Archinect - News

Monument Lab’s thought-provoking sculptural installation opens on the National Mall

2023-08-22T18:04:00-04:00

An important new sculptural installation commissioned by the Trust for the National Mall opened in Washington, D.C. last week to the acclaim of critics and visitors who helped inaugurate the seminal first edition of the Beyond Granite series from Philadelphia-based collective Monument Lab.

Images of the six sculptures designed by artists Wendy Red Star, Derrick Adams, vanessa german, Ashon T. Crawley, Tiffany Chung, and Paul Ramírez Jonas were shared, showcasing the beginnings of what should be one of the year’s most significant public art exhibitions. Written in the Washington Post over the weekend, Philip Kennicott commended the new installation as being both well produced and thoughtful, adding that “this is the first time a serious art exhibition has been staged there” before remarking on the role of the Mall as a protest space.

Paul Ramírez Jonas, "Let Freedom Ring" Image: Courtesy of AJ Mitchell | Monument Lab

Other reviews highlighted the unique ability of each sculpture to co...

Monument Lab announces major new commission on the National Mall in Washington

2023-07-26T15:49:00-04:00

Philadelphia-based studio Monument Lab has been announced as the curatorial leader of a new public art installation on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The pilot exhibition of the Trust’s new Beyond Granite series will be on view for a month (August 18th to September 18th) and feature a response to the program’s thematic question about whose stories “remain untold” at the important site using a selection of six prototype monuments designed by artists Wendy Red Star, Derrick Adams, vanessa german, Ashon T. Crawley, Tiffany Chung, and Paul Ramírez Jonas.

Monument Lab founding Director Paul Farber and last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Criticism winner Salamishah Tillet are co-curating the exhibition and say it will treat the monuments as “a statement of power and presence in public.”

“Beyond Granite: Pulling Together builds out platforms for artist-led civic engagement, historical interpretation, and storytelling as a means for advancing what it means to imagine, build, live, and g...

Marlon Blackwell will deliver a new memorial to the Global War on Terror on the National Mall in Washington

2023-07-13T08:00:00-04:00

Marlon Blackwell Architects has been selected as the designer of an important new memorial to veterans and service members lost during America’s decades-long War on Terror on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Arkansas-based firm was announced as the project’s lead following a search process that began last summer with submissions from 177 different U.S. and international competitors. Its development will be guided by a newly-created Design Advisory Council (DAC) comprised of Gold Star family members, veterans, and "other stakeholders." The project was commissioned by the nonprofit Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, which was first founded in 2015.

The foundation’s President and CEO Michael “Rod” Rodriguez complemented the designer’s “ability, credibility, and humility to lead the design of an inclusive and reverent Memorial,” adding “Marlon’s proven track record as a world-class designer, combined with his personal experiences in a family with a history of military...

Perkins&Will will design the new Bezos Learning Center for the National Air and Space Museum

2023-06-06T15:03:00-04:00

Perkins&Will has just been announced as the lead designers of the new Bezos Learning Center at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

The firm’s winning design was selected over a shortlist that included five anonymous proposals submitted by leading global architectural firms.

The center is supposed to be enacted in the space once occupied by Gyo Obata’s now-demolished glass pyramid structure from 1988. Once completed, the new addition will entail approximately 50,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, a rooftop terrace, a public observatory, and dining options. Its spiraling form is meant to evoke the shape of the galaxy. Total costs for the project are expected to be around $130 million.

“The spiral galaxy — our source of creative inspiration — is all about infinite possibilities,” the project's lead designer, Ralph Johnson, says of its conceptual approach and vision. “We are grateful for the opportunity to work with the Smithsonian Institut...

Future National Asian Pacific American Museum passes first major test

2022-05-02T18:21:00-04:00

A national museum of Asian Pacific American history and culture is one major step closer to reality after the US House of Representatives unanimously approved on 26 April a bill to create an eight-person commission to study the feasibility of establishing such an institution in Washington, DC. The bill now heads to the Senate.

