Museum taps Q-C native for ‘Smart Home’ exhibit

Twenty-five years ago, Michelle Kaufmann boarded a bus along with the rest of her Davenport junior high school classmates for a trip to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, a trip she remembers as life-changing.

It was the first time she had been in a building of that size and scale, and it fueled a curiosity about how such places are designed and built.

That curiosity helped propel her on to a career in architecture that blazed through Iowa State and Princeton universities, landed her a job with the internationally known Frank O. Gehry in Los Angeles and now finds her as chairman of her own firm in Oakland, Calif., building a national reputation in prefab/modular and green home construction.

Later this week, Kaufmann will return to the Museum of Science and Industry, this time as a guest of honor, to help open an exhibit called “Smart Home: Green+Wired” that she was asked to design.

Also making the trip for the Thursday opening will be her parents, Jon and Mary Kaufmann; her grandparents, Wayne and Judy Eckstein; and her brother Christopher, all of the Quad-Cities.

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