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On March 15th Archinect reported the announcement of the National Building Museum's new Executive Director, Aileen Fuchs. As Covid-19 safety protocols continue to evolve and vaccine distribution continues, museums and other public institutions prepare to reopen their doors in the coming... View full entry
The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden announced today the completion of a sixth public consultation meeting for the revitalization of the Sculpture Garden by artist/architect Hiroshi Sugimoto. The public forum, held March 10 via Zoom, presented the goals of the project, the programmatic rationale and revised designs for the reflecting pool. — Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden revitalization saga is entering a new chapter: while the museum recently released revised designs for the reflecting pool, the centerpiece of the sunken sculpture garden completed in 1974 by Gordon Bunshaft, during a March 10 Section 106 online meeting, the Cultural... View full entry
2021 has mobilized several institutions to reflect on its leadership, core programming, and service towards the community. As museums continue to adjust and adapt to a post-Covid-19 world, many have made changes that fit to improve overall programming and internal management and... View full entry
In a defeat tinged by cautious hope, an accord has been reached to remove Elyn Zimmerman’s 1984 sculptural installation Marabar from the headquarters of the National Geographic Society (NGS) in Washington, DC, but to keep it intact and move it to a new location. — The Art Newspaper
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, advocating for the preservation of the threatened sculptural installation by the artist Elyn Zimmerman, announced that the newly reached resolution expects the acclaimed artwork to be moved and reinstalled on a new site. Previously on Archinect: Polished stone... View full entry
The top operations and maintenance official of the United States Capitol told lawmakers on Wednesday that the costs of the Jan. 6 attack will exceed $30 million, as his office works to provide mental health services, increase security and repair historical statues and other art damaged in the riot. — The New York Times
Video via nytimes.com View full entry
Closed to the public since 2004, the Arts and Industries Building will reopen temporarily in November with Futures, an exhibition-cum-festival that renews the building's function as an incubator of new ideas and is the centrepiece of the Smithsonian's 175th-anniversary celebration this year. — The Art Newspaper
According to The Art Newspaper, "The show includes some 150 prototypes, working experiments, site-specific art installations and speculative designs such as a flying car and a support robot to reduce loneliness, as well as historical inventions like the first telegraph and first video game... View full entry
The National Landing Business Improvement District (BID) in Northern Virginia has outlined plans for creating what it says will be the most “well-connected downtown in the country,” following its selection as home to Amazon HQ2. — Smart Cities Dive
According to Smart Cities Dive, National Landing BID has presented "several public-private partnership projects, with costs totaling $4 billion, that will improve transit in National Landing, outside of Washington, D.C., which encompasses parts of Virginia’s Crystal City, Pentagon City... View full entry
Facing challenges from a federal planning authority and advocacy groups, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC is under pressure to revamp or justify elements of a significant redesign of its sunken sculpture garden. — The Art Newspaper
The heated debate over Hiroshi Sugimoto's plans to revitalize the sunken sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn Museum, completed in 1974 by Gordon Bunshaft, is dragging on. "At an online meeting on 3 December, the federal National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) approved Sugimoto’s... View full entry
[...] a new Smithsonian administration has jettisoned the eye-popping elements of the $2 billion design by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, opting instead for a dramatically downsized version. Set to be presented publicly for the first time this week, the scaled-back plan focuses on the renovation and restoration of the James Renwick-designed Castle and the adjacent Arts and Industries Building (AIB), another National Historic Landmark designed by Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze. — The Washington Post
First presented in 2014, hotly debated in the following years, revised in 2018, and expected to start construction this year, some elements inside the Bjarke Ingels Group-designed $2 billion Smithsonian South Mall Campus redevelopment have been scaled back by the institution's new administration... View full entry
Originally opened in 1972, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library was Mies van der Rohe's only library and his last building. The landmark was closed in 2017 to commence modernizations which have been completed this year, recently reopening the building last month. The three-year... View full entry
In a recent interview with Boston's NPR station, WBUR, 91-year old architect Frank Gehry discussed his thoughts and perspectives on the "complicated" Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. With the dedication ceremony that took place on Sept 17th, the famed architect has expressed much irritation... View full entry
“I came away blindsided [by Eisenhower's legacy]. It brings tears to my eyes. How his accomplishments as a general and as a president match anything, all without the fanfare that’s going on around the president now. The opposite. He was modest but strong. A staggering accomplishment.” — The Guardian
Rowan Moore, architecture critic at The Observer, interviews architect Frank Gehry for The Guardian regarding the soon-to-open Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C. The contentious memorial, which drew the ire of conservative architecture critics, was developed by Gehry Partners... View full entry
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. has been named in honor of Mary W. Jackson, the first female African American engineer to work at the American space agency. A NASA announcement explains that Jackson, a mathematician and aerospace engineer... View full entry
A District of Columbia preservation panel told the National Geographic Society on Thursday to suspend its current campus redesign plan pending further review of the proposed removal of an acclaimed sculptural installation on the site. — The New York Times
A controversial plan to demolish an existing stone sculpture located at the National Geographic headquarters complex in Washington, D.C. has hit a road block as the city's preservation board has asked the project team to reconsider their designs in an effort to save or repurpose the artwork... View full entry
A design team led by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), landscape architects OLIN, and structural engineers WRA has completed preliminary plans for the new 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C. Aerial view of the bridge. mage courtesy of Luxigon / OMA. Made up of two... View full entry
