Fall 2007
Historical Feature:
View of the National Gallery of Art's East Building, 4th Street Entrance after dark from the West Building.
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
By Christina B. Farnsworth
Nothing new is built on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall without challenge or controversy. Critics routinely complain that the Mall is full, yet praise new buildings. The East Building of the National Gallery of Art was no exception during its erection, but its public and private spaces, now almost 30 years old, are celebrated internationally as both construction marvel and sculpture.
Just a year after the gallery's June 1, 1978 opening, the Building Stone Institute was among the first to honor the excellence of this now iconic structure with its 1979 Tucker Award. (The now biennial Tucker Awards themselves are 30 years old; the first award was given in 1977.) I. M. Pei designed the East Building; Leonard Jacobson was the gallery's lead architect from the firm now known as Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP, New York.
Today, Pei's clean, contemporary building looks almost as startling and new as it did when first conceived in 1968, and yet it is uniquely warm and inviting.
Visitors line up to enter the National Gallery of Art East Building during the Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986 exhibition.
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The East Building's sense of complementing the original structure came completely from Pei's use of matching "lavender pink" Tennessee marble from the same quarry near Knoxville chosen for the original, neo-classic 1941 National Gallery designed by John Russell Pope (who also designed the two-time Tucker Award winning Jefferson Memorial). Even the coffered, cast-concrete interior ceilings use the dust of that marble to warm their otherwise cold color.
A street separates the two buildings, so Pei's firm designed an underground corridor to link the two structures; tetrahedral skylights light the space. The firm calls the cascading fountain that mesmerizes diners in the below-grade dining facilities a "chadar waterwall."
A surprising amount of the East Building — 154,000 square feet — is hidden from view underground. "The two-story, underground concourse connecting the old and new structures is engineered with waterproof friction joints. This eases any stresses while the four-block-long complex rises and sinks by millimeters each year," the museum's audio tour tells visitors.
Possibly the sharpest corner of any building in the world, the East Building's signature "knife edge" cleaves the air at an angle of 19.5 degrees to a height of 116 feet.
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The visible building is two triangles linked with a triangular atrium. The first triangle is public exhibit space; the other houses offices and research spaces. The National Gallery program for the building specified "a museum to house large travelling exhibitions and to provide the infrastructure and ceremonial spaces lacking in the early twentieth-century building, and also a separate study-center/office facility."
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners' website claims, "In plan, section and elevation, the interlocking volumes merge inseparably in a spatial dialogue of rigorous geometry, technical innovation and exacting craftsmanship." The result is a triumph of stone design and a perpetual exhibit; visitors just stop and stare. The 19-degree fin that has become the building's famous talisman flies 107 feet from ground to roofline. A whopping 16,000-square-foot triangular atrium, punctuated by Alexander Calder's high-flying mobile (one of the last commissions completed before his death), unifies the whole. And just in case the spectacular triangle shape isn't noticed right away, Pei applied lighter slabs of Tennessee marble to the exterior points to subtly bring them attention.
Exiting any of the 11 display areas brings visitors back through the atrium before entering any other exhibit area. The atrium roof is a "space-frame" covered in glass. A screen of aluminum rods modulates sunlight to prevent the bright atrium from overwhelming visitors' eyes as they adjust to the lower light levels needed in galleries to protect the nation's outstanding artworks.
The East Building's unique central space with its 16,000-square foot skylight, accented by the grand Calder mobile, is awe-inspiring.
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Construction of the post-tensioned concrete building began in 1971. In addition to the atrium space, it contains 62,000 square feet of exhibition space and two auditoriums. The separate Visual Arts Study Center features a five-story, sky-lit reading room, six levels of library stacks (three are subterranean), offices and support spaces. And an immense subterranean space includes bathrooms, gift shops and multiple dining facilities for all tastes.
Exhibit spaces vary from the 10-foot-high ground floor gallery to the Tower Galleries accessed by spiral stairs and featuring 35-foot ceilings. In most rooms, curators can adjust ceiling height and manipulate skylights to mix appropriate levels of natural and artificial illumination. The building's audio tour script explains, "Any wall in the East Building not clad in lavender pink stone is temporary, similar to movie or stage sets."
The 8.8-acre trapezoidal site presented many construction challenges, including expansive soils. The existing National Gallery's main building, based on architectural cues from ancient temple architecture, was supported on pylons. According to the audio tour, Pei's East Building rests "on the underlying mud of the Mall."
Another view of the East Building's impressive Calder mobile reveals one reason why thousands of visitors make the trek to visit the National Gallery of Art each year. Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1976, Gift of the Collectors Committe.
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Its six-foot-thick reinforced concrete foundation, according to the building tour guide, "was poured in one continuous flow so that the basement is a water-tight unit that floats like a gigantic ship's hull."
Perhaps its triangles and foundation suggest that the building remains a national ship of art clad in shimmering marble.
National Gallery of Art East Building Facts:
- Planning began in 1968.
- Construction began in 1971 and was completed in 1978.
- Winner of the 1979 Building Stone Institute's Tucker Award.
- Uses "lavender pink" marble from Tennessee.
- 150,000 square feet of the building is underground.
- Features 16,000-square-foot triangular atrium highlighted with marble slabs.
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