National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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National Gallery of Art – West Building

The National Gallery of Art (NGA), and its attached 2.5-hectare (6.1-acre) Sculpture Garden, is located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. The NGA’s permanent collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present.

Check out “National Gallery of Art – Sculpture Garden”

National Gallery of Art – East Building

The substantial core collection includes major works of art donated founding benefactors Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, Chester Dale and Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. In total, the NGA has 271,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space.

Spider (Louise Bourgeois, 1996 – 1997) – Sculpture Garden

Here are some interesting trivia regarding this museum:

Check out “National Gallery of Art – Sculpture Garden” and “Museum of Modern Art”

This national art museum includes the original Neo-Classical West Building (designed by John Russell Pope), which is linked underground to the modern East Building (designed by I. M. Pei). Often, the Gallery presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art.

Check out “National Gallery of Art – West Building” and  “National Gallery of Art – East Building” 

Here is the historical timeline of the museum:

  • During World War I, Andrew W. Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker (and later Treasury Secretary from 1921 until 1932)  began gathering a private collection of old master paintings and sculptures.
  • During the late 1920s, Mellon decided to direct his collecting efforts towards the establishment of a new national gallery for the United States.
  • In 1930, partly for tax reasons, Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, which was to be the legal owner of works intended for the gallery.
  • In 1930–1931, as part of the Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings, the Trust made its first major acquisition – 21 paintings from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg including such masterpieces as Raphael‘s Alba Madonna, Titian‘s Venus with a Mirror, and Jan van Eyck‘s Annunciation.
  • In 1929 Mellon had initiated contact with Charles Greeley Abbot, the recently appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
  • In 1931, Mellon was appointed as a Commissioner of the Institution’s National Gallery of Art. When the director of the Gallery retired, Mellon asked Abbot not to appoint a successor, as he proposed to endow a new building with funds for expansion of the collections. However, Mellon’s trial for tax evasion, centering on the Trust and the Hermitage paintings, caused the plan to be modified.
  • In 1935, Mellon announced in The Washington Star, his intention to establish a new gallery for old masters, separate from the Smithsonian. When asked by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on “the attitude of the Government towards the gift.”
  • In January 1937, Mellon formally offered to create the new Gallery.
  • On March 24, 1937, Mellon’s birthday, a joint resolution of the United States Congress accepted the substantial art collection and funds for construction of the building (provided through the Trust), and approved the construction of a museum for the American people on the National Mall. The new gallery, effectively self-governing (not controlled by the Smithsonian Institution), took the old name “National Gallery of Art” while the Smithsonian’s gallery would be renamed the “National Collection of Fine Arts” (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
  • On May 23, 1999, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, the final addition to the complex, was completed and opened to the public.
  • In 2011, an extensive refurbishment and renovation of the French galleries were undertaken. In one weekend, as part of the celebration of the reopening of this wing, organist Alexander Frey performed 4 sold-out recitals of music of France in the French Gallery.
  • In 2013, the NGA purchased, from a private French collection Gerard van Honthorst‘s 1623 painting, 1.23 by 2.06-m. (4 by 6.8 ft.) The Concert, which had not been publicly viewed since 1795.

Ginevra de Benci – Obverse (1474-78), the only painting of Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas

The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio‘s Maesta, the tondo of the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione‘s Allendale Nativity, Giovanni Bellini‘s The Feast of the Gods, Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.

A Woman Holding a Pink (Rembrandt Van Rijn)

The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of Saint Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Anton Kern, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. There are also later works from the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, and Roy Lichtenstein.

The author with the Self Portrait Vincent Van Gogh (1889) in the background

The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the Chalice of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole‘s series of paintings titled The Voyage of Life, (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).

Watson and the Shark (John Singlton Copley)

The National Gallery of Art’s print collection began with 400 prints donated by five collectors in 1941.  In 1942, Joseph E. Widener donated his entire collection of nearly 2,000 works and, in 1943, Lessing Rosenwald donated his collection of 8,000 old master and modern prints.  Between 1943 and 1979, Rosenwald donated almost 14,000 more works. In 2008, Dave and Reba White Williams donated their collection of more than 5,200 American prints.  Today, in addition to rare illustrated books, the collection comprises 75,000 prints including collections of works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, William Blake, Mary Cassatt, Edvard Munch, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Walkway to the West Building and Cascade Cafe

A walkway beneath 4th Street, called “the Concourse,” connects the two buildings.  In 2008, the Concourse was transformed into Multiverse, an artistic installation by American artist Leo Villareal. The largest and most complex light sculpture by Villareal, Multiverse featured approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED nodes that run through channels along the entire 200-foot (61 m)-long space.

Multiverse (Leo Villareal)

The concourse also includes a large auditorium for lectures, films, and other educational programs, a smaller auditorium, expansive gallery space, a food court (Cascade Café), bookstore (Concourse Bookstore) and a gift shop (Children’s Shop). Cascade Café serves an ever-changing selection of soups, salads, specialty entrées, burgers, signature sandwiches, and fresh pastries and desserts in a food-court environment.

Cascade Cafe

National Gallery of Art: Constitution Ave. NW (between 3rd and 9th Streets), Washington, D.C..   Tel: (202) 737-4215.  Website: www.nga.gov. Open Mondays to Saturdays, 10 AM – 5 PM, and Sundays, 11 AM to 6 PM.  It is closed on December 25 and January 1. Admission is free.

How to Get There: The most convenient metro stops are Archives/Navy Memorial (Yellow and Green lines; 0.2 miles); Judiciary Square (Red line; 0.5 miles), and Smithsonian (Blue and Orange lines; 0.7 miles).

Smithsonian National Postal Museum (Washington D.C., USA)

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The Smithsonian National Postal Museum, a museum located opposite Union Station in DC’s NoMa neighborhood, was established on November 6, 1990 through a joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution.

Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Opened on July 30, 1993, it is located in the historic historic Beaux Arts-style City Post Office Building, a building that once served as the Main Post Office of Washington, D.C. from 1914 (when it was constructed) until 1986.

 

Museum entrance along 1st Street

The building, which also serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Labor‘s Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as a data center for the United States Senate, was designed by the Graham and Burnham architectural firm (the same architectural firm as Union Station), which was led by Ernest Graham following the death of Daniel Burnham in 1912.

Museum lobby.  On the right are the four large video screens

Its historic lobby, restored in 1989, was designed to be active.  It includes a welcome center, and four large video screens with a series of vignettes.

Systems at Work Exhibit recreates the paths of letters, magazines, parcels, and other mail as they travel from sender to recipient over the last 200 years

The museum, honoring and celebrating America’s proud postal history, occupies 100,000 sq. ft. of the building with 35,000 sq. ft. devoted to exhibition space.

Statue of Benjamin Franklin, located in the foyer, done by Lithuanian-born artist William Zorach (ca. 1935)

The  museum’s award winning public spaces, shops and support facilities were designed by the Washington, D.C. firm of Florance Eichbaum Esocoff King Architects while the galleries and inaugural exhibitions were designed by Miles Fridberg Molinaroli, Inc. with Bowie Gridley Architects.

Binding the Nation – Post Secret: The Power of a Postcard (August 3, 2015 – January 1, 2018) – exhibits more than 500 artfully decorated postcards mailed anonymously from around the world

It displays a vast collection of stamps from the National Philatelic Collection, which features more than 5.9 million items (the Smithsonian’s second-largest collection after that of the National Museum of Natural History).  The museum has one of the largest and most significant philatelic and postal history collections in the world and one of the world’s most comprehensive library resources on philately and postal history.

Check out “National Museum of Natural History“

Trailblazing: 100 Years of Our National Parks (June 9, 2016 – March 3, 2019) exhibit chronicles intersections between mail and US national parks

It also houses a 6,000 sq. ft. research library (more than 40,000 books and archival documents), a gift shop, a separate stamp shop and many interactive displays about the history of the United States Postal Service and of mail service around the world.

Pony Express: Romance vs Reality examines fictional and actual stories from the history of the world’s best known mail carriers.

