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. — the Guardian
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:
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Love the building... hate this review
"Shamefully, the only black architect .... Mall as a welcome rebuke to the world of white marble monuments to dead white men"
What happens when architecture critics are all charlatans....
Don't like the building. Looks like an 'inverted pagoda' but also dislike the review.
"departing from its neighbours’ sombre palette of limestone and concrete with joyous glee"
"giving the museum a seductive jewel-box scale."
Sounds good, until the reviewer writes that the building has a "slight cheapness – a feeling that gets more pronounced when you step inside." The circulation doesn't get off light either,
"The result feels half-baked. From the inside, the cumbersome steel structure needed to hold up the facade takes up most of the view, while the impact of specially framed vistas to nearby monuments is lessened by clunky fixings."
When the reviewer sees the light play off of Pope's pink limestone façade as the sun sets, he's thinking of dead white people, yet when he sees the light play off this building "it’s not quite as sparkly as planned". Despite it feeling cheap, having a crappy spatial sequence, and obscuring its 360 degree views, it's still "a welcome rebuke to the world of white marble monuments to dead white men." As long as it sticks it to the man.
In the heart of the exhibition spaces, these niggles fade away.
This strikes me as an exceptionally poor word choice. Is "niggling" a more common term in the UK than in American english? Because jesus, that word seared into my brain and I can't really remember much more of the review.
I do think that in mass and approach the building is analogous all of to the impressive but fairly boring monumental buildings typical in DC. Simultaneously, its shape and material make it clearly different - it has flamboyant gravitas.
I was there just last week and the facade is growing on me. It doesn't sparkle, and it certainly won't glow like so much of the white stone around it, but right now it does have specular quality that is interesting. Obviously that will change with time given the material, but that's ok.
Yes, it is a simple box with fancy cladding and a glassy top floor to optimize views- like some of the other newer museums on the mall. But I think that facade treatment will be a clever way of dealing archival materials and building image.
I've got tickets to see the building the weekend before Thanksgiving and I'm curious to see what it looks like w/o hoarding in the way.
The building aside, I think it's a great thing to have this museum on the mall. Looking forward to seeing it and hearing what others think.
I forgot about this thread, but I went to the museum the week before American Thanksgiving. The porch is wonderful, but was far too packed to really take in. The site work by GGN was simple and straightforward and I wished more had been done with it.
As a museum-
It was the typical modern Smithsonian experience. The floors above the lobby space are three themed gallery spaces jammed with far too many objects to allow you to pause and take things in. Frankly, it pointed to a major problem that there is far too much material, information and history to be packed into those three floors.
The lower three floors- which are the ones that you really want too visit and take in- are in some ways overly dramatic (the freight elevator ride to the bottom, so you can walk your way up), incredibly dense (which led to a packs of people in front of every didactic). Part of this is that the museum is incredibly popular now. But I'm still confused as to why there is a separation between the galleries. The lower levels start with the middle passage and end at the present day, so why not fold the content from the floors above into the procession on the floors below?
One of the greatest features- the cafe is curated. Yes, you can get kid friendly hot dogs, but you can also get ox tail and catfish. Most importantly, the stations are based on regions, recognizing that the diaspora was/is not a homgenous group.
As architecture:
The project shows a great deal of value engineering in the interior finishes. There's a great view of the mall on one of the upper floors, but it's connected to nothing. And the diagram that Adjaye used to imagine the organization of the building does not resemble how the building is organized in reality (see the great view connected to nothing). In fact the sectional diagram resembles other recent museum projects moreso than it does it's own organization. Regularly this would be nitpick, but it's presented on lower lobby and you can miss is as you wait 30 minutes to get into the freight elevator.
But don't get me wrong- I'm going back. I just need to figure out a way to get tickets for two consecutive days to take it all in.
It just dawned on me- The building organization "privileges ignorance."
The lower galleries start with the middle passage and move their way up through contemporary history. You have no choice but to experience the middle passage and slavery as you move through the continuous exhibition sequence (similar to the Holocaust Museum). In comparison, the upper galleries (Culture, Community and Exploration/Interaction) function more like- caricatures or snapshots of recent developments based on what could be described as assimilative histories- moments, movements and people that are recognized (and "celebrated") as part of American history.
What I find disappointing is that the building does not make connections between the lower (read: buried) levels (the social and political conditions- and the formative history) and the upper galleries (people, places and culture) in either plan or section. In fact, it you look at the building layout these two exhibition formats are sheared from one another in plan and section.
The effect is that a visitor could easily have a "positive, uplifting" experience, or a more problematized and deeper understanding of the American history. This is both a curatorial and architectural decision, and disappointing one at that.
In what way the Black Panther Party is represented?
The Black Panthers Party is present in the lower exhibition space. I'm not sure if there is any related material on the community exhibition floor because I didn't have time to look through that floor.
Thanks Marc.
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