Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
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
Steven Holl Architects has unveiled a new video highlighting the firm’s designs for a new wing that has been added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from Steven Holl Architects on Vimeo... View full entry
The United States House of Representatives has passed a bill establishing a council that will lead the planning, design, and construction of a new museum slated for Washington, D.C. dedicated to women's history. The bill—H.R. 1980, Smithsonian Women's History Museum Act—passed... View full entry
In their latest art installation, New York-based practice Hou de Sousa colorfully reinterprets the building blocks of our universe: Atoms. Simply titled "Atomic," the installation was designed for this year's Georgetown GLOW, Washington D.C.'s only curated exhibition of outdoor public light-art... View full entry
President Donald Trump has nominated J. Brett Blanton as the next Architect of the Capitol. Blanton would follow two acting directors, Christine Merdon and Thomas Carroll. If confirmed by the United States Senate, Blanton will serve a 10-year term as the official in charge of maintaining the... View full entry
The Washington Monument will again welcome visitors up to its observation deck, where, from more than 500 feet in the air, visitors can see national landmarks including the U.S. Capitol, Washington National Cathedral, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial.
But first, you have to go through security.
— NPR
After undergoing a 3-year renovation, including elevator upgrades and adding a new glass-and-steel security screening center designed by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, the 555-foot-tall obelisk reopened to the public on Thursday, September 19th. View full entry