Replica of mud wagon that crisscrossed the western territories

It also has informative exhibits, for all ages, on the Pony Express, the use of railroads with the mail and the preserved remains of Owney (the first unofficial postal mascot).

Railway mail train. The Railway Mail Service revolutionized the way mail was processed by sorting mail aboard moving trains.

Interior of train car. Mail previously untouched in bags on train floors was processed as the train sped toward its destination.

An exhibit on direct marketing, called “What’s in the Mail for You,” produces a souvenir envelope with your name printed on it and a coupon for the gift shop.

The preserved remains of Owney, the first unofficial postal mascot, who died from a bullet wound on June 11, 1897. His harness is weighed down by a number of tags.

Bronze statue of Owney

Visitors here learn the fascinating evolution of how Americans have used the mail to communicate with each other and the world.

Mail-carrying stagecoach from 1851

Guests will take a walk through history and see how mail has been transported, in a variety of eye-catching displays, whether it be early automobiles on dirt roads, stagecoaches chugging across the country, prop-planes in the skies above, or being pulled by real horsepower.

Creating Your Own Stamp Design

Visitors will see the diversity of postage from around the globe and also discover the art of stamp making and design, as well as how to start their own collection.

William H. Gross Stamp Gallery

In 2005, the museum acquired John Lennon‘s childhood stamp collection and, on September 2009, the museum received a US$8 million gift from Pimco investment management firm founder William H. Gross  to help finance the expansion of the museum. Every two years, since 2002, the museum has presented the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award.

The 12,000 sq. ft. William H. Gross Stamp Gallery, the largest of its kind dedicated to philately, was named in his honor and opened on September 22, 2013. It houses the first American stamps, from 1847, a piece of mail from the 1860 Pony Express with “recovered from a mail stolen by the Indians” written on the envelope, and the 1918 “Inverted Jenny” with its biplane printed upside down — the most famous U.S. stamp-printing error. 

The author (right) at the atrium

The Postal Museum’s atrium, sporting a 90 ft. high ceiling, has vital objects from the postal past hanging overhead such as 3 airmail planes –  a De Havilland DH-4 airmail plane No. 249; a Wiseman-Cooke airplane and the Stinson Reliant SR-10F.

Stinson Reliant SR-10F was used in 1939 to test a unique airmail service for communities that did not have landing fields.

De Havilland DH-4 airmail plane No. 249 was used in the early 1920s to carry mail primarily in the western U.S. Henry Boonstra crashed this aircraft into a snow covered mountain on December 15, 1922.

Wiseman-Cooke airplane. Fred Wiseman took off in his airplane on February 17, 1911, the first heavier-than air flight sanctioned by a U.S. post office

The room is also adorned with a stagecoach from 1851 and a 1932 Ford Model A postal truck. They can also browse through a 1920s-style post office.

Jandy (right) beside a 1931 Ford Model A postal truck

Among its permanent exhibitions are: “Binding the Nation” (opened July 30, 1993), “Systems at Work” (opened December 14, 2011), “Moving the Mail,” “Mail Call” (opened November 10, 2011), “Customers and Communities” (opened July 30, 1993) and “Pony Express: Romance vs. Reality” (opened April 3, 2010).

Modular post office was in operation in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania from 1913 to 1971. Prefabricated panels, produced by the Federal Equipment Company of New York, New York and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, included one with a designated “Money Order” window, another for “Registry” mail and a third for “General Delivery.” The post office door was marked “Postmaster” and “private.” A separate section offered brass drops for letters, papers and packages.

The 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta, dubbed “The World’s Most Famous Stamp,” is on display here through November 2017. 

The 1986 Long Life Vehicle (LLV), a white, boxy postal truck, marked a major change in how postal officials approached buying vehicles

Museum Shop

Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Postal Square Building, 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002. Tel: (202) 357-2700. Website: www.postalmuseum.si.edu. Open daily (except December 25), 10 AM – 5:30PM. As a Smithsonian museum, admission is free.The library is open to the public by appointment only.

How to Get There: take the Metro‘s Red Line to Union Station and use the Massachusetts Avenue exit.  The museum is across the street. The DC Circulator also connects the museum and Union Station to the National Mall. Street parking is available nearby and all-day paid parking can be had at Union Station (2,000 slots), located right next to the museum. The museum is accessible by wheelchair, with ramps at its 1st Street entrance and North Capitol Street entrance, via the U.S. Post Office.

Ford’s Theater (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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Ford’s Theater, site of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination

The Late Victorian-style, 3-storey, 24 m. (78-ft.) high Ford’s Theater, restored by National Park Service architect Charles W. Lessig, is famous for being the site of the assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln by actor and Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. The site, originally a house of worship, was constructed in 1833 as the second meeting house of the First Baptist Church (with Obadiah Bruen Brown as the pastor) of Washington.

On December 10, 1861, after the congregation moved to a newly built structure, the former church was leased (and later bought) by Baltimore-based theatre entrepreneur John T. Ford (a family friend of the Booths) who, on February 28, 1862, renovated it into a theater, first calling it Ford’s Athenaeum.

Inaugurated on March 19, 1862, it was destroyed by fire on the evening of December 30, and was rebuilt and reopened as a 1,500-seat theater on August 27, 1863 as Ford’s New Theater.  Lincoln first attended the theater on May 28, 1862 and, up until 1865, attended the theater eight more times, five times in 1863 (he even watched John Wilkes Booth in “The Marble Heart” on November 9) and three times in 1864.

On April 14, 1865,Good Friday, just five days after General Robert E. Lee‘s surrender at Appomattox Court House, the 56-year-old Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary attended a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. The famous actor John Wilkes Booth, desperate to aid the dying Confederacy, made his way into the presidential box and shot Lincoln with a Derringer pistol. Booth then jumped down to the stage, and escaped through a rear door. This event was witnessed by many, including 5-year-old Samuel J. Seymour who lived to 1956, becoming the last witness to the Lincoln assassination.

After Lincoln was shot, doctors had soldiers carry him into the street in search of a house in which he would be more comfortable. A man on the steps of Petersen House, the house of tailor William Petersen, beckoned to them. They took Lincoln into the first-floor bedroom and laid him on the bed (diagonally because of his unusual 6’-4” height). Throughout the night, many people came to visit him before he died the following morning at 7:22 AM.

Following the Lincoln assassination, the United States Government appropriated the theater, (the US Congress paid Ford US$88,000 in compensation) and an order was issued forever prohibiting its use as a place of public amusement. Between 1866 and 1887, the theater was taken over by the U.S. military, serving as a facility for the War Department.

Records were kept on the first floor, the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office on the second floor, and the Army Medical Museum on the third. In 1887, when the medical departments moved out, the building exclusively became a clerk’s office for the War Department.

Later, the theater was used as a warehouse and office building and, on June 9, 1893, a 40-ft. section of the front part of the building collapsed, killing 22 clerks and injuring another 68, leading some people to believe that the former church turned theater and storeroom was cursed.  After repairs, the building was used as a government warehouse until 1911.

Until 1918, it languished unused but, in 1928, the building was turned over, from the War Department Office, to the Office of Public Buildings and Parks of the National Capital. In 1932, Ford’s Theater and the Petersen House (purchased by the U.S. government in 1896) were designated as a National Historic Site and, on February 12, 1932 (Lincoln’s 123rd birthday), a Lincoln museum opened on the first floor of the theater building.

In 1964, restoration of Ford’s Theater was begun and, on January 21, 1968, the restored theater was dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and 500 others. On January 30, 1968, the theater reopened with a gala performance but the presidential box was never occupied.

It was renovated again during the 2000s, opening on February 11, 2009, in commemoration of the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. Today, this 0.12-hectare (0.9-acre) theater has a current seating capacity of 661. On February 12, 2012, a related Center for Education and Leadership (next to Petersen House) opened its museum experience. On October 15, 2013, the theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP reference no. 66000034).

The Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site is administered by the National Park Service (administration transferred here in 1933). However, the programming within the theater and the Center for Education and Leadership is overseen separately by the Ford’s Theatre Society.

