains the nonprofit's work in global health, development and education.

The Manhattan-based firm's founder, Ralph Appelbaum, 64, talked to me about how the center will take visitors on a ``learning journey.''

Arnold: How do you go about planning a project of this sort?

Appelbaum: One of the main messages of the center is that all lives, no matter where they're lived, have equal value; that there are inequities, but today's problems are solvable. Out of that thinking one can set a mission for the center. We hope it will inspire visitors to be reflective and understand the optimism that's embedded in the foundation.

Arnold: What are your thoughts on what the experience will be like?

Appelbaum: The first stop will give people a way to open their eyes to the world. That starts with a lot of stories: film and multimedia. It's the emotional part.

After that, the plan is to present a series of analytical layers. There's interactive information: maps, resource databases. From that intellectual zone, you go in-depth into case studies, problem-solving activities. You get an understanding of the foundation's methodology.

Galvanizing Moment

Arnold: This idea of a journey seems like what visitors experience at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which you designed. At the start, each person is assigned an identity card of a survivor or a victim.

Appelbaum: The way to get people emotionally engaged in information is to build a series of encounters that give them the tools to go to the next level -- very much like the Holocaust Museum. When visitors go through the Holocaust Museum, it's told as a general orientation of how people get ``de- citizenized,'' then how they were murdered through a compressed- timed process. Much of the experience is making the case for action.

Arnold: Bill Gates has said his galvanizing moment was when he read about diseases eliminated in the U.S. that still kill millions of children in poor countries.

Appelbaum: They (Bill and Melinda Gates) describe it as literally opening their eyes to the world. Because they were making journeys to people in the field, they realized there are solutions.

Moving Stories

Arnold: Most visitor centers are auxiliaries to an historic building or attraction. With Gates, the center is the attraction.

Appelbaum: What people will encounter is how an American family really became engaged with complex and serious issues and found their own way to contribute.

Arnold: Do you see this becoming a popular attraction in Seattle?

Appelbaum: We're in the heart of the city, across from the Space Needle and the EMP (Experience Music Project). What we offer people is a promise to awaken them to a new knowledge base. People are fascinated by what the foundation is and how it reflects the interests of this extraordinarily generous family.

Arnold: How will you make sure that visitors leave feeling inspired, but not coerced, to be more charitable?

Appelbaum: There's a natural philanthropy in American society. We admire it. We respect those who do it. But often we don't think we have a role in it. We think the most we can do is to respond immediately through some charitable act. But in fact, there are lessons to be learned about developing a much more strategic, familial type of philanthropy, no matter what your economic group is.

(Laurence Arnold writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Arnold in Washington at larnold4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 10, 2007 00:10 EDT