The bill was sponsored by Congresswoman Grace Meng, who represents the sixth congressional district of New York, and was passed by the House just days ahead of the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been pivotal in contributing to the growth and prosperity of our nation since its founding,” Meng said. “We have helped make the United States the greatest country in the world, but unfortunately many remain unaware of the crucial role we’ve played throughout our history. It’s time for that to change and creating a national museum would ensure there is a physical space to commemorate and share our story with future generations.”

If plans for the proposed museum work out as envisioned, it would join the planned American Women’s History Museum and the recently approved National Museum of the American Latino.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in 2016 as one of the latest additions to ...

Artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's moving Covid memorial opens on the National Mall

2021-09-17T17:49:00-04:00

On one small, white rectangle is the name of a 29-year-old engineer, on another the name of a World War II veteran, and on a third, that of a 15-year-old -- just three of more than 600,000 flags on the National Mall reflecting the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on American lives and the country.

The installation, "In America: Remember," was originally conceived by American artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg at the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic in October last year.

"Taken holistically, this is a physical manifestation of empathy," the artist said at today’s opening ceremony, which was attended by DC Mayor and new Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch. The exhibition is open to the public today and will be on view through October 3rd.

Displaying more than 600,000 white flags, a powerful Covid memorial is coming to the National Mall

2021-08-03T09:00:00-04:00

More than offering a bold visual, the art will connect people who have grieved the deaths of loved ones in isolation, perhaps without an in-person funeral, Firstenberg said. It’s visualizing the vastness of loss. And it’s allowing people to participate — digitally or in person — whether or not they know someone who died of COVID-19.

A new installation will bring the cost of the Covid pandemic to one of Washington, D.C.’s most sacred public spaces this September in a heartbreaking display of 610,000 individual small white flags placed in the National Mall by local artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg.

The flags are part of a national memorial organized by Firstenberg and planned initially for President Biden’s inauguration in January. The Parks Service eventually got around to approving the artist’s request in the spring, and she will now begin work on September 14th planting the flags in 142 different sections with the help of online and in-person volunteers.

Digital mapping support for the project was provided by a tech company called Esri. Their team was connected to Firstenberg by George Washington University professor Sarah Wagner. Wagner, a researcher in the memory of mass casualty events and collective loss, heard about the Colorado-based firm because of the work software engineer Jeremiah Lindemann did cr...

National Museum of the American Latino heading to National Mall in Washington, D.C.

2020-07-27T17:10:00-04:00

The United States House of Representatives has passed the National Museum of the American Latino Act, a bill that paves the way for the creation of a new Smithsonian Institute-affiliated museum celebrating the histories and achievements of Latinos in the United States.

The bill's text explains the "legacy of Latinos is deeply rooted in the very fabric of the history, democracy, freedom, and economic opportunity of the United States," and that despite this fact, "there exists no national museum within the Smithsonian Institution that is devoted to the documentation and explication of Latino life, art, history, and culture."

Previously on Archinect: "National museum dedicated to women's history takes a step forward." The Smithsonian Building in Washington D.C. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Noclip.

The bill lays the groundwork for the creation of a new museum that "will be the keystone for people in the United States and other Smithsonian Institution visitors to learn about Latino ...

Saturn V rocket to be projected onto the Washington Monument

2019-07-10T13:23:00-04:00

As the nationwide effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing kicks off, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. has unveiled plans to project a representation of a Saturn V rocket onto the Washington Monument.

The projection is designed by 59 Productions, an international team made up of artists, architects, and technologists that has brought multi-media events to the Guggenheim Bilbao museum and Edinburgh Castle, among other notable structures.

The projection in Washington, D.C. will take place for five nights starting on July 16th, culminating with a series of multi-media celebrations that will "unfold on the face of the Washington Monument" while being accompanied by "supporting screens, including a 40-foot-wide recreation of the famous Kennedy Space Center countdown clock," according to the museum.