Center for Education and Leadership.  On the building’s right is the Petersen House where Lincoln was brought after his assassination

The Ford’s Theater Museum, located beneath the theater, is run through a partnership with the National Park Service and the private non-profit Ford’s Theater Society.  Containing portions of the Olroyd Collection of Lincolniana, its collection includes multiple items related to the assassination, including the Derringer pistol used to carry out the shooting, Booth’s diary and the original door to Lincoln’s theater box.

Also on display are a number of Lincoln’s family items such as his coat (without the blood-stained pieces), some statues of Lincoln, several large portraits of the President plus the blood-stained pillow from the president’s deathbed.

In addition to covering the assassination conspiracy, the museum also focuses on Lincoln’s arrival in Washington, his presidential cabinet, family life in the White House and his role as orator and emancipator. The museum also features exhibits about American Civil War milestones, the generals and about the building’s history as a theatrical venue.

The Petersen House (the “House Where Lincoln Died”), the federal government’s first purchase of a historic home, has been operated as a historic house museum since 1933.  The rooms are furnished as on the night Lincoln died.

Ford’s Theater: 511 10th St., NW Washington, D.C. 20004. Tel: +1 202-347-4833. E-mail: boxoffice@fords.org. Website: www.fords.org. Coordinates: 38°53′48″N 77°1′33″W.

St. Patrick’s Church (Washington, D.C., U.S.A.)

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Our second mass that we attended in the US was held in St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, D.C. We have just finished hanging around the National Mall and looking at museums and, it being a Saturday, we needed a spot nearby for mass, so we all proceeded here, arriving in time for the 5:30 PM service.

St. Patrick’s Church

St. Patrick’s Church, the oldest parish in the Federal City of Washington, D.C., was founded in 1794 to minister to the needs of the Irish immigrant stonemasons building the White House and the U.S. Capitol. One of the first church buildings in the new Federal City, the initial structure on the present property was a simple frame chapel/residence. Its first pastor was Irish Dominican Fr. Anthony Caffry.  The multi-talented Fr. William Matthews, the first American to be ordained a priest in the United States, was named its pastor in 1804.

Historical plaque

The second church, built with brick and reputedly a design of parishioner James Hoban, the architect of the White House, was dedicated in 1809. In 1814, British soldiers attended Sunday mass here when they invaded the Capital and burned its public buildings. The brick church was embellished with the city’s first pipe organ, a gift pulpit from Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil, and a painting from Charles X of France.

The church interior

The present grand Gothic-style church was begun in 1872, under fourth pastor Fr Jacob Walter’s direction, and finally dedicated in 1884. In 1895, the church was the venue for the First National Eucharistic Congress. In 1904, the present English Gothic-style rectory and school building were completed by Fr. Denis Stafford and dedicated by Cardinal James Gibbons and Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. On September 24, 2015, Pope Francis visited St. Patrick’s Church during his tour of the United States.

The pipe organ at the choir loft

St. Patrick’s Church: 619 10th St NW, Washington, DC 20001. Tel: (202) 347-2713. Website: www.saintpatrickdc.org. Mass schedule: weekdays (12:10PM), Saturdays (12:10PM and 5:30PM) and Sundays (8AM, 10PM and 12 noon).

How to Get There: the nearest metro is the Gallery Pl-Chinatown

Smithsonian Castle (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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Smithsonian Castle a.k.a. Smithsonian Institution Building

The grand, church-like Smithsonian Castle (formally the  Smithsonian Institution Building), is located near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., behind the National Museum of African Art and the Sackler Gallery. Housing the Smithsonian Institution‘s administrative offices and information center, the building was built in the Norman Revival style (a 12th-century combination of late Romanesque and early Gothic motifs) to evoke the Collegiate Gothic atmosphere of such venerable colleges such as Cambridge and Oxford in England and the ideas of knowledge and wisdom.

North facade of Castle

The building had its beginnings in 1846 when a building committee held a nationwide design competition and selected the design of 28 year old architect James Renwick, Jr.  by unanimous vote. The first Smithsonian building designed by Renwick (his other works include St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, also in Washington D.C.), a cardboard model of his winning design survives and is on display in the Castle.

James Renwick’s original model of the Smithsonian Castle

Renwick was assisted by Robert Mills, particularly in the internal arrangement of the building. The committee also selected Gilbert Cameron as the general contractor. Construction funds were sourced from “accrued interest on the Smithson bequest.” 

Check out “St. Patrick’s Cathedral (New Your City)”

Using elements from Georg Moller‘s book Denkmäler der deutschen Baukunst (Milestones in German Architecture), James Renwick, Jr. designed the Castle as the focal point of a picturesque landscape on the National Mall.

He also originally intended to detail the building with entirely American sculptural flora (in the manner of Benjamin Henry Latrobe‘s work at the United States Capitol) but the final work, instead, used conventional pattern-book designs. The plan allowed for expansion at either end, a major reason for the informal Medievally-inspired design (which would not suffer if asymmetrically developed).

Initially intended to be built in white marble, then in yellow sandstone, the architect and building committee finally settled on Seneca red sandstone (from the Seneca Quarry in Montgomery County, Maryland) which was substantially less expensive than the granite, marble and light Aquia sandstone used by other major buildings in Washington, D.C. and, while initially easy to work, was found to harden to a satisfactory degree upon exposure to the elements.

Statue of Joseph Henry

Here is the historical and construction timeline of the building:

  • On May 1, 1847, the cornerstone of the Castle was laid in a grand Masonic ceremony
  • In 1849, the East Wing was completed and occupied by Secretary Joseph Henry and his family. Later the same year, the West Wing was completed.
  • In 1850, a structural collapse of partly completed work raised questions of workmanship and resulted in a change to fireproof construction.
  • In 1852, the Castle’s exterior was completed
  • In 1855, Cameron’s interior work was completed.
  • In 1865, despite the upgraded fireproof construction, a fire caused extensive damage to the upper floor of the building, destroying the correspondence of James Smithson, Secretary Joseph Henry‘s papers, two hundred oil paintings of American Indians by John Mix Stanley, the Regent’s Room and the lecture hall, and the contents of the public libraries of Alexandria, Virginia and Beaufort, South Carolina, confiscated by Union forces during the American Civil War.
  • From 1865-67, renovation was undertaken by local Washington architect Adolf Cluss. A third and fourth floor were added to the East Wing while a third floor was added to the West Wing.
  • In 1883, further fireproofing work was also done by Cluss (who, by this time, had designed the neighboring Arts and Industries Building).
  • In 1895, electric lighting was installed.
  • Around 1900, the wooden floor of the Great Hall was replaced with terrazzo and a Children’s Museum was installed near the south entrance. A tunnel connected to the Arts and Industries Building.
  • From 1968-70, a general renovation took place to install modern electrical systems, elevators and heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
  • In 1987, the Enid A. Haupt Garden and Renwick Gate (also built from Seneca red sandstone retrieved from the demolished D.C. Jail), facing Independence Avenue, were dedicated.
  • On January 1, 1965, the Castle was designated as a National Historic Landmark.
  • On October 15, 1966, it was included in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP reference no. 66000867)

Check out “Enid A. Haupt Garden”

A Castle of Curiosities Exhibit

The building, comprising a central section, two extensions (or ranges) and two wings (East and West), has four towers containing occupiable space and five smaller and primarily decorative towers (although some contain stairs).

The principal tower, on the south side is 28 m. (91 ft.) high and 11 m. (37 ft.) square. On the north side are two towers, the taller one 44 m. (145 ft.) high. A campanile, at the northeast corner, is 5.2 m. (17 ft.) square and 36 m. (117 ft.) high.

The few surviving personal possessions of James Smithson

The central section, as constructed, contains the main entry and museum space (now the Great Hall), with a basement beneath and a large lecture room above.

Two galleries, on the second floor, formerly used to display artifacts, is now the Visitor’s Information and Associates’ Reception area, with interactive displays and 3-D maps pinpointing and detailing the 17 Washington DC-area Smithsonian Institution properties, including museums, galleries and the National Zoological Park.  Here, computers electronically answer most common questions.

