About the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Designed by I.M. Pei and opened on September 2, 1995, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is the most visible civic landmark on Cleveland's lakefront: a 150,000-square-foot glass pyramid thrust outward over Lake Erie at the edge of North Coast Harbor. The museum holds more than 45,000 artifacts, has inducted over 350 artists, and has drawn more than ten million visitors since opening.
Cleveland's claim to the Hall was not given. It was fought for. The city lobbied against Memphis, New York, and San Francisco through the early 1980s, making the case — on the basis of Alan Freed, the Moondog Coronation Ball, and WMMS's central role in album-oriented rock — that rock and roll's commercial breakthrough had happened in Cleveland before it happened anywhere else. A petition drive gathered 600,000 signatures. Civic and state commitments totaled over $65 million. The selection committee chose Cleveland in 1986.
The Campaign
Winning the Hall
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was incorporated in 1983 by Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records, along with a committee of music-industry figures. The Foundation spent three years deliberating the museum's eventual location. Memphis had Elvis, Stax, and Sun Records; New York had the industry and the journalists; Cleveland had a radio heritage but no obvious infrastructure and a declining population.
What Cleveland had, and what ultimately decided the campaign, was an organized civic response. The Plain Dealer ran a months-long petition drive that collected 600,000 signatures in a metropolitan area of roughly two million. The city, state of Ohio, and private sector combined to pledge $65 million in construction funding — an extraordinary commitment for a deindustrializing Rust Belt city in the mid-1980s. A USA Today poll in 1986 returned Cleveland as the overwhelming public favorite. On May 5, 1986, the selection committee chose Cleveland.
The Building
I.M. Pei's Pyramid
Pei was 70 years old and had just completed his most famous commission, the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris (1989), when he was engaged to design the Rock Hall. Pei had initially declined, telling the Foundation he knew nothing about rock and roll. He eventually accepted after the Foundation took him on a research tour that included visits to Graceland, the Apollo Theater, and rock concerts.
His design centered on a 162-foot glass pyramid tilted at 45 degrees, rising from a low rectangular base on reclaimed lakefront land. The pyramid echoes his Louvre entry but is larger and more dramatic, jutting outward over the water. The building opened on September 2, 1995, with an all-night concert at the adjacent Cleveland Municipal Stadium that featured Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and a reunited Isley Brothers.
The Collection
Forty-five Thousand Artifacts
The museum is organized across seven levels. The main exhibit floor traces the origins of rock and roll through its antecedents in blues, country, and gospel, and follows its development through successive decades and genres. Permanent installations include Jimi Hendrix's handwritten lyrics, John Lennon's Sgt. Pepper's uniform, Michael Jackson's Motown 25 glove, the drum kit from the Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium concert, Janis Joplin's psychedelic Porsche, and the full stage set from U2's Zoo TV tour.
The Hall of Fame itself — the list of inductees, updated annually — is displayed on a dedicated floor. Induction is by a voting body of more than 1,200 music historians, industry figures, and prior inductees. Artists become eligible 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording. The annual induction ceremony (held in Cleveland in odd-numbered years, New York in even-numbered years) is nationally televised and remains among the music industry's most-watched events.
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