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Kengo Kuma has just been named as the lead architect for the forthcoming Global War on Terrorism Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Stating that his passion for the work stems from the loss of a personal friend on September 11th, Kuma said: "This Memorial will help the entire world... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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 Art Newspaper
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... View full entry
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. — ABC
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... View full entry
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. — Associated Press
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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."
— NPR
More on Archinect:The Seagram Building after the Four Seasons: maintaining a costly landmarkRIP: Bruce Goff's Bavinger House demolishedPreserving Central Asia's ancient architecture through codeThe race to complete the Capitol dome restoration in time for the inauguration of the 45th U.S. President View full entry
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
— bustler.net
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.
— bustler.net
"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..."
— dcist.com
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 View full entry