Earliest known photograph of the Castle

The first floor of the East Range contained laboratory space with research space on the second floor while the East Wing contained storage space on the first floor and a suite of rooms on the second (as an apartment for the Secretary of the Smithsonian). Currently, this space is used as administrative offices and archives.

Welcome to the Smithsonian Exhibit

The one storey West Range was used as a reading room while the West Wing, known as the chapel, was used as a library. Today, the West Wing and Range are now used as a quiet room for visitors to go.

A crypt, just inside the north entrance, houses the tomb of French-born, British-raised scientist James Smithson. There’s also a coffee and snack shop and a large seating area with free Wi-Fi.

James Smithson Crypt

A Castle of Curiosities exhibit delves into the history of the castle and the little that is known of James Smithson’s life. The Welcome to the Smithsonian exhibit, in high-ceilinged rooms, displays art and artifacts representing all of the institution’s members in old, gleaming wooden display cases. The National Zoo’s “panda cam” shows popular bears and ancient Buddhas from the Sackler Gallery.

Museum Store

Smithsonian Castle:   1000 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, D.C. Tel:  +1 202-633-1000. Coordinates: 38°53′19.49″N 77°1′33.59″W

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C., USA)

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Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, an art museum  sited halfway between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol, anchoring the southernmost end of the so-called L’Enfant axis (perpendicular to the Mall’s green carpet), is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Interior court and fountain

Conceived as the United States’ museum of contemporary and modern art, it currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years. The museum has a budget of US$8 million, which does not include the US$10 to US$12 million in operational support supplied by the Smithsonian Institution.

Geometric Mouse, Variation I, Scale A (Claes Oldenburg, 1971)

The museum was initially endowed, during the 1960s, with the permanent art collection of more than 6,000 items of Joseph H. Hirshhorn (who enjoyed great success from uranium-mining investments), started  in his forties, which consisted of works from classic French Impressionism as well as those by living artists, American modernism of the early 20th century, and sculpture brought from the Hirshhorns’ Connecticut estate and other properties.

Subcommitee (Tony Cragg, 1991, steel)

Here is the museum’s historical timeline:

  • In 1966, an Act of Congress established the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Most of its funding was federal, but Hirshhorn later contributed US$1-million toward its construction.
  • On July 1967, an original plan, with an elongated, sunken rectangle crossing the Mall with a large reflecting pool across the Mall, designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft, was approved.
  • In 1969, groundbreaking takes place on the former site of the Army Medical Museum and Library (built in 1887) after the brick structure was demolished.
  • On July 1, 1971, after excavation was started, a revised design, with a smaller footprint, was approved. The revised design, deliberately stark, using gravel surfaces and minimal plantings to visually emphasize the works of art, also shifted the garden’s Mall orientation from perpendicular to parallel and reduces its size from 8,100 sq. m. (2 acres) to 5,300 sq. m. (1.3 acres).
  • In 1974, the museum was opened with three floors of painting galleries, a fountain plaza for sculpture, and the Sculpture Garden. In the first six months, one million visitors saw the 850-work inaugural show.
  • In the summer of 1979, the Sculpture Garden was closed.
  • In September 1981, the Sculpture Garden was reopened after a renovation and redesign by Lester Collins, a well-known landscape architect and founder of the Innesfree Foundation. The design introduces plantings, paved surfaces, accessibility ramps, and areas of lawn.
  • In 1985, the Museum Shop is moved to the lobby, increasing exhibition space at its former location on the lower level.
  • On December 1991, the Hirshhorn Plaza is closed.
  • In 1993, Hirshhorn Plaza is reopened after a renovation and redesign by landscape architect James Urban. The 11,000 sq. m. (2.7-acre) area around and under the building is repaved in two tones of gray granite, and raised areas of grass and trees are added to the east and west.
  • In 2013, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden drew around 645,000 visitors.
  • In 2014, the Museum Shop is moved back to the lower level.

Museum Shop

Here are some technical information on the museum:

  • The building and its walls were surfaced with precast concrete aggregate of “Swenson” pink granite
  • The building has a diameter of 231 ft., 115 ft. for the interior court and 60 ft. for the fountain.
  • The building is 82 ft. high and elevated 14 ft. on 4 massive, sculptural piers.
  • The museum provides 5,600 sq. m. (60,000 sq. ft.) of exhibition space on three floors inside and nearly 4 acres outside in its two-level Sculpture Garden and plaza for a total of 197,000 sq. ft. of total exhibition space, indoors and outdoors.
  • It has a 274-seat auditorium at the lower level.
  • There are 2.7 acres around and under the museum building.
  • The 1.3-acre Sculpture Garden, across Jefferson Drive, was sunk 6–14 ft. below street level and ramped for accessibility.
  • The second and third floor galleries have 15-ft. high walls, with exposed 3-ft. deep coffered ceilings.
  • The lower level includes exhibition space, storage, workshops, offices while the fourth floor includes offices and storage.

Pumpkin (Yayoi Kusama, 2016)

The building, an open cylinder elevated on four massive “legs,” with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard, itself is an attraction.  The new federal museum’s modern look and intrusively expansive sculptural grounds is a striking contrast to everything else in the city.

Still Life with Spirit and Xtile (Jimmie Durham, 2007)

At the museum entrance is the deceptively simple Still Life with Spirit and Xitle , one of the most well-known works of art by artist Jimmie Durham (a sculptor who is known for his sense of humor and irreverence), features a slapstick disaster scene (intended to capture the clash between industrial and ancient spirits) of a 1992 Chrysler Spirit being crushed by a 9 ton red basalt boulder with a comical smiley face painted on it.

Woman Verso Untitled (Willem de Kooning, 1948)

Woman Before an Eclipse With Her Hair Disheveled by the Wind (Joan Miro, oil on canvas, 1967)

Notable artists in the Hirshhom collection include Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, John Chamberlain, Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, Milton Avery, Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Nevelson, Arshile Gorky, Edward Hopper, Larry Rivers, and Raphael Soyer among others.

Sleeping Muse I (Constantin Brancusi, 1909-1910, marble)

The Master Works from the Hirshhorn Collection, on view from June 9, 2016 to September 4, 2017, is a new rehanging of the permanent collection galleries at the third-level.  It features more than 75 works in virtually all media, highlights of Joseph Hirshhorn’s original gift, alongside some of the newest additions to the collection.

Untitled – Big Man (Ron Mueck, 2000, pigmented polyester resin on fiberglass)

They include several major artworks returning to view after more than a decade (such as Candian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle’s 1964 Large Triptych), as well as in-depth installations devoted to some of the most important artists in the collection.

Large Triptych (Jean-Paul Riopelle, 1964, oil on canvas)

Dog (Alberto Giacometti, 1951-57)

Exhibited are more than a dozen paintings and works on paper by Dutch abstract expressionist artist Willem de Kooning alongside sculptures by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, two of the 20th century’s greatest figurative artists.

Eleven A.M. (Edward Hopper, 1928, oil on canvas)

The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire (Ed Ruscha, 1965-68, oil on canvas)

Other cornerstones of the collection on view are Constantin Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse I (1909–10), Edward Hopper’s Eleven A.M. (1926), Edward Ruscha’s The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire (1965–68), French-American artist Louise Bourgeois’ Legs (1986/cast 2008) and Australian sculptor Ron Mueck’s Untitled (Big Man) (2000).

Window (Gerhard Richter, 1968, oil on canvas)

The End of Ending (Eduardo Basualdo, 2012)

In an adjacent room is The End of Ending (2012), a massive sculptural installation by Argentinian artist Eduardo Basualdo which occupies all but a sliver of walkable space in a gallery. R.S.V.P. X (1976/2014), the performative sculpture  by African-American Senga Nengudi (among a group of artists in 1970’s Los Angeles who explored conceptual art in their pursuit of a distinctly African-American aesthetic), also appears at the museum for the first time.

Spearfishing (Peter Doig, 2013)

Siren of the Niger (Wilfredo Lam, 1950, oil and charcoal on canvas)

The exhibition is augmented by a special loan of Scottish painter Peter Doig’s painting Spearfishing (2013), which hangs alongside richly colored canvases by British figurative painter Francis Bacon, American painter Richard Diebenkorn and Cuban artist Wifredo Lam.

