Tuesday, April 7, 2009

New Smithsoanian Building

So what's this building to the left? Pretty unattractive, in my opinion.

It also might be the new National Museum of African American History and Culture located on the mall. But they haven't broken ground yet -- it's one of six designs contending to win the museum contract. A jury will vote for the winner in mid-April.

Check out the other designs here, and then vote for your favorite on the Smithsonian's website. This ultra-modern thing is currently winning, so if you think that it's as unappealing as I do, show your support for one of the better designs.

Today's Washington Post also selected this design as "above the rest." The article discusses the "essential" role this building plays in commemorating and retelling an important part of American history, and also analyzes the six proposals. They're all for a modern architectural design:
But the six proposals under consideration also reveal the city at an architectural crossroads: to go forward and break with the punishing conventions that have stymied our architectural creativity, or to build yet another blandly institutional building, a fading echo of something that was never very good to begin with.
What do you think?

1 comment:

Paz said...

Building on the Mall is an extremely contentious process (see: Museum of the American Indian). The design isn't hideous, but it doesn't seem like it jives with the rest of the Mall for me.