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.

Urban design: A public market complete with a "green living room"

Ping pong, anyone? / A green living room
at the Emeryville Public Market

The Public Market sits just across the bay from San Francisco, wedged between Berkeley and Oakland, in Emeryville, Calif. This 14-acre, mixed-use site is an urbanist's dreamscape. It has good office, retail and dining space, a cineplex, and good access to public transportation. The Public Market has undergone an urban transformation over the last year thanks to a new, private ownership group (Center City Reality Partners) that has infused fresh money to match its new look and changed attitude.

While there is still an international food court that's always bustling most weekdays at lunchtime, there are some new retail shops -- Guitar Shop and Urban Outfitters --complemented by a Peet's Coffee & Tea shop that always seems to be abuzz with activity.

According to the San Francisco Business Times, the new owners received a Catalyst Communities Pilot Project grant of $1.35 million to pay for "electric vehicle charging stations, a solar carport, models of recycling and composting, environmental education and a science display on the project's green features." Much of this grant has already come to fruition since the beginning of the year.

One thing which I find very appealing about the new-look of the Emeryville Public Market is the transformation of a once under-utilized patio space outside the former Border's Books into a snazzy and colorful urban park.

With the brick facade of the recently-opened hipster Urban Outfitters clothing store as its backdrop, this expansive urban park space, which also includes a lush, green grassy knoll, is complete with a ping pong table, colorful red and blue Adirondack-style lounge chairs, and a variety of brick and wood benches. It's a very inviting space to come and relax, whether enjoying a cup of coffee or a snack, reading a summer best-seller, or merely soaking up some Bay Area sunshine.

The Emeryville Public Market is located at 5959 Shellmound Street, Emeryville.

Photograph by Michael Dickens, copyright 2013.