Are you counting museums housed in buildings related to their mission?  
Railroad museums in old railroad stations or roundhouses, for example.  
There are hundreds of those. Also industrial museums like the  
Baltimore Museum of Industry are in old factories, in this case an old  
Oyster Cannery. There are also lots of science centers and children's  
museums in small towns  in former schools and store fronts. Many of  
these are temporary and not much work is done to retrofit them

Other than that here are some of my favorites:

The Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore is in an old trolley building
Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond is in an old train station
Port Discovery a Children's Museum in Baltimore is in an old Fish Market
The Invention Factory in Trenton is in the old Roebling Engineers  
building (this is the company that built the Brooklyn Bridge among  
other things
National Building Museum in DC is in the US Pension Building
The City Museum in St. Louis is in The INternational Shoe Company  
(This museum is awesome!)
The Weather Discovery Center in North Conway, New Hampshire is in   
former bank (its second)
The Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore is in an old Fire Station


And since you asked for "cultural space"
The Charles Theater, an art house movie theater in Baltimore is in an  
old trolley barn
The Torpedo Factory, an art studio/gallery coop in Arlington, VA is in  
an old Torpedo Factory.

For broader research you should just go to the member lists of various  
museum associations and just let your fingers do the walking. ASTC and  
Association of Children's Museums particularly will yield interesting  
results. JUst look for names that use factory or industrial names in  
the titles.

That's all I can think of right now. If I can think of any more I'll  
let you know.

Matt


On Aug 21, 2009, at 7:26 PM, Heather Cochran wrote:

> I would love to hear from anyone who knows of a successful or  
> striking museum or cultural space in a building that once housed  
> something completely unrelated.
>
> For example, the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) in Long Beach  
> was created by the retrofit of a roller-rink. The MOCA's Geffen  
> Contemporary in Los Angeles is housed in a building which used to be  
> a hardware store and later, a police car garage.
>
> Surely, there are many others. Which do you think are the best  
> building "re-imagingings"  out there?
>
> Thanks,
> Heather Cochran
> Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
>
>
>
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