Every presidential election throws Washington DC into demographic flux. Politics aside, though, the city is also welcoming young families and graduates by the trainload as it gradually repositions itself as a great all-rounder of a place. With breakneck gentrification and a foodie revolution introducing Washingtonians to New York-style living, you’d think the city fabric would be turning itself inside out.
Yet it’s remarkably difficult to get things built here. Red tape is a fact of life, as are conservative old-timers galvanised against change. It took a new baseball franchise to kickstart the redevelopment of the crumbling Navy Yards, and David Adjaye’s lauded National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened last year, was a century in the making.
In a bureaucratic city characterised by government office space, local designer/developer Brook Rose saw potential in a rare landmark warehouse once used to manufactured some of the first rotary gyrocopter engines. Meanwhile, New York architect Steven Holl’s Obama-era infrastructure project will open in much less certain times, no less for the arts. Two blocks south of the National Mall, Detroit-based SmithGroupJJR has transformed a landmark transport warehouse into a museum to rival the Smithsonians in splendour.
What does go up tends to be overwhelmed with mirrored glass. Yet there are exceptions. While planners have greenlit a redesign of Constitutional Gardens by Rogers Partners and PWP, as well as a delicate glass office complex by REX Architecture, there have been a handful of exemplary projects come to fruition.
Museum of the Bible, SmithGroupJJR, opening November 2017: Conceived to house some 40,000 biblical artefacts, one for each square metre of space, the non-sectarian Museum of the Bible launches later this year, opening at the original train portal, decorated, fittingly, in stained glass displaying a portion of the Great Isaiah Scroll
Museum of the Bible, SmithGroupJJR, opening November 2017: Conceived to house some 40,000 biblical artefacts, one for each square metre of space, the non-sectarian Museum of the Bible launches later this year, opening at the original train portal, decorated, fittingly, in stained glass displaying a portion of the Great Isaiah Scroll
Museum of the Bible, SmithGroupJJR, opening November 2017: Jerusalem-stone columns punctuate the 12m-high flatiron, where much of the collection of scriptures, stones and antiquities sit beneath a backlit mock-fresco ceiling. Further up a floating stairwell, a two-storey rooftop addition blanketed in a glass curtain wall houses a theatre and ballroom with views over the Capitol
Museum of the Bible, SmithGroupJJR, opening November 2017: Jerusalem-stone columns punctuate the 12m-high flatiron, where much of the collection of scriptures, stones and antiquities sit beneath a backlit mock-fresco ceiling. Further up a floating stairwell, a two-storey rooftop addition blanketed in a glass curtain wall houses a theatre and ballroom with views over the Capitol
Rosedale Residence, Kube Architecture, 2017: Let the Obamas have Kalorama, with all its media scrutiny and hopped-up security. Two miles northwest, on the last available plot of a 280-year-old heritage area, Kube Architecture has built a 600 sq m house bordering three acres of parkland and literal white-picket fences
Rosedale Residence, Kube Architecture, 2017: Let the Obamas have Kalorama, with all its media scrutiny and hopped-up security. Two miles northwest, on the last available plot of a 280-year-old heritage area, Kube Architecture has built a 600 sq m house bordering three acres of parkland and literal white-picket fences
Rosedale Residence, Kube Architecture, 2017: Named for the Rosedale Conservancy, the family home is made of two offset saltbox structures, modern barns that nod to the neighbourhood’s rural history. It’s just 15 minutes to Georgetown or the National Mall, but the clean, wide-windowed build, stepping down to rolling lawns, is miles outside town in spirit – and as self-contained as can be, with an outdoor pool and two-storey indoor basketball court
Rosedale Residence, Kube Architecture, 2017: Named for the Rosedale Conservancy, the family home is made of two offset saltbox structures, modern barns that nod to the neighbourhood’s rural history. It’s just 15 minutes to Georgetown or the National Mall, but the clean, wide-windowed build, stepping down to rolling lawns, is miles outside town in spirit – and as self-contained as can be, with an outdoor pool and two-storey indoor basketball court
National Gallery of Art extension, Hartman-Cox, 2016: Last year the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, an annex originally designed by IM Pei, added an impressive 1,200 sq m of exhibition space to an already cavernous plan, with two new galleries and a sculpture terrace, inaugurated with a highly distinctive electric-blue ‘cock’ sculpture by Katharina Fritsch
National Gallery of Art extension, Hartman-Cox, 2016: Last year the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, an annex originally designed by IM Pei, added an impressive 1,200 sq m of exhibition space to an already cavernous plan, with two new galleries and a sculpture terrace, inaugurated with a highly distinctive electric-blue ‘cock’ sculpture by Katharina Fritsch
