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The National Building Museum announces the return of its Summer Block Party

2021-06-14T17:41:00-04:00

The National Building Museum has announced the return of its annual Summer Block Party. Titled Inside Out, the event diverges from previous renditions, which featured massive, immersive installations within the museum’s Great Hall. Instead, festivities will be formatted into smaller projects and public programs both within the museum and on the adjacent West Lawn that are better suited to an early post-pandemic era. The museum’s 2020 Summer Block Party, made in partnership with Folger Shakespeare Library, was postponed due to the pandemic.

Featured projects include a large and vibrant outdoor mural called Equilateral Network by local muralist Lisa Marie Thalhammer. Made to allow visitors to safely enjoy being together while social-distancing, the piece comprises a series of pink triangles and walking paths, spaced 6 feet apart. It was inspired by Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s use of geometry in his city plan for Washington D.C. The use of colors also pays homage to the city’s LGBTQ+ co...

First glimpse at Rockwell Group's "Lawn" installation opening at the National Building Museum this Summer

2019-05-01T10:04:00-04:00

Following successful iterations by Snarkitecture, Studio Gang, James Corner Field Operations, and BIG, the National Building Museum's Summer Block Party is back this year with an immersive installation designed by the LAB at Rockwell Group.

For this year's party, the experimental design studio will be bringing a quintessentially American ideal to the Museum's Great Hall. As visitors enter the space, they will be greeted by a building-sized mural of the sky, that then leads them to a sloping green space with interactive hammocks. Recreating a giant yard as the installation's title "Lawn" suggests, the space will accommodate popular summer activities such as movie nights and yoga that are often hosted in parks during the summer months.

Rendering by the LAB at Rockwell Group.

“The lawn is a fascinating example of a typology that straddles the line between public and private space,” said David Rockwell, founder and president, Rockwell Group. “Whether it is a backyard or a public green, ...

National Building Museum partners with The LAB at Rockwell Group for 2019 "Summer Block Party" installation

2019-01-30T13:38:00-05:00

For its 2019 Summer Block Party exhibition, the National Building Museum has reenlisted Rockwell Group's experience design studio the LAB to transform the museum's atrium. The New York-based architecture firm also designed the museum's 2012 exhibit Play Work Build, one of NBM's most highest-attending events ever.

Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, design by the LAB at Rockwell Group.

David Rockwell's 10-year old experimental studio has become known for their narrative-based experiences in physical spaces and digital-physical hybrids. One of the projects that brought them to prominence was their design for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where the lobby pillars are wrapped with animated digital content. The firm is currently working alongside Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the highly-anticipated Shed project.

For this year's Summer Block Party installation, the team will re-envision the museum's historic home as the Lawn, details for which are still forthcoming. Since its beginning six years ago...

As vacation season comes to an end, watch how one of Summer's hottest installations was constructed

2018-08-21T13:34:00-04:00

The National Building Museum's Summer Block Party installation Fun House has been one of the hottest events this vacation season in D.C. Designed by New York design studio Snarkitecture, the installation turns a conventional household into a sequence of interactive rooms inviting play. From a front yard featuring seating that spells out F-U-N H-O-U-S-E to a back white patio with deck chairs and parasols, the exhibit has taken over the museum's entire Great Hall for the months of July and August, much to the delight of museum-goers.

With summer coming to an end, the exhibit will be coming to a close on September 3rd. If you can't make it to the Museum before shutting its doors, Work Zone Cam has teamed up with the Museum for the 5th consecutive year to document the event with a time-lapse movie of the entire process.

“It is always exciting to see the time-lapse from Work Zone Cam for our Summer Block Party installation,” said Chase Rynd, executive director of the National Building M...

Snarkitecture's interactive 'Fun House' opens at the National Building Museum

2018-07-05T15:09:00-04:00

Snarkitecture's interactive installation Fun House has opened at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. Following their blockbuster ball pit that took over the Great Hall in 2015 and attracted a record-breaking 160,000 visitors, the New York design studio has come back for the Museum's highly anticipated, annual "Summer Block Party."

Photo by Noah Kalina.

Established by architect Alex Mustonen and artist Daniel Arsham, the practice operates in the space between art and architecture and are known for their monochrome and mostly stark white aesthetic. They just reached their 10-year anniversary, an accomplishment fiercely celebrated by their installation, which looks back on their decade of work showcasing 42 of the firm's projects.

“Fun House represents a unique opportunity for us to bring together a number of different Snarkitecture-designed interiors, installations, and objects into a single, immersive experience,” said Alex Mustonen, co-founder of the firm. It is the firs...

First look: Studio Gang's “Hive” installation at the National Building Museum this summer

2017-04-19T13:38:00-04:00

The National Building Museum in Washington D.C. revealed the renderings of Studio Gang's upcoming 2017 Summer Block Party installation called the “Hive”, which is the firm's latest collaboration with the Museum.

Located in the Great Hall, the Hive will be made entirely of over 2,700 wound paper tubes whose heights will range from several inches to 10 feet tall. The tubes will be interlocked to create three interconnected, domed chambers, with the tallest dome reaching 60 feet high and featuring a 10-foot-diameter oculus. Every tube will have a reflective silver exterior and a vibrant magenta interior to create what seems like will be a dazzling environment.

People can gather at the larger main chamber for the Museum's summer events, or they can hang out in the smaller, intimate chambers where they can also play with tubular instruments like drums and suspended chimes. Each chamber will have unique acoustic properties to affect the instruments' tones and reverberati...

National Building Museum selects Studio Gang to design 2017 "Summer Block Party" installation

2016-09-28T13:37:00-04:00

Studio Gang has worked with the museum before, on its 2003 Masonry Variations exhibition and as a part of the 2009 Transforming Skylines and Communities series. While designs for the installation won't be fleshed out until early 2017, it will most likely follow in the playful, accessible style of previous Summer Block Party installations by BIG, Snarkitecture, and most recently, James Corner Field Operations.

The museum's aim is for the designers to create "innovative, interactive experiences that temporarily transform the Museum’s historic home and challenge visitor perceptions of the built environment." Studio Gang's appointment to next year's installation comes on the heels of the closing of James Corner Field Operations' "ICEBERGS" pavilion earlier this month.

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