Field for Skyes (Joan Mitchell, 1973, oil on canvas)

1962-D (Clyfford Still, oil on canvas)

Some of the most recent additions to the Hirshhorn’s collection are represented by new cultural histories. O Abuso da História  (The Abuse of History, 2014) is a video, by Brazil-based Mexican artist Héctor Zamora, of a riotously destructive group performance at São Paulo’s historic Hospital Matarazzo.

From Continent to Continent (Mario Merz, 1985)

Cuban artist Reynier Leyva Novo’s 5 Nights (2014), from his series “The Weight of History,” in the Lerner Room (overlooking the National Mall), maps revolutionary 20th-century manifestos by Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, and Muammar Gaddafi to conceptual monochromes, based on the amount of ink spilled in the writing of each text.

Iris, Messenger of the Gods (Auguste Rodin)

During our visit to the museum, we also explored three ongoing temporary exhibits – the “Markus Lupertz: Threads of History” Exhibit, the “Linn Meyers: Our View From Here” Exhibit and the “Ai Weiwei: Trace at the Hirshhorn” Exhibit.

Check out “The Markus Lupertz: Threads of History Exhibit” “The Linn Meyers: Our View from Here Exhibit” and “”The Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshhorn Exhibit“

The Sculpture Garden, outside the museum, features works by artists including Auguste Rodin, David Smith, Alexander Calder, Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy, Jeff Koons, and others. A permanent installation and a major attraction, since 2007, in the Sculpture Garden is Yoko Ono‘s famous Wish Tree for Washington, DC.

Are Years What? (Mark di Suvero)

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: 700 Independence Ave SW & 7th St SW, National Mall, Washington, D.C. 20560, United States.  Website: www.hirshhorn.si.edu. Admission is free.  Open daily, 10 AM – 5:30 PM.

National Air and Space Museum (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a must-see for visitors to Washington, DC. Established August 12, 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened at its main building on the National Mall near L’Enfant Plaza in 1976.

It is a center for research into the history and science of aviation, spaceflight, planetary science, terrestrial geology and geophysics. Allow at least 2-3 hours to explore the exhibits.

Continuum of the late Charles O. Perry

Here are some interesting trivia regarding this museum:

  • It holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world.
  • In 2014, the museum saw approximately 6.7 million visitors, making it the fifth most visited museum in the world.
  • It is the largest of 19 museums included in the Smithsonian Institution.

Lockheed F-104A Starfighter at the second floor concourse

The museum features 22 exhibition galleries, displaying hundreds of artifacts. Many of the exhibits are interactive and great for kids. Almost all space and aircraft on display are either originals or the original backup craft.

Boeing Milestones of Flight – the main hall of the museum

Designed by St. Louis-based architect Gyo Obata of HOK , the museum, its mass similar to the National Gallery of Art and using the same pink Tennessee marble, was built by Gilbane Building Company and opened on July 1, 1976 at the height of the United States Bicentennial festivities.

The Mercury Friendship 7 and Gemini IV capsules

It has four simple marble-encased cubes containing the smaller and more theatrical exhibits, connected by three spacious steel-and-glass atria which house the larger exhibits such as missiles, airplanes and spacecraft. The west glass wall of the building, used for the installation of airplanes, also functions as a giant door. On display outside is “Continuum,” a curving metal map of the universe one by the late Charles O. Perry.

Bell X-1

The Boeing Milestones of Flight Gallery, the museum’s main hall, was reopened in July 2016. This expanded exhibition traces the interconnected stories of the world’s most significant aircraft, rockets, and spacecraft in history, milestones which have made our planet smaller and the universe larger, with digital displays and a mobile experience in a new design that stretches from one entrance to the other.

Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis

North American Aviation Inc. X-15A 56-6670 hypersonic research rocketplane

SS-20 and Pershing II ICBM Missiles

They also tell tales of ingenuity and courage, war and peace, politics and power, as well as society and culture.

Bell XP-59A Airacomet

Mock-up of Lunar Module

The displays, taking full advantage of the atrium’s two-storey height, includes the huge Apollo Lunar Module; the Telstar satellite; the model of the “Starship Enterprise” used in the Star Trek television series;, the Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis  (where Charles Lindbergh’s made his solo trip across the Atlantic); the Bell XP-59A Airacomet (the first American jet aircraft); the Bell X-1 (in which Chuck Yeager first broke the mythical “sound barrier”); the North American X-15 (the fastest aircraft ever flown); the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule (flown by John Glenn); the Mariner, Pioneer, and Viking planetary explorers; and SpaceShipOne (the first privately-developed, piloted vehicle to reach space). You can even touch a Moon rock.

The author touching a piece of the Moon

Jandy with the model of the Star Trek Starship Enterprise

The Space Race Gallery tells about that U.S.-Soviet Union space rivalry and its aftermath, from the military origins of the Space Race, through the race to the Moon and the development of reconnaissance satellites, to cooperative ventures between the two former rivals and efforts to maintain a human presence in space.

German V2 Rocket

Yuri Gagarin’s Space Suit

John Glenn’s Space Suit

Hubble Space Telescope

Some of the items on display include a German V-1 “buzz bomb” and V-2 missile, Soviet and U.S. spacecraft and space suits, a Skylab Orbital Workshop, and a full-size test version of the Hubble Space Telescope.

1970 Northrop M2-F3 CN 1

Apollo–Soyuz Test Project

V-1 Buzz Bomb

The Apollo to the Moon Gallery has an unparalleled display of artifacts from the Apollo and earlier missions with displays that range from a huge F-1 rocket engine, a scale model of the Saturn V rocket, spacesuits worn by Apollo astronauts on the Moon to space food and personal items that astronauts took into space.

Saturn V Rocket Engine

Lunar Roving Vehicle

The America by Air Gallery, exploring the history of air transportation in the United States, shows how the federal government has shaped the airline industry, how improvements in technology have revolutionized air travel, and how the flying experience has changed.

The nose section of a DC-7

Boeing 747 Forward Fuselage

Highlights include a Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor, Boeing 247, and Douglas DC-3 airliners; a cockpit simulation of an Airbus A320; and a nose from a Boeing 747 jumbo jet that you can enter.

Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor

Douglas DC-3

Boeing 247-D

The Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery, having to do with people who pushed the existing technological or social limits of flight, contains an impressive, eclectic assortment of aircraft and exhibits, each representing an unprecedented feat, a barrier overcome or a pioneering step.

Douglas World Cruiser Chicago

Fokker T-2

Things to see here include the Fokker T-2 (the airplane that made the first nonstop, coast-to-coast flight across the United States); the Douglas World Cruiser Chicago (which completed the first round-the-world flight); a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius (flown by Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh), a Lockheed Vega (flown by Amelia Earhart); the Explorer II high-altitude balloon gondola; and “Black Wings,” an exhibit on African Americans and aviation.

Lockheed Model 8 Sirius

Explorer II high-altitude balloon gondola

Lockheed Vega 5B of Amelia Earhart

The Explore the Universe Gallery shows how our ideas about the Universe evolved as we developed new astronomical instruments. It presents the Universe as discerned by the naked eye, then shows how the telescope, photography, spectroscopy, and digital technology revolutionized our view. The largest section describes what astronomers today think about the nature of the Universe. Among the many amazing treasures on display are an Islamic astrolabe from 10 centuries ago; the actual telescope tube from William Herschel‘s 20-foot telescope; the observing cage from the Mount Wilson Observatory‘s 100-inch Hooker Telescope; and the backup mirror for the Hubble Space Telescope.

World War II Aviation Gallery

Supermarine Spitfire HF.MK.VIIc

The World War II Aviation Gallery focuses on land-based fighter aviation.  Fortresses Under Fire, a Keith Ferris mural filling an entire wall, features  a B 17 Flying Fortress, with contrails streaming behind it, roaring out of a clear blue sky. 

