The Smithsonian's south Mall campus will apparently look like a Victorian horror story at night. Images courtesy Smithsonian Institution.
Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough’s term runs out in a month, but he’s dropping at least one last major endeavor before he leaves with the release of a decade-spanning proposal to renovate several Smithsonian facilities along the south side of the National Mall, including a major overhaul of the vastly under-utilized castle.
The $2 billion project is designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, the Danish firm behind last summer’s National Building Museum maze, and includes significant changes to the Freer Gallery, the Enid A. Haupt Garden, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Arts and Industries Building, which would finally reopen to the public after its 2004 shuttering. (The Smithsonian spent ten years and $55 million on renovating the building with the intention of opening it in September, but its rededication was snubbed earlier this year.)
The castle—which houses the Smithsonian’s administrative offices—will undergo the most work, from restoring its Great Hall exhibition space to a two-level subterranean expansion that will contain a café, gift shop, restrooms, and underground passages to the National Museum of African Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The quadrangle building under the Haupt Garden will get a new roof that lets in natural light to illuminate the Smithsonian’s lower depths.
A new visitor center would be placed underground, but with natural light.
The Hirshhorn, which just underwent a makeover, will get a new courtyard anchored by an in-ground fountain and a reconfigured sculpture garden to make room for new, high-ceilinged galleries and a larger auditorium. The design also calls for lowing the concrete perimeter around the toric museum to better incorporate it with the rest of the Smithsonian campus and adjoining Mall.
“We believe this plan holds the potential to guide the Smithsonian South Mall campus into the future while remaining firmly rooted in its heritage,” says Bjarke Ingels, the principal of his namesake architecture firm and the proposal’s lead designer.
A new entrance to the Hirshhorn.
While the ambitious proposal contains several components for the Arts and Industries Building, it does not give the unused museum a long-term purpose. While the building would get expanded gardens and some traffic to its rotunda—from which visitors would be able to survey the surrounding campus—it will still be without a permanent function. The building is also still a candidate to house a proposed American Latino Museum.
The Smithsonian says the $2 billion plan will be paid for with a mix of public and private funds. Perhaps the largest component of the entire project is something that will go unseen by tourists—a new central utility plant the institution says will cut the south Mall campus’s energy consumption by 34 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 39 percent.
Don’t expect any changes that soon, though. Construction is not intended to start until 2021, and all the renovations will take between ten and 20 years to complete.
Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter
Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
Smithsonian Releases $2 Billion Plan to Remake South Side of the Mall
The Mall could look drastically different in a few decades.
Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough’s term runs out in a month, but he’s dropping at least one last major endeavor before he leaves with the release of a decade-spanning proposal to renovate several Smithsonian facilities along the south side of the National Mall, including a major overhaul of the vastly under-utilized castle.
The $2 billion project is designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, the Danish firm behind last summer’s National Building Museum maze, and includes significant changes to the Freer Gallery, the Enid A. Haupt Garden, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Arts and Industries Building, which would finally reopen to the public after its 2004 shuttering. (The Smithsonian spent ten years and $55 million on renovating the building with the intention of opening it in September, but its rededication was snubbed earlier this year.)
The castle—which houses the Smithsonian’s administrative offices—will undergo the most work, from restoring its Great Hall exhibition space to a two-level subterranean expansion that will contain a café, gift shop, restrooms, and underground passages to the National Museum of African Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The quadrangle building under the Haupt Garden will get a new roof that lets in natural light to illuminate the Smithsonian’s lower depths.
The Hirshhorn, which just underwent a makeover, will get a new courtyard anchored by an in-ground fountain and a reconfigured sculpture garden to make room for new, high-ceilinged galleries and a larger auditorium. The design also calls for lowing the concrete perimeter around the toric museum to better incorporate it with the rest of the Smithsonian campus and adjoining Mall.
“We believe this plan holds the potential to guide the Smithsonian South Mall campus into the future while remaining firmly rooted in its heritage,” says Bjarke Ingels, the principal of his namesake architecture firm and the proposal’s lead designer.
While the ambitious proposal contains several components for the Arts and Industries Building, it does not give the unused museum a long-term purpose. While the building would get expanded gardens and some traffic to its rotunda—from which visitors would be able to survey the surrounding campus—it will still be without a permanent function. The building is also still a candidate to house a proposed American Latino Museum.
The Smithsonian says the $2 billion plan will be paid for with a mix of public and private funds. Perhaps the largest component of the entire project is something that will go unseen by tourists—a new central utility plant the institution says will cut the south Mall campus’s energy consumption by 34 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 39 percent.
Don’t expect any changes that soon, though. Construction is not intended to start until 2021, and all the renovations will take between ten and 20 years to complete.
Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter
Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
Most Popular in News & Politics
Washington’s Most Influential People
Trump Hotel Employees Reveal What It Was Really Like Catering to the Right Wing Elite
Inside DC’s Secret Covid Morgue
Trump Hotel Rates Are Over $1,300 on March 4—the Date in a Wild QAnon Theory
Dulles and DCA Will Soon Have Covid-19 Testing Sites for Passengers
Washingtonian Magazine
February 2021: Great Neighborhood Restaurants
View IssueSubscribe
Get Us on Social
Get Us on Social
Related
Video From Fall Real Estate Market Update With Local Leaders
Washingtonian Real Estate Virtual Happy Hour
Videos from Washingtonian’s Wellness Day
DC Will Have Its First Museum Reopening on Monday
More from News & Politics
Maryland Looks to Get Rid of Its Pro-Confederate State Song
Marijuana Sales Could Finally Become Legal in DC
A Funny Flowchart About the New Way to Network in DC
Why This Top Facebook Exec Still Gets Dressed Up for Work Every Day
Marty Baron’s Last Day at the Washington Post Is This Sunday
Pete Buttigieg Spotted Wobbling on a Capital Bikeshare Bike
Capitol Police Worried About Threats to Biden’s Address to Congress
Here Are All the Error Messages We Got Trying to Register for the Vaccine