Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center

The Visitor Center at the new headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to promote awareness of the Foundation's history, the philanthropic goals of its founders, and its current work in the areas of health, poverty, and education. Located across the street from the Space Needle and other tourist attractions at the sprawling Seattle Center, its interactive exhibits are designed to appeal to tourists and locals, novices and experts, and young and old alike. Although the space without doubt primarily serves a propaganda function for the Foundation and the Gates family, there is much of interest to the historian of medicine. A large portion of the exhibition area, in fact, is devoted to shaping perceptions of the Foundation's past and ongoing work in public health and global health. The Visitor Center comprises a foyer and four large halls, in which a series of permanent, carefully coordinated multimedia exhibits convey the origins of the Foundation and its model of philanthropic work. In doing so, they also portray Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates as benevolent philanthropists who have always been committed to changing the world and improving human well-being. It is up to the visitor, of course, to decide if this is in fact true, but the Visitor Center attempts to make a powerful case. One of the rooms, 'Family and Foundation', features a large, interactive timeline that portrays Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates as heirs to family traditions of giving back, charts the early years of the Foundation's development, and documents more recent projects and events. Rather than acknowledging public pressure to increase his philanthropic activity in the 1980s and early 1990s, Bill Gates is portrayed here as having always wanted a foundation. Moreover, a video presentation describes him having rethought his role as a philanthropist, especially with regard to vaccinations and global health issues, during a 1993 trip to Africa. The achievements of the Foundation in the areas of health, poverty, and education are conveyed in other rooms by including the voices of supporters and collaborators. The first exhibition hall, for example, houses three clusters of large, free-standing, backlit panels that feature portraits and quotes from individuals who have either worked with the Foundation or benefited from its work. Among those featured here alongside Gates family members are an HIV counsellor from Côte d'Ivoire who describes the impact of antiretroviral medications in Africa, a co-founder of …