Mitsubishi A6M5 Reisen (Zero Fighter)

North American P-51D Mustang

The mural serves as a backdrop for five fighter planes – a British Supermarine Spitfire, German Messerschmitt Bf 109, Italian Macchi C.202 Folgore, U.S. North American P-51 Mustang and a Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

Messerschmitt Bf 109 G (1)

Aeronautica Macchi C.202 Folgore

Also on exhibit are engines, bombs, armament, ammunition, aircrew and service uniforms from several nations, and personal memorabilia.

Artist Soldiers Exhibit

The Artist Soldiers exhibition, a collaboration between the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and National Museum of American History, examines this form of artistic expression from two complementary perspectives – one from professional artists who were recruited by the U.S. Army and served in the American Expeditionary Force (the first true combat artists) and the other from soldiers who created artwork.

Together, these works of art of soldiers shed light on World War I in a compelling and very human way by first-hand participants.

The Exploring the Planets Gallery takes you on a tour of this remarkable realm, as seen and sensed by the Voyagers and other robotic explorers. Initial sections present some historical highlights and show the various means we use to study other worlds. Sections devoted to each planet form the core of the gallery.

The author with the Blériot XI monoplane

The gaily decorated Early Flight Gallery, celebrating the first decade of flight, evokes the atmosphere of the fictitious Smithsonian Aeronautical Exposition of 1913, an aviation exhibition from that period. The gallery is crammed with fabric-covered aerial vehicles, some fanciful, most real, along with trade show–style exhibits featuring cutting-edge technology of the day.

Swedenborg Flying Machine

The Chanute Gliders

They include a rare 1894 Lilienthal glider; Samuel P. Langley’s Aerodrome #5 and Quarter-Scale Aerodrome (powered, unmanned vehicles that successfully flew in 1896 and 1903); the 1909 Wright Military Flyer (the world’s first military airplane, it is the most original and complete of the museum’s three Wright airplanes); a Curtiss Model D “Headless Pusher,” an Ecker Flying Boat, and a Blériot XI monoplane.

Curtiss D-III Headless Pusher

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Gallery, made possible through the generosity of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., showcases six modern military UAVs that represent a variety of missions and technologies.

Boeing X-45A

They range from large vehicles that can carry offensive weapons to a miniature system whose components are light and compact enough to be carried in a Marine’s backpack.

AAI RQ-7 Shadow UAV

The Golden Age of Flight Gallery features the 1920s and ’30s, the period between the two world wars that saw airplanes evolve from wood-and-fabric biplanes to streamlined metal monoplanes. The military services embraced air power and aviation came of age. Air races and daring record-setting flights dominated the news and aircraft displayed here include planes used for racing and record setting such as Howard Hughes‘ sleek, record-setting Hughes H-1 Racer, the Wittman Buster midget racer (hanging near the entrance) and the Curtiss J-1 Robin Ole Miss (which stayed aloft for 27 days).  There are also planes for business travel (Beechcraft C17L Staggerwing) and exploration (the Northrop Gamma 2B Polar Star, which traversed Antarctica).

MQ-1L Predator A

The How Things Fly Gallery, devoted to explaining the basic principles that allow aircraft and spacecraft to fly, emphasizes “hands-on,” with dozens of exhibits inviting you to push, pull, press, lift, slide, handle, touch, twist, turn, spin, bend, and balance. Here you can discover for yourself answers to things you’ve always wondered about flight. You can explore the nature of gravity and air; how wings work; supersonic flight; aircraft and rocket propulsion; flying in space; and more.

1903 Wright Flyer

The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age Gallery  celebrates the centennial of the Wright brothers‘ historic flights.  It has, as its centerpiece, the 1903 Wright Flyer, the world’s first successful airplane and historic craft that ushered in the age of flight, displayed on the floor. 

The first part of this exhibition tells the story of how Wilbur and Orville Wright invented the airplane—who they were, how they worked, and what they accomplished.

The second part shows how their monumental achievement affected the world in the decade that followed, when people everywhere became fascinated with flight. The exhibition includes many historic photographs and cultural artifacts, along with instruments and personal items associated with the Wrights.

The Moving Beyond Earth Gallery, an immersive exhibition, places visitors “in orbit” in the shuttle and space-station era to explore recent human spaceflight and future possibilities. An expansive view of the Earth as viewed from the space station drifts over one gallery wall, while a fly-around tour of the International Space Station fills another wall. A presentation stage for live events, broadcasts, and webcasts at the center of the gallery serves as the platform for Space Flight Academy, a group quiz game where visitors can test their space smarts and become “flight ready.”

Time and Navigation Gallery

Lockheed 5C Vega – Winnie Mae

The Time and Navigation Gallery explores how revolutions in timekeeping over three centuries have influenced how we find our way.

Model of USS Enterprise

The Sea-Air Operations Gallery, at the quarterdeck of the mythical aircraft carrier USS Smithsonian, a scaled-down re-creation of a hangar deck bay, has surrounding structures and equipment that are from actual aircraft carriers.

Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless

You can poke around in a ready room, a combined living room and briefing area, or go upstairs and visit the navigation bridge and PriFly, the ship’s air traffic control center. From these two rooms you can watch “cat shots” and “traps” (takeoffs and landings) filmed on a U.S. Navy carrier.

Douglas A-4C Skyhawk

Balconies overlook the four carrier aircraft in the hangar bay – a Boeing F4B-4 biplane, Grumman F4F Wildcat, Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless, and Douglas A-4C Skyhawk. Also here are exhibits on carrier warfare in World War II and on modern carrier aviation.

Boeing F4B-4

The Looking at Earth Gallery, exploring the technology of aerial and space observation and its many uses, displays aircraft and spacecraft and examples of the photographic and imaging devices used on them.

Lockheed U-2C

De Havilland DH-4

Throughout the exhibition are countless images taken from above, some are historic; others show scientific, military, or civil applications; others are simply beautiful. All allow us to examine the familiar from unfamiliar perspectives.

GOES Weather Satellite

Highlights include a De Havilland DH-4 (a World War I aircraft used for aerial observation and photography); a Lockheed U-2 (designed for Cold War aerial surveillance); personal objects of Soviet-captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers; and several generations of weather satellites. A “What’s New” section displays frequently updated images of current interest taken of our planet from space.

US Pilot Survival Kit

The Lunar Exploration Vehicles Gallery displays a constellation of vehicles used for lunar exploration. Dominating the space is a real lunar module, the second one built for the Apollo program. The orbital test flight of the first lunar module proved so successful that a second test flight was deemed unnecessary. The lunar module displayed here was used instead for ground testing. Six more like it landed astronauts on the Moon.

Engineering Model of Clementine

A series of unmanned lunar spacecraft preceded the manned missions. These robotic explorers transmitted images of the Moon, inspected its surface, and searched for Apollo landing sites.

Ranger Spacecraft

Examples of the three types of space probes involved in that effort—Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter—hang above the lunar module, along with a more recent lunar explorer: the Moon-mapping spacecraft Clementine.

Lunar Orbiter

The Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air Gallery reexamines aviation during World War I and contrasts romance with reality, with displays of popular culture showing how some of these myths were passed on.

German Aircraft Factory

Model of the Hindenburg

Other exhibits examine the many new roles aircraft played during the war, from battlefield reconnaissance to strategic bombing.

Pfalz D.XII

Albatross D.Va

Fokker D.VII

The gallery features several rare airplanes such as the German Pfalz D.XII, Albatros D.Va, and Fokker D.VII fighters; a British Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe fighter; and a French SPAD S.XIII fighter and Voisin VIII bomber.

Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe

Voisin Type 8

Spad XIII Smith IV

The Jet Aviation Gallery traces the development of jet technology and features many important turbojet engines introduced over four decades, along with three airplanes that helped usher in the jet age – the German Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe (the world’s first operational jet fighter),  the Lockheed XP-80 “Shooting Star” Lulu Belle (the prototype for the first full-production, operational U.S. jet fighter) and McDonnell FH-1 Phantom (the first jet fighter used by the Navy and Marine Corps).

