On architecture: The National Building Museum inspires curiosity about the world we design and build

One of the hidden gems among many great landmarks and monuments that dot Washington, D.C., our nation’s federal city, is the National Building Museum. Located at 401 F Street NW near Judiciary Square, the National Building Museum (formerly the Pension Building) inspires curiosity about the world we design and build for ourselves – from our homes, skyscrapers and public buildings to our parks, bridges and cities.

It is through the National Building Museum’s exhibitions, educational programs and publications that it educates us about American achievements in architecture, design, engineering, urban planning and construction.

National Building Museum

The National Building Museum dates back to its construction between 1882 and 1887 to house the U.S. Pension Bureau and as a national memorial to the Union forces who fought in the Civil War from 1861-65. It was designed by Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who studied both architectural design and engineering at West Point, then during the Civil War was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army.

Although the Pension Bureau relocated in 1926, the building continued to serve various government agencies for another 50 years. In the 1960s, an adaptive reuse plan that recommended restoring the structure and creating a museum devoted to building arts was established. In 1980, it became chartered by Congress as a private, nonprofit institution. Today, the National Building Museum is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

The National Building Museum was designed to provide the nation’s capital with a large interior space for public events, and in 1885, two years before the building’s completion, President Grover Cleveland’s first inaugural ball was held in the building. I learned that elaborate decorations masked an unfinished interior, which was covered by a temporary wooden roof. The building’s Great Hall (which measures 316 feet by 116 feet) has gone on to host 19 inaugural celebrations, the most recent being in 2017.

The National Building Museum’s materials include 15.5 million bricks with brick and terra cotta ornament. Also, the Corinthian columns are among the tallest interior columns in the world at 75 feet high, eight feet in diameter and 25 feet in circumference. Each column was built of 70,000 bricks and painted in 1895 to resemble marble. The columns were re-marbleized in 2000 to reflect their original pattern.

The exterior frieze at the National Building Museum.

Worth noting is the exterior frieze of the building, which is 1,200 feet long by three feet high and was commissioned by Meigs in1882. Designed by the Bohemian-born sculptor Casper Buberl (1834-1889), the terra cotta frieze features a continuous parade of Civil War Union forces, including infantry, cavalry, artillery, naval, quartermaster and medical units.

Among the exhibits currently on display:

• Secret Cities: The Architecure and Planning of the Manhattan Project (through July 28, 2019). This exhibition explores the “Secret Cities” of Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford/Richland, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico, which the U.S. government built during World War II in order to produce an atomic bomb before the Axis powers could do so. It examines these cities as providing grounds for modern ideas about architecture, urban planning, and building technology.

• Flickering Treasures: Rediscovering Baltimore’s Forgotten Movie Theaters (through October 14, 2019). This exhibition explores the architectural and social history of Baltimore’s movie theaters from 1896 to present. Baltimore Sun award-winning photojournalist Amy Davis has contributed to this exhibition and there are also historic images, theater ephemera, furnishings and architectural fragments that will evoke memories of our movie-going past and present and also illuminate themes of loss and preservation.

Learn more: www.nbm.org. Open daily and Sunday except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Photos: © Michael Dickens, 2018.

Of shock and sadness: It was a bad week for journalism

Journalism has been called story telling with a purpose. The past week was not a very kind one for the craft of journalism, a profession I love dearly, or for its practitioners. It was a week filled full of shock and sadness. Unfortunately, there's not been much time for reflection.

"This week has just been overwhelming," said Betsy West, a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, recently quoted by the website pix11.com. "Some of the most tragic news that just keeps happening one after the other, after the other."

Brian Williams

The week started badly when America's most trusted and honored news anchor, Brian Williams of NBC News, was found to have lied about an incident in the Iraq War in which he said that a helicopter that he was riding in was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade and almost crashed. In fact, it was another gunship that was downed.

Williams's "misremembered" past coupled with a less-than-satisfactory on-air apology earned him a six month suspension without pay from the peacock network.

