The Museum of Tomorrow berthed in Rio de Janeiro in December 2015, a mere few months before the city was to host one of its biggest events ever, the 2016 Olympics. The museum welcomes visitors, neighbors, partners, sponsors, employees and managers to reflect on building tomorrow from the ethical pillars of sustainability and coexistence, while taking into consideration the scenarios and challenges of the present.

Since inauguration, more than 8 million people have traversed the museum’s permanent exhibition and been encouraged to ask themselves:

Where do we come from?
Who are we?
Where are we?
Where are we going?
How do we want to get there?

These are the questions that IDG (Institute for Development and Management) has been trying to answer during these past four years, as we embrace our mission of managing the venue with passion, commitment, creativity and joy.

The result of a successful public-private partnership, the museum has continuously provided excellent customer service and varied and high-quality programming for its growing number of visitors. To this end, IDG has developed a solid and transparent governance model, a unique financial security structure and an efficient operation and logistics system, with a transdisciplinary team in constant dialogue with each other.

In its first year of opening, the Museum of Tomorrow received the “Best Museum of the Year in South and Central America” at the Leading Culture Destinations Awards, known as the “Oscars for Museums”

The Museum of Tomorrow is an architectural icon, well ensconced in the city’s historical center and in the Guanabara Bay, one of the country’s main ports. The museum rapidly became one of the city’s main tourist attractions, attaining the title of Brazil’s most visited and best evaluated museum, with an average score of 9.56 given by visitors – according to research conducted in 2018.

The museum’s success with the public has also been echoed by the critics: in its first year of opening, the Museum of Tomorrow received the “Best Museum of the Year in South and Central America” at the Leading Culture Destinations Awards, known as the “Oscars for Museums”, in recognition of the ensemble of its architectural and museographic project. The LCD Awards would once again recognize the museum in 2018 as the “Best Cultural Institution for Promoting Soft Power”, identifying the museum’s power to mobilize and engage with its surrounding communities. Em 2021, the Museum of Tomorrow won, for the third time, the LCD Berlin Awards, this time in the category of Best Digital Experience in Museums, which highlights the pioneering nature of the museum's experience in the digital environment.

The Museum of Tomorrow has already launched 32 temporary exhibitions. Two of them, “The Flying Poet, Santos Dumont” and “Pratodomundo”, received awards at the Grand Prix (formerly IDCA - International Design & Communication Awards). The museum’s permanent exhibition, which is divided into five areas (Cosmos, Earth, Anthropocene, Tomorrows and Us), is in constant evolution and has been updated more than 500 times, in between content and technological improvements. The exhibition has also been significantly expanded twice, including the addition of the interactive “Baías de Todos Nós” component, featuring information about different bays around the world, including the Guanabara Bay, where the museum is located, and the bays of Sydney (Australia), Tokyo (Japan), Chesapeake (United States) and Jakarta (Indonesia), bringing other examples of coexistence and interaction; and IRIS+, the Artificial Intelligence assistant who “talks” to visitors at the end of the exhibition circuit.

Education and accessibility form part of the museum’s very DNA

An innovative and technological platform designed to think and project the future, to engage with people and exchange knowledge, the Museum of Tomorrow is an educational museum and as such, is structured so that all its components – contents, practices and collaborators – are directly involved with the higher function of educating. In this sense, education and accessibility form part of the museum’s very DNA. It would be impossible to think about today as a place for action, without first considering diversity and inclusion as the driving forces of transformation. The museum’s building and all exhibitions are designed according to the principles of sustainability and accessibility, and these principles also guide the programs and activities, developed with the aim of providing inclusion for all.

Programs such as “Vizinhos do Amanhã” (providing free entrance and exclusive events to local residents), “Trilhar os Amanhãs em Libras” (involving guided sign language tours), “Entre Museus” (promoting visits for public school children to a network of local museums), and others have cemented the museum’s place in Brazil’s history, inspiring local and international institutions to visit the venue and become acquainted with our team’s specific expertise and particular management methods. The museum has signed international partnerships with institutions such as the United Nations, the Science Museum in London, the Miami Dade College, the Climate Museum in New York, the Museum of Melbourne, the Western Sydney University, the Fundesplei in Spain, the Museum for the United Nations – UN Live in Copenhagen and Futurium in Berlin, the Google Cultural Institute, the DutchCulture Center and the Shenzhen Museum, among others, expanding the museum’s spectrum of institutional relationships and exchanges, in addition to numerous local partnerships.

Created through a Rio de Janeiro City Hall initiative and sponsored by Santander Bank (Master Sponsor) and other companies including Shell, IBM, Engie, Grupo Globo and Americanas, the museum was originally conceived by the Roberto Marinho Foundation.