A National Building Museum PhotoJournal

We've finally arrived at the time of year when the hubster doesn't work on Saturdays, so it's also time to revive our tradition of Super Saturdays, when we try to go on an explore that's near home. This past Saturday we decided to visit the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.. This has been on his wishlist to visit for awhile, and this was the perfect day to do it - it was Frank Lloyd Wright Day, in honor of what would have been the architect's 150th birthday.

By the way, admission to the museum itself is free, but some of the exhibits require an admission fee. We paid $10 each for access to all the exhibits and to the curator talks specific to Frank Lloyd Wright Day.



Since we attended on Frank Lloyd Wright Day, we did stop in and listen to the curator talks, and we also did a little coloring. Right now the musuem has an exhibit called Wright on the Walls which is a room full of whiteboards featuring outline drawings of buildings and art pieces designed by Wright. Visitors of all ages are encouraged to use the provided dry erase markers to add their own colors to the drawings.

Other exhibits being featured currently are Timber City, Around the World in 80 Paper Models, Cool & Collected: Recent Acquisitions, and House & Home. For the most part, photos are not permitted in these exhibits. Timber City showed how the benefits of timber construction and had models of many impressive all-timber structures from around the world. Around the World in 80 Paper Models featured the models of buildings popular over the years, both as architect's models and for educational purposes. House & Home was a history and sort of scrapbook of home construction and furnishings in the United States over the past couple hundred years. Cool & Collected was an eclectic selection of building and architecture acquisitions. It's also where I got my favorite photos of the day - the hubster and me sporting a plaster mustache!

The building itself is beautiful and has a fascinating history. You can get all the details at the National Building Museum website, on the History page, so I'll just toss in a few quick facts here, as I remember them from the guided tour we took.

The structure was built in the 1880s as the national headquarters for the United States Pension Bureau. It was also intended to provide a grand space for social and political functions, and to commemorate the service of those who fought for the Union during the Civil War. U.S. Army Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs was appointed architect and engineer for the building, and he modeled it after Roman palaces built during the Renaissance. 

The large interior courtyard design, and large windows were intended to provide plenty of fresh air and natural light for the office workers. There were no interior lights on in the courtyard area when we visited, yet it was definitely light enough for even the construction that was ongoing in preparation for a large summer event. Our tour took us through some of the office spaces and they were quite bright as well.

Over this fireplace, as well as on the outer walls and in the stairwells, there was a frieze honoring the military. This particular one shows the cavalry, and the one from a stairway below shows the infantry (if I remember correctly).

Our tour took us to the third and fourth floors, from which we could look down into the courtyard - a long way down!

The National Building Museum has for many years been host to Inaugural Balls and other state occasions.

This post will be linked at Sometimes Wordless Wednesday, hosted by Tots and Me . . . Growing Up Together!

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