Jon Stewart

Then, Jon Stewart, America's best media and political satirist, announced that he was leaving as anchor of the Emmy Award-winning -- and influential -- The Daily Show later this year, ending a wonderful 16-year run on Comedy Central. His announcement sent shock waves through social media, lighting up Twitter and Facebook. 

"It's been an absolute privilege. It's been the honor of my professional life, and I thank you for watching it, for hate watching it, whatever reason you were tuning in for," said Stewart in sharing his decision to leave The Daily Show.

Bob Simon

A day after Stewart's surprise, Bob Simon of CBS News and 60 Minutes fame, who established himself as one of America's heroic war correspondents covering difficult conflicts in all corners of the world, was killed in a tragic car accident in New York City.

On the night of his death, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, one of Simon's colleagues on 60 Minutes, tweeted: "One of the great writers of a generation has passed. Bob Simon was a journalist of extraordinary courage."

David Carr

Finally, David Carr, America's pre-eminent media columnist at The New York Times -- and a big champion of social media -- died in his own newsroom Thursday night after moderating a public panel hosted by his newspaper. Ironically, his last "Media Equation" column, published three days before he died, was about Brian Williams and focused on the trials and tribulations of being a celebrity journalist.

"I've never experienced a week where people were talking about journalism so much and about the importance of journalism," said West, formerly an award-winning member at 60 Minutes and a friend of Simon's.

Although the impact of all four events struck a chord with me, Stewart's surprise announcement and Simon's quick and sudden death -- in an avoidable car crash -- resonated with me the most.

It's not often that you get to leave something you're passionate about on your own terms and while at the top of your game, but that's what Stewart is doing -- leaving on a career high note. Since 1999, Stewart has informed us and entertained us in a way few have been able to do. He's championed causes, nurtured talent -- think Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver -- and turned his show into a vehicle for showcasing the best literary authors in the world, thereby rekindling the public's interest -- and my interest, too -- in reading books. And, what's not to like about Stewart's way he ends each broadcast with "a moment of Zen"?

While it's too early to speculate who will succeed Stewart as host of The Daily Show, one thing's certain: Stewart has set the bar awful high -- being "a comic genius, generous with his time and talent" in the words of Comedy Central's president -- and he will be dearly missed.

As for Simon, he was an esteemed broadcast journalist -- an award-winning storyteller without peer. The 73-year-old legendary CBS News and 60 Minutes correspondent, who started at the network in 1967, became renowned for his international coverage, including Vietnam, the Middle East and Israel. He covered many major news events and conflicts, both in the U.S. and throughout the world. As a war correspondent, Simon was captured by Iraqi forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border during the opening days of the Persian Gulf War in January 1991. He and his crew were freed after being held captive for 40 days.

I admired Simon's style and his ability to craft a story. For the past 19 years, he was a mainstay on the CBS Sunday night news magazine 60 Minutes and was equally outstanding narrating a serious or human interest story. The most recent of his 27 Emmy Awards was a story he reported for 60 Minutes about an orchestra in Paraguay whose members made instruments out of trash.

Last Sunday night, Simon's last piece for 60 Minutes aired. It led the broadcast and told a story about a potential cure for the Ebola virus. The story was produced by Simon's daughter, Tanya. At the end of the show's broadcast, Simon's colleague, Steve Kroft, his voice trembling ever so slightly, looked at the camera and spoke these words: "All of us lost him -- his family, his colleagues here at 60 Minutes and all of you who have watched this broadcast over the years. We lost his curiosity, his unparalleled writing ability, his calm bravery under fire. And we lost his sense of justice and his sense of the absurd -- both of which he brought to so much of his reporting."

Indeed, Simon will be sorely missed. His legacy will endure through his storytelling.

Looking back, it has been a week when there's been both a greatness and emptiness in truth within the journalism industry.

Photos: Courtesy Google images.