The National Building Museum

Went down to the Mall (or nearby anyways) today and spent a couple of hours hanging out in what I honestly think is the most under appreciated building in Washington, D.C. The irony, of course, is that I'm talking about the National Building Museum.

If you were to take the Red Line metro into the district from it's eastern prong you would eventually come to one of the systems most utilized stops, Union Station. If you were to enter via it's western prong you would eventually arrive at the two stations that is the very heart of the entire system, Metro Center, followed thereupon in very short order by Gallery Place/Chinatown. Between the two is perhaps one of the most idiosyncratic station on the entire system: Judiciary Square.

It is, however, one of the stations that I frequent most. It has two exits, although on weekends it closes it's southern exit completely. As the name implies, it serves the needs of the government entities above it's path and chiefly these are the Washington, D.C. courts, and the District of Columbia circuit court of appeals. Located off the southern exit is also the Canadian Embassy.

On the northern exit you encounter this view from the escalator. it's the National Building Museum. Once topside, you are also surrounded by a plaza/memorial to police officers across the nation who have died in the line of duty. Another very neglected memorial for visitors to the nation's capitol. This view is made even more impressive when as you climb, you discover that initially you are only seeing the top 3 out of 5 floors. These are 19th century floors, and so they are even taller and more impressive than the floors of buildings built today.

As a building in any era, it's actually HUGE. Larger than any photo taken from the top of the metro escalator can depict. And to it's credit it's really architecturally interesting.

The history of the building is also interesting more for it's mundanity than it's grandeur. It was designed to be the United States Pension bureau by civil war general Montgomery C. Meigs in the mid 1880's. He chose two of Rome's Palaces Farnese and della Cancelleria as his inspiration, and it was constructed in 1887. At the time it was decried by Washingtonians as ostentatious and hideous. Made me think of the Eiffel Tower's reception upon it's completion in Paris, and who on earth can imagine what the slaves of Egypt actually thought of the pyramids?

Because of his experience in the Civil War, and the fact that the pensioners being served by the nearly 1,500 civil servants of the bureau had served in that war, Meigs contracted sculptor, Caspar Buberl, to create a frieze depicting the glory of the soldiers to rim the building between it's 1st and 2nd floors. AND, because Meigs believed in the value of a dime, he so limited Buberl's budget, that in the end Buberl created a series of images that were cast and recast to replicate scenes of soldiers over and over again. The effect is still eye-catching, but upon any reflective viewing fails to measure up to it's inspirations like Trajan's Column or the Horseman frieze of the Parthenon. I remember vividly the effect of a similar chronological frieze of the history of the Dutch conquest of southern Africa in Pretoria, South Africa's Voortrekker Monument. By way of comparison chilling versus cartoonish.

Once inside, your skepticism will be replaced by awe. The interior is simply put awesome. And by-in-large, open. Cavernous in a secularly cathedral-like way. Again, it's an awesome space. At one point this fountain centered expanse was fountain-less and subdivided by 1950's/60's slash cubical demi-wall dividers with veritable caissons of nerdy office desks and swivel chairs. There are black & white pics that attest to this era of pedestrian pathos. I can't imagine the juxtaposition of hours of rote routine bound federal worker bees humming along within the midst of this magnificent forum. It just boggles my mind.

To sit at a desk performing a mundane task requiring no passion whatsoever and then lean back in my chair and see these magnificent Corinthian columns towering over me--among the largest every constructed in the history of civilization... I mean, like WOW!

Since it's repurposing into a museum as an act of Congress in 1980, it has become a favored venue of the inaugural ball circuit hosting the vice-presidential soiree in the recent past. What a great place for a party.

So large is the interior, that during one former exhibition, Amish famers actually raised a barn within it's walls!

My visit today provided me with 3 exhibitions to tour. The first 2 were free.

There is the permanent exhibition of the Capital Design Commission and all of the history of the development of the architecture, parks and infrastructure of the nation's capital. It's really quite interesting and housed in two galleries, is done with fairly quickly. As a local of nearly 17 years now, I get more out of it every time I visit by virtue of association with the things that I know. I would suspect that it would have less depth of meaning for someone from outside of the D.C. region. Two large scale models of the Mall created in 1901 showing the Mall as it was and as the then Capital Commission envisioned it to be is absolutely the highlight of the show.

On temporary exhibit through July 25th are the models with detailed graphic explanations of the 20 2010 winners of the Solar Decathlon. This is a fascinating event that is constructed and displayed on the National Mall every March since its inception in 2002. Teams of architecture students from all over the world compete to create a solar and energy independent house that they actually built for people to tour. This exhibit lacks the actual houses, but it none-the-less was really fascinating. In this latest competition the lion share of selections were from teams at U.S. universities both public and private. Places as near as the University of Maryland and far as the University of Hawaii. Large schools like Ohio State and Purdue and smaller colleges like Middlebury. Other teams represented foreign nations: China, New Zealand, Belgium, and Canada. Each team brings to the table unique ideas, executions, and protocols for creating not simply solar, but eco-nuetral homes. It's a great competition.

As nice as those exhibits were, there was still really one major reason for choosing the National Building Museum today: LEGO.

So my final stop was the LEGO exposition on the second floor. Inside were models of 15 buildings from around the world. Some, nay most, were very impressive. One was not, really. That was a model of the John Hancock building in Chicago. In order to depict both it's sloping grade, and the iconic "X's" of it's exo-structure, the bricks were shaved and cut. And while the docent stated that the structures were fragile because they weren't glued together, this was clearly not true of this model.

As to the rest of them, they were amazing. So one disappointment out of 15? That ain't so bad. The structures were all designed to the scale of 1:48, making the tallest among them just over 17 feet and all sat on tables at about 2 feet from the floor. The effect left you looking up at the tallest models like a real skyscraper. the most impressive was a model of the world's tallest building: Burj Dubai tower in the United Arab Emirates. Over great models included the Sear Tower from Chicago, the Jin Mao Building from Shanghai, China, and the Empire State Building from New York City.

I close with this one permitted photo of a model of the interior of the National Building Museum itself. And if you look closely, you'll see within it a case containing this very model near the entrance of the museum where I took this photo.

When visiting Washington, D.C. make time for this Museum. It's a relatively easy walking distance to the National Gallery of Art and the Newseum to make a day of contrasting museums.