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Less than a month after it put much of its staff on furlough, the National Building Museum is permanently cutting two-thirds of its staff, citing loss of revenue due to the pandemic.
More than 40 administrative and hourly visitor services positions will be eliminated, effective June 1, a museum spokesperson confirmed to DCist on Wednesday. That will leave just 18 core staff who are on partial furlough and two staff members working on grant-based projects.
— DCist
According to DCist, much of the National Building Museum's revenue comes from renting out the Great Hall, but since the future of large gatherings in D.C. remains uncertain, museum leaders aren't hopeful that lost income will resurface in the coming months. The museum had already furloughed... View full entry
As the three-month-long renovations for the Great Hall comes to a close, the National Building Museum prepares to reopen on March 13, 2020. The reopening will kick off a yearlong 40th anniversary celebration at the museum. The celebration will begin with a new exhibition: Alan Karchmer... View full entry
Imagine bringing the feeling of summer indoors. In conjunction with the National Building Museum's annual Summer Block Party Installation, the Rockwell Group turned the museum's Great Hall into a green-hilled summer experience. Complete with painted murals of blue skies, plenty of space to lounge... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
Studio Gang's 2017 Summer Block Party installation called the “Hive," opened to the public in the beginning of July. Since then, many have flocked to the National Building Museum in Washington D.C to experience the structure made of 2,700 wounded paper tubes. For those not near the D.C... View full entry
Dix made sure the hospital that became St. Elizabeths in 1916 had heat, tall arched windows and screened sleeping porches where patients could catch summer breezes. Photos, models and floor plans included in the museum exhibit show handsome brick buildings — with towers, high ceilings, open space and river views. — NPR
Washington's National Building Museum features an exhibit that tells the story of architecture of St. Elizabeths or, as originally named upon its opening in 1855, the Government Hospital for the Insane. Started by Dorothea Dix, the 19th century reformer who fought for the facility to represent... View full entry
Every summer, the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. puts on an imaginative Summer Block Party series of temporary structures. Past installations that have graced its historic Great Hall have included James Corner's "ICEBERGS," Snarkitecture's "BEACH," and BIG's "Maze." This year, the... View full entry
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... View full entry
When the Government Hospital for the Insane opened in Anacostia in 1855, the asylum’s supervising physician, Charles Nichols, predicted that 50 percent of the mentally ill people treated there would make a full recovery. What made him so confident? The building. He’d designed it in accordance with the most cutting-edge theories of the day, which called for sunny, well-ventilated asylums in the countryside — the Washington Post
The "Architecture of an Asylum: St. Elizabeth's 1852-2017" is a new exhibit opening at the National Building Museum this weekend. It looks at past theories that contended that design could have a major and healing effect on mental illness. Fresh air was encouraged, as was scattering... View full entry
Storytelling has the magical ability to influence our perception of the world we live in, and such observations couldn't be more valuable in the field of architecture. The Fairy Tales Architecture Competition captured the imaginations of architects everywhere when Blank Space first launched the... View full entry
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... View full entry
Walk into the Great Hall of Washington D.C.'s National Building Museum right now and you'll find a glacial landscape of geometric "icebergs" floating before you. Landscape architect James Corner worked alongside the NBM to design the chilling scene, as part of the museum's 2016 Summer Block Party... View full entry