McDonnell FH-1 Phantom

Lockheed XP-80 “Shooting Star” nicknamed Lulu Belle

Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a nicknamed Schwalbe (German for “Swallow”)

The Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, with its five-storey-high screen with six-channel digital surround sound, take you on a journey through space or to natural and manmade wonders of the world.

Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket on display outside of the Lockheed Martin IMAX® Theater

The Albert Einstein Planetarium, with its high tech dual digital projection system, Sky Vision, takes you on a 20-minute tour of the universe. The museum’s three-storey gift shop is a great place to find memorable souvenirs and gifts. A food court- style restaurant is open daily from 10 AM to 5PM.

Museum Shop

National Air and Space Museum: 600 Independence Ave. at 6th St. SW, Washington, D.C. 20560, USA.  Tel: +1 202-633-2214. Open aily (except December 25), 10 AM – 5:30 PM. Website: www.airandspace.si.edu.

General Admission: free.  The 4-minute flight simulator rides cost US$6.50 per ride. IMAX movies and the Planetarium each cost US$9 per adult or US$7 per child. Shows often sell out, so purchase your tickets before viewing the rest of the museum. Tickets can be purchased in advance at (877) WDC-IMAX. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, new security measures have been created, with extensive queues  extending outside the building.

How to Get There: The closest Metro stations are Smithsonian and L’Enfant Plaza.

National Museum of the American Indian (Washington DC, USA)

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National Museum of The American Indian

From the Botanic Garden, Jandy and I proceeded to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), the first national museum in the country dedicated exclusively to Native Americans.  Part of the Smithsonian Institution, it is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the past, present, and future of Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, through partnership with Native people and others.

Museum entrance

Aside from this museum,  the National Museum of the American Indian also has two other facilities – the George Gustav Heye Center (a permanent museum in Lower Manhattan, New York City) and the Cultural Resources Center (a research and collections facility in Suitland, Maryland).

 

Though it was a weekend, there wasn’t a long line of visitors wanting to enter the building (although the museum had 2.4 million visitors in 2004, the year it opened, it has averaged only 1.4 million in the years since due to its exhibits that feel “disjointed and incomplete”) but we were still all subjected to a security check.

Indian canoes at the lobby

The five-storey, 23,000 m2 (250,000 sq. ft.) curvilinear building, set in a 17,200 m2 (4.25-acre) site, is clad in golden-colored Kasota limestone, designed to evoke natural rock formations shaped by wind and water over thousands of years, and is surrounded by simulated wetlands.

Oculus of the dome

Fifteen years in the making, the museum was inaugurated on September 21, 2004 with an audience of around 20,000 American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, the largest gathering of indigenous people in Washington D.C. to its time.

The museum’s design architects are GBQC Architects of Philadelphia and Severud Associates was the structural engineering firm chosen for this project. Project architects are Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects Ltd. of Seattle and Smith Group of Washington, D.C., in association with Lou Weller (Caddo), the Native American Design Collaborative, and Polshek Partnership Architects of New York City. The landscape architects are Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects Ltd. of Seattle and EDAW, Inc., of Alexandria, Virginia.

ImagiNATIONS Activity Center

Aiming to create a different atmosphere and experience from museums of European and Euro-American culture, Native Americans, in general, have filled the leadership roles in the design and operation of the museum.

Indian Chief motorcycle, 1948 at “Americans” exhibit

Canadian Douglas Cardinal, the museum’s architect and project designer, is Blackfoot.  During construction, disagreements led to Cardinal’s removal from the project, but the building retains his original design intent and, during the museum’s construction, he provided continued input.  Architect John Paul Jones is Cherokee/Choctaw while Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi) also served as design consultant. Donna E. House (Navajo/Oneida) was the botanist who supervised the landscaping.

Our Universes – Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World

The museum’s sweeping curvilinear architecture, its indigenous landscaping, and its exhibitions were also all designed in collaboration with tribes and communities from across the hemisphere, combine to give visitors from around the world the sense and spirit of Native America.

Nation to Nation exhibit

The landscape flows into the building and the theme of organic flow is reflected by the interior of the museum, whose walls are mostly curving surfaces, with almost no sharp corners. The museum’s east-facing entrance, its prism window and its 37 m. (120-ft.) high space for contemporary Native performances are direct results of extensive consultations with Native peoples.

Bald Eagle feather, ca. 2000

The museum’s collection, assembled by George Gustav Heye (1874–1957) during a 54-year period (beginning in 1903, he traveled throughout North and South America collecting Native objects), became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990.

Andrew Jackson’s pistol (ca. 1840)

Approximately 85% of the holdings of the NMAI, it includes more than 800,000 objects (one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of its kind), as well as a photographic archive of 125,000 images. The collection is divided into the following areas: Amazon; Andes; Arctic/Subarctic; California/Great Basin; Contemporary Art; Mesoamerican/Caribbean; Northwest Coast; Patagonia; Plains/Plateau; Woodlands.

Celebrations

Pana and Qolla

The museum currently has 5 exhibits.  Americans (January 18, 2018–2022), highlighting the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation’s identity since before the country began, features pervasive, powerful and, at times, demeaning American Indian images (from the Land O’Lakes butter maiden to the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, and from classic Westerns and cartoons to episodes of Seinfeld and South Park), names (from state, city, and street names to the Tomahawk missile) and stories (historical events of Pocahontas’ life, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn) that reveal the deep connection between Americans and American Indians as well as how Indians have been embedded, in unexpected ways, in the history, pop culture, contemporary life and identity of the United States.

Inka bowl, tumi (ritual knife), armbands and ornaments with human figure design

The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire (June 26, 2015–June 1, 2020) explores the foundations of the more than 20,000 mile long Inka Road (which stands as one of the monumental engineering achievements in history) in earlier Andean cultures, technologies that made building the road possible, the cosmology and political organization of the Inka world, and the legacy of the Inka Empire during the colonial period and in the present day.

Maya calendar

Crossing mountains and tropical lowlands, rivers and deserts, the Great Inka Road, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in 2014, linked Cusco, the administrative capital and spiritual center of the Inka world, to the farthest reaches of its empire and continues to serve contemporary Andean communities across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.

Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokee, b. 1957). Pieced Treaty Spider’s Web Treaty basket, 2007. Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations (September 21, 2014–Through 2021), curated by Indian rights activist Suzan Shown Harjo, is built around the 1613 Two Row Wampum Treaty which, as museum reviewer Diana Muir Appelbaum points out, is, in fact, a modern forgery. ” It is the story of that relationship between Indian Nations and the United States, including the history and legacy of U.S.–American Indian diplomacy, from the Colonial Period through the present, as well as about the equally important and influential Native diplomats and leaders of Indian Nations.

Ceremonies of Spring

Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World (September 21, 2004–September 2020) focuses on indigenous cosmologies (world views and philosophies related to the creation and order of the universe) and the spiritual relationship between human kind and the natural world. Organized around the solar year, the exhibition introduces visitors to indigenous peoples from across the Western Hemisphere who continue to express the wisdom of their ancestors in celebration, language, art, spirituality and daily life.

Pueblo plates

The community galleries feature eight cultural philosophies—those of the Pueblo of Santa Clara (Espanola, New Mexico, USA), Anishinaabe (Hollow Water and Sagkeeng Bands, Manitoba, Canada), Lakota (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, USA), Quechua (Communidad de Phaqchanta, Cuzco, Peru), Hupa (Hoopa Valley, California, USA), Q’eq’chi’ Maya (Cobán, Guatemala), Mapuche (Temuco, Chile), and Yup’ik (Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, USA).

Dance and Drama

The design of these galleries reflects each community’s interpretation of the order of the world.The exhibition also highlights the Denver (Colorado) March Powwow, the North American Indigenous Games, and the Day of the Dead as seasonal celebrations that bring Native peoples together.

Family Meals and Feasting

Preparing and Storing Food

At the ongoing compact exhibition Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake educates visitors on the continued Native presence in the region, and provides an overview of the history and events from the 1600s to the present that have impacted the lives of the Nanticoke, Powhatan, and Piscataway tribes.

