Category

Cultural Projects

Welcome Back, DCist! A Look at Steven Holl Architects’ Kennedy Center Expansion

On June 11, 2018

The roof of the REACH will be planted as part of an additional 130,000 square feet of green space in the Kennedy Center expansion.

Local news site DCist relaunched today after a little more than six months of hiatus. I’m pleased to have contributed a piece on the Kennedy Center’s expansion—an ambitious, 72,000-square-foot addition to the performing arts campus designed by Steven Holl Architects—to the latest incarnation of DCist.

An excerpt from the piece is below, but be sure to click through for the full story as well as the rest of the glorious comeback coverage featured on DCist:

“Ginkgoes are an amazing tree,” architect Steven Holl explained at a recent construction tour of the center. “In the fall, they get these golden colors that hang on the trees through the month of November. I have three ginkgo trees that I’ve planted, and I’ve witnessed this, where, in November, suddenly all the leaves decide to fall. I’m hoping that it could happen here on the 22nd of November, which is that fateful day of Kennedy’s removal from the face of the earth. Anyway, that is going to be a beautiful grove. When the leaves drop, it’s like a golden carpet below the trees.”

At last week’s tour, Holl, the founder of Steven Holl Architects, bordered on the lyrical in describing his firm’s work as curving tips of an iceberg connected beneath the surface and likening movement between aboveground and underground spaces to a violinist’s glissando, the slide between two notes.

“Most of the curves are about the connectivity of the underground to these three river pavilions above. That same curve goes all the way down,” Holl said. The expansion will open on September 7, 2019.

Read the full story at DCist. Thankfully, DCist’s active comment community seems to continue to thrive. It should be noted that the ginkgo trees mentioned above, which will be planted at the expansion, are all male trees, i.e., the non-stinky-fruit-bearing kind.

Sneak Peek of Thomas Phifer’s Glenstone Expansion

On May 22, 2018

by Deane

The Pavilions at Glenstone, by Thomas Phifer and Partners with PWP Landscape Architecture | © Deane Madsen

The Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Md., opened its doors to visitors for a preview of its latest exhibition,“Louise Bourgeois: To Unravel a Torment,” and a walking tour of its expansion. The expansion, designed byThomas Phifer and Partners with PWP Landscape Architecture, will open in October.

The Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Md., was abuzz with activity during a recent press preview for its latest exhibition, “Louise Bourgeois: To Unravel a Torment,” which opened May 10, not least because visitors were also offered a brief walkthrough of the museum’s significant expansion, which is set to open October 4.

Glenstone may be one of the greater Washington area’s best-kept secrets, but expect that to change this fall. The museum opened the doors of its original 30,000-square-foot museum, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, in 2006. Since then, Glenstone has grown its undulating landscape, swelling from 100 acres to 230 acres and becoming a pastoral backdrop for large-scale outdoor sculptures from artists that include Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Jeff Koons, and Janet Cardiff with George Bures Miller.

The museum has also outgrown the 9,000 square feet of gallery space of its Gwathmey Siegel–designed facilities, prompting a dramatic expansion at the hands of Thomas Phifer and Partners with PWP Landscape Architecture, which adds 50,000 square feet of gallery space—along with an arrival center, two cafés, and storage and administrative spaces that bring the total addition to 240,000 square feet—in a cluster of variable-sized concrete boxes dubbed “the Pavilions.”

Read the full story at Architectural Record.

Louise Bourgeios’s “Cells” series includes intimate rooms constructed of found objects. | © Deane Madsen

Hirshhorn Lobby Updates Underway

On January 26, 2018

by Deane

A new café, operated by Dolcezza, features a bronze counter and overlapping tin shingles on sliding wall panels.

Renovations are in full swing in the lobby of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The Hirshhorn announced its lobby refresh by Hirsoshi Sugimoto in December 2017.

The lobby, which will see its first major redesign in the Hirshhorn’s 42-year history, will gain an outpost of local coffee and gelato purveyor Dolcezza as well as lounge seating by Sugimoto’s firm,New Material Research Laboratory (NMRL). A light installation by Olafur Eliasson will also be on display.

Olafur Eliasson’s “Your oceanic view” will hang in the Hirshhorn lobby.

Groundbreaking ceremony for Eisenhower Memorial

On November 5, 2017

by Deane

Members of the Eisenhower family and Memorial commission, along with Frank Gehry (center) break ground on the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C.

It was my great honor to cover the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial groundbreaking ceremony, which was held in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2. Descendants of the former president as well as Memorial commissioners and members of the design team–including architect Frank Gehry–were on hand to mark the start of construction for a memorial that has been held up in contentious legislative battles for most of a decade.

“We’ve waited so long and [have] been through so much on it,” Gehry said after the ceremony. “But compared to other memorials, I think we’re half the time! [With] everything that went on, I always believed in the Eisenhower family.”

Gehry also spoke of his personal connection to Eisenhower in an official press release from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission; many of his family members lost their lives in Germany leading up to World War II:

“This project has been an enormous honor for me both professionally and personally. I was 16 years old when Eisenhower defeated the Nazis and led American to victory in WWII. I had lost 33 members of my family in the camps, so his victory was all the more meaningful to me. His leadership in peacetime was as inspiring. He led the country with strength, but also with great humanity and humility. I hope that these values are captured in the memorial, and that it will be a place to honor and to learn from one of the greatest heroes that the world has ever known.”

Read the full story at Architectural Record.

NCPC Approves Eisenhower Memorial and Carnegie Library Renovation

On October 11, 2017

by Deane

In its October meeting, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) approved final plans for the proposed memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower as well as renovations that would transform Washington, D.C.’s Carnegie Library into an Apple Store.

The Eisnenhower Memorial, designed by Frank O. Gehry Architects with sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov and tapestry designer Tomas Osinski, has been the source of lengthy and contentious debate, in large part due to inclusion of metal mesh tapestries depicting various scenes of President Eisenhower’s life and achievements, but received support from Eisenhower’s family last year.

Frank Gehry

Watch Frank Gehry explain his design for the Eisenhower Memorial.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial will take place next month.