The Courtyard is a "part of two building houses: the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum" (The National). The renovation of the building began in 2001, at first only few improvements were proposed and minor changes, but in 2002 the original project was greatly expanded and new ideas were brought (The National). The biggest change was the enclosing of a simple outdoor courtyard. The challenge for the architects and engineers was to create a closed courtyard that had the same outdoor feel and look of an open courtyard (The National). The challenge was met, and in my opinion exceeded, by a group of London based architects who came up with the design for the new courtyard (The National).
The finished product is a beautiful courtyard, with small trees, bushes, and plants around its perimeter and small pools in the center, overlooked by a breath-taking ceiling unlike any other. This ceiling is the main attraction, of course, and it is a an "elegant glass canopy" which was designed to make it look as if it is floating in the air (The National). The 28,000 square feet of glass also allows daylight and nightlight to enter without any problem creating a natural look and feel allowing for many types of plants to grow freely (The National). If you have never visited this incredible place, then I suggest you do. I guarantee anybody will love it, and if not, there is free Wi-Fi, so no room to complain (The National). If this does motivate you to go, please comment.
Works Cited
"The National Portrait Gallery/Museum Information/Kogod Courtyard." The National Portrait
Gallery/Museum Information/Kogod Courtyard. Smithsonian, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.
This is an interesting and creative post. I have never seen the Kogod Courtyard, and now I'm absolutely inspired to! I think your blog does a service to NOVA residents in highlighting what's basically in our backyard and driving us toward becoming more than commuters.
ReplyDeleteI wonder: since you have an artistic interest in buildings, maybe you could consider using similes or metaphors in your descriptions of them? That would really enhance the readers' experience and engagement when seeing these buildings for the first time.
I wonder, for a future post, could you also talk about the labor involved in buildings of such massive proportion? That would be a very interesting sub-topic discussion!
That is a great suggestion. In this post I focused mostly on the over all look of the building as a way to encourage readers to visit the courtyard. In future posts I will make sure that some of them focus on the building process and the finances used.
DeleteThe Kogod Courtyard sounds very interesting! To be in an indoor courtyard that has the feeling of an outdoor one sounds like a sight that can only be witnessed. I can agree with taking D.C. for granted because we think to ourselves, "I can go there anytime really" or "there's too much traffic so I'll go another time." I'd like to point out that another uniquely designed building (mostly the interior) in D.C. would be the botanical gardens. Its very fascinating.
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