Children's Museum Houston (CMH) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit children's museum in the Museum District of Houston, Texas. Founded in 1980 and housed in a building designed by Robert Venturi, it offers exhibits and bilingual learning programs for children aged 0-12, serving more than 1,400,000 people annually. It is one of 190 children's museums in the United States and 15 children's museums in Texas. History CMH was founded in 1980 by a group of Houston parents. It opened in 1984, originally leasing space from the Blaffer Gallery of the University of Houston; it moved several years later to 11,000 square feet (1,000 m2) of leased space in the former Star Engraving Company Building on Allen Parkway. Its current facility, located at 1500 Binz in Houston's Museum District, opened in November 1992, and features of space. It was designed to accommodate 350,000 annual visitors. The building was designed by Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi (in association with Jackson and Ryan Architects), who designed the space to evoke both institutional monumentality "typical of the adult world" as well as playfulness befitting an institution primarily serving children. By 1997, CMH received 700,000 annual visitors. Executive director Tammie Kahn said in 2009 that by the year 1997, it was, as paraphrased by Jennifer Leahy of the Houston Chronicle "apparent that the popular place needed more space." The museum began plans to move to a new location in the late 1990s. After 1992, CMH's administrative and support offices were located on the facility's second floor. These administrative and support offices moved in 2009 to a newly constructed facility at the intersection of Binz and Crawford, 1.5 city blocks from the museum facility. The outreach program Institute for Family Learning now occupies the second floor. The museum operates as a 501(c)(3) under the direction of a board of directors. Expansion In 2009, the museum completed its expansion, doubling its size to a total of . This increased the museum's bilingual, community-based educational outreach programs, provided new classrooms and lab spaces through the museum's Institute for Family Learning, and doubled the size of the museum's on-site Houston Public Library branch. The new building addition joins the original building and houses seven additional exhibit galleries. The expansion was funded by a capital campaign that raised over $35.5 million. Across the street from the main facility is the E. Rudge Allen Jr. Family Education Annex. Designed by Jackson &