Harvesting From the Land and the Ocean

Music and Song

You will meet the Native peoples of the Chesapeake Bay region (what is now Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware) through photographs, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects, and interactive displays.

Southeastern Ceramics

Music and Song

The imagiNATIONS Activity Center, a fantastic interactive experience for families, allows visitors to explore genius innovations made by Native tribes, from transportation solutions (snowshoes, skateboards) to tipi-building and basket-weaving.

Native Glass

Potawatomi blouse (ca. 1890, Wisconsin)

The Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe (which translates to “Let’s eat!” in the language of Delaware and Piscataway Natives) is divided into Native regional sections such as the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, Meso-America, and the Great Plains (the only Native American groups not represented in the café are the south eastern tribes such as the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Seminole, many of which supported the United States throughout the tribes’ histories).

Museum Store

National Museum of the American Indian: Fourth Street and Independence Avenue, Southwest, National Mall , Washington D.C.. Tel: 202-633-1000. TTY: 202-633-5285. Email: nmai-groupreservations@si.edu.  Website: www.nmai.si.edu/visit/washington.  Open daily, 10 AM–5:30 PM, closed on December 25. Exhibition spaces and the store begin closing at 5:15 PM. The Mitsitam Cafe is open daily, 11 AM–3 PM (closed on December 25); the Mitsitam Espresso Coffee Bar is open daily, 10 AM–5 PM; while the imagiNATIONS Activity Center is open daily 10 AM–5 PM, closed on Mondays. Admission is free. The building is accessible to people with disabilities. The museum does not have parking. Parking is available by meter on the surrounding streets and in local paid parking garages. Visitors should be prepared for a security check upon entrance to the museum. On busy days, there may be a line to enter the building. The museum offers a range of exhibitions, film and video screenings, school group programs, public programs and living culture presentations throughout the year. 

How To Get There: The National Museum of the American Indian is located between the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol Building.

Metro: L’Enfant Plaza (Blue/Orange/Green/Yellow lines), exit Maryland Avenue/Smithsonian Museums

Bus: Lines 30, 32, 34–36—Friendship Heights/Southern Avenue. There are 9 bus drop-off only spaces on Maryland Avenue accessible from 3rd Street.

National World War II Memorial (Washington, D.C., U.S.A.)

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National World War II Memorial

The National World War II Memorial, an American memorial of national significance, sits on a 30,000 m2  (7.4-acre) piece of land (two-thirds of which is landscaping and water) on the former site of the Rainbow Pool at the eastern end of the Reflecting Pool, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

The granite pillars

The memorial is dedicated to those who served in the armed forces and as civilians during World War II. It consists of 56 5.2 m. (17 ft.) tall granite pillars,  arranged in a semicircle, and a pair of small 13 m. (43-ft.) high memorial triumphal arches (crafted by Rock of Ages Corporation, the northern arch is inscribed with “Atlantic,” the southern one, “Pacific“), on opposite sides, surrounding a plaza and fountain.

The author with the Atlantic Arch in the background

Its design was based on Friedrich St. Florian‘s initial design, selected in 1997 during a nationwide design competition that drew 400 submissions from architects from around the country but altered during the review and approval process. On September 2001, ground was broken and the construction was managed by the General Services Administration.

The Pacific Arch

Opened on April 29, 2004, it was dedicated by President George W. Bush on May 29, 2004. On November 1, 2004, the memorial became a national park  when authority over it was transferred to the National Park Service (under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group). As of 2009, more than 4.4 million people visit the memorial each year. In 2012, the memorial’s fountain was renovated.

The memorial’s fountain

Each of the 56 pillars, all consisting of oak (symbolizing military and industrial strength) laurel wreaths and wheat (symbolizing agricultural and breadbasket during the U.S. part in the war) laurel wreath. is inscribed with the name of one of the 48 U.S. states (as of 1945), as well as the District of Columbia, the Alaska Territory, Territory of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The pillar of the Commonwealth of the Philippines

The plaza is 102.97 m. (337 ft., 10 in.) long and 73.2 m. (240 ft., 2 in.) wide and is sunk 1.8 m. (6 ft.) below grade.  It contains a pool that is 75.2 × 45 m. (246 ft., 9 in. by 147 ft., 8 in.). The memorial also includes two, inconspicuously located “Kilroy was here” engravings which acknowledges the significance of the symbol to American soldiers during World War II and how it represented their presence and protection wherever it was inscribed.

Excerpt from a speech by Pres. Harry S. Truman

Excerpt from Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech

The lettering for the memorial was designed by the John Stevens Shop and most of the inscriptions were hand-carved in situ. Laran Bronze, in Chester, Pennsylvania, cast all the bronzes over the course of two and a half years.

Some of the inscriptions

The Battle of Midway

The baldacchinos of the Pacific and Atlantic Arches each have laurel wreaths suspended in the air, with 4 bronze eagles carrying it, all created by sculptor Raymond Kaskey. The stainless-steel armature that holds up the eagles and wreaths was designed at Laran, in part by sculptor James Peniston, and fabricated by Apex Piping of Newport, Delaware. The chandelier sculpture symbolizes the victory of the War with the Nation’s bird carrying a Grecian symbol of victory but with an American adaptation of oak laurel wreaths to symbolize strength.

Seal using the World War II Victory Medal design

On approaching the semicircle from the east, I walked along one of two walls (right side wall and left side wall) with 24 bronze bas-relief panels (also created by sculptor Raymond Kaskey) that depict wartime scenes of combat and the home front. The scenes, as I approached on the left (toward the Pacific Arch), begin with soon-to-be servicemen getting their physical exams, taking the oath, being issued military gear, and progresses through several iconic scenes, including combat and burying the dead, ending in a homecoming scene.

The memorial flagpole

There is a similar progression on the right-side wall (toward the Atlantic arch) but the scenes are generally more typical of the European theatre with some scenes taking place in England, depicting the preparations for air and sea assaults. The last scene is of a handshake between the American and Russian armies when the western and eastern fronts met in Germany.

The Price of Freedom

The Freedom Wall, on the west side of the memorial, has a view of the Reflecting Pool and Lincoln Memorial behind it. The wall has 4,048 gold stars, each representing 100 Americans who died in the war. In front of the wall lies the message “Here we mark the price of freedom”

Jandy at the fountain area

National World War II Memorial: National Mall, Washington, D.C.

District of Columbia War Memorial (Washington, D.C., U.S.A.)

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The District of Columbia War Memorial, a memorial within the National Mall (the only local District memorial there)commemorating the citizens of the District of Columbia who served, fought and gave their lives in World War I, stands in in a grove of trees at West Potomac Park (the first war memorial to be erected in the park), near the Lincoln Memorial and slightly off of Independence Avenue.

District of Columbia War Memorial

Authorized by a June 7, 1924 act of Congress, funds for the memorial’s construction were provided by the contributions of both organizations and individual citizens of the District. In the spring of 1931, construction of the memorial, designed by Washington architect Frederick H. Brooke, with Horace W. Peaslee and Nathan C. Wyeth as associate architects, began and the memorial was dedicated on November 11, 1931, Armistice Day, by Pres. Herbert Hoover.

Dedication inscription

This 14.3 m. (47-ft.) tall circular, domed, peristyle Doric temple rests on concrete foundations. Its 1.2 m. (4 ft.) high marble base defines a 13.2 m. (43 ft., 5 in.) diameter platform, intended for use as a bandstand. Preserved in the cornerstone is a list of 26,000 Washingtonians who served in the World War I while inscribed on the base are the names of the 499 citizens who lost their lives in the war, together with medallions representing the branches of the armed forces. Twelve 6.7 m. (22-ft.) high, fluted Doric marble columns support the entablature and dome.

List of those who died

Restoration work, funded with US$7.3 million provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, began in October 2010. The lighting systems were improved, water drainage systems were corrected and the landscape was revived to allow the memorial to be used as a bandstand. On November 10, 2011, the memorial reopened. In 2014, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The memorial is administered by the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks unit.

How to Get There: The DC War Memorial is located just west of 17th St. and Independence Ave. SW, next to the World War II Memorial. The closest Metro station is Smithsonian.