Site map showing the projection areas around the Washington Monument. Image courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum.

On July 19th, the ...

Oliver Wainwright finds the National Museum of African American History "embodies its complexities and contradictions"

2016-09-15T13:12:00-04:00

Standing assertively in the middle of a 15-acre lawn, between the sharp white obelisk of the Washington Monument and the colossal stone shed of the National Museum of American History, the latest arrival to this hallowed parade ground certainly holds its own. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture erupts from the ground, an inverted pagoda of three angular bronzed tiers on an all-glass base, departing from its neighbours’ sombre palette...with joyous glee.

Like the exhibitions inside it, the museum building embodies its complexities and contradictions, charged as it is with a brief and a site as impossibly fraught as the history it is telling. Despite some clunks, the result has a compelling, spiky otherness, standing on the Mall as a welcome rebuke to the world of white marble monuments to dead white men.

More on the newest addition to the National Mall:

The “unfinished charm” of the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building

2016-08-26T18:01:00-04:00

With its colorful facade, arched windows, spires and rotunda, the A&I (as it's often called) is a festive relief...But despite the perky building's popularity, its reopening was hardly grand. Why so little fanfare? Lack of funding seems to be one explanation ...the building's "unfinished character is one of its charms...It hasn't always been as gently used as we would like. But that's an important part of our history — Smithsonian history and American history."

National Mall Design Competition Selects the Three Winning Teams

2012-05-03T19:28:00-04:00

Today the Trust for the National Mall announced the three winning teams of the National Mall Design Competition. [...] The competition winners are: Union Square: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol + Davis Brody Bond; Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds: OLIN + Weiss/Manfredi; Constitution Gardens: Rogers Marvel Architects + Peter Walker and Partners

Finalist Entries of DC’s National Mall Design Competition now on Display

2012-04-10T20:48:00-04:00

This week, the Trust for the National Mall opened the exhibition featuring the twelve final design concepts of the National Mall Design Competition in Washington, D.C. [...] The submissions, created by ten of the country’s design heavy hitters, re-envision three prominent National Mall locations: Union Square, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds, and Constitution Gardens.

re-thinking the national mall

2012-04-10T08:55:00-04:00

"A amphitheater at the base of the Washington Monument. A glass-enclosed restaurant overlooking the Constitution Gardens pond—and a winter-time ice-skating rink where the pond currently sits. A lively new Union Square, with streams of water arching into the Capitol Reflecting Pool. Those are among the ideas that architects and designers have floated for redesigning and reviving three sites on the National Mall..."

Updated photos of the schemes to redesign parts of the Mall in Washington DC. Includes proposals from snohetta; Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Ken Smith, Rogers Marvel, Peter Walker, etc.

design by Weiss Manfredi and OLIN

Rethink. Restore. Rebuild. | Trust For The National Mall

2011-09-08T17:19:31-04:00

The National Mall has been loved to death. It is our country’s most visited national park, with more than 25 million annual visitors and 3,000 annual permitted events. This 700-acre park was not built to withstand this level of use and has not received adequate resources to be restored and maintained to a level befitting its role as an irreplaceable piece of our American fabric.

The Trust for the National Mall today launches the official National Mall Design Competition. The 36-week contest will solicit recommendations from across the country about how to best redesign three prominent National Mall sites: Union Square, the Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater, and Constitution Gardens.

"The National Mall Design Competition is the first step in the implementation of the National Mall Plan," said Caroline Cunningham, President of the Trust for the National Mall. "The National Mall Plan is only one of four in the 220-year history of the park and the Trust is excited to steward this next chapter."

"As one of the earliest public spaces in our nation, the National Mall's facilities and infrastructure require extensive renewal and repair to accommodate the needs of today's visitors," said Bob Vogel, the Superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks. "The National Mall Design Competition will be a new chapter, providing sustainable design th...