What value is a bank that stores no money?
Enter the Ministry of Awe, the newest addition to Philadelphia’s art scene. The former Manufacturers National Bank, originally designed by architect Frank Furness, has been transformed into a surreal, immersive art experience that feels like equal parts bank, playhouse, museum, and escape room 一 while also being none of those things.
The space is the brainchild of prolific Philly muralist Meg Saligman, who serves as the Ministrix of Awe and executive creative director.
“What if we built a place that treats wonder like a serious resource?” Saligman said. “What do you value? What if we create a bank where your attention is the deposit, and your curiosity is the interest rate, and what you withdraw is something you forgot you were allowed to feel?”
The Ministry of Awe indeed requires your undivided attention. As you, the “account holder,” first walk into its lobby, you find yourself in what seems like an old bank. Until you notice something peculiar. Perhaps it’s the giant eyeball watching your every move. Or the enormous nose sniffing you. Maybe it's the disembodied head behind the bars of a teller booth.
The oddities only increase as you wander the nonlinear labyrinth within the six-story building. Each room feels like its own pocket dimension that you can enter by climbing colorful stairwells decorated with murals or venturing through hidden doors. It’s almost uncertain where the art ends and where the bank itself begins, if such a distinction even exists.
All the artwork was completed in collaboration with over 100 Philadelphia-based artists whose work ranges from live performances to set design. The worlds they’ve built explore themes of life, death, memory, connectivity, insecurity, and participation.
Head down to the basement and deep in its crevices, you’ll run into Madison Polidoro’s “Skin Horse,” among other creatures. (Siani Colón / City Cast Philly)
You can explore several departments, such as The Vault, where you can rummage through its drawers to unlock its secrets (and some human teeth); the Jewelry Box’s immersive sound experience; The Department of Final Affairs, which passes through the land of the living and the dead; and The Heavens, the celestial space that evolves with as you speak through a mic using AI technology. As you walk around, you’ll run into several characters across the departments and gain insight into the overarching story being told.
“We got to really have fun playing with ideas of management and organs around an institution,” said narrative artist Mimi Hacking. “In general, making something we hope feels alive and forestalls the foreclosure of the human soul.”
Visitors could easily spend hours in the building. No experience will be quite the same. The space not only invites artists to collaborate; it invites them to come back and update the stories they’ve created. How you experience an installation today can be much different six months from now, leaving more for you to explore.
“Each act of wonder yields infinite returns,” Saligman said.
The Ministry of Awe is now open. General admission is $29.99. Buy timed entry tickets here.
