Blog

By Claudia Winkler, Class of 2007

Recently I went to Washington D.C. to visit my niece who works for a fair housing start-up. I hadn’t been to our nation’s capital in 18 years, and I returned to Chicago saying—WOW!

All the 19 Smithsonian Museums and the zoo are free – a great use of our tax dollars. And from an architectural perspective it’s an historic city with lots of neo-classical as well as brutalist architecture.

Once on the Mall, I started at the Visitors’ Center, also known as The Castle. A gorgeous red sandstone building designed by James Renwick in 1855, it reflects the Gothic/Romanesque Revival style. My first stop after that was to see the new dinosaur exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History. Very nice, but they don’t have anything equivalent to our Sue!

On to the National Museum of African American History and Culture designed by David Adjaye, Philip Freelon, and Max Bond. Director Lonnie Bunch was formerly at the Chicago History Museum. Tickets are free, but still hard to come by in key tourist season; I was told if I walked up after 1pm, I could walk right in—which is exactly what happened. The building is a three-tiered trapezoidal structure, clad with bronze-colored filigree panels that moderate the light and heat entering the building – very different from the architecture of the other Smithsonian museums. It’s a noble environment that showcases the story of slavery, as well as African American military history and music.

The National Gallery of Art was next. The neo-classical west building (1941) has a collection similar to the AIC. The east building (1978), designed by I.M. Pei, holds modern and contemporary art. As expected, there are mini pyramids between the two buildings that honor his work at the Louvre.

In addition to the amazing Smithsonian museums, the numerous memorials, and the Washington Monument was the beautiful brutalist metro system. It was designed by Chicago’s Harry Weese and opened in 1976. He received an AIA award posthumously in 2014—well deserved! The ceilings are beautiful—when two lines cross (like the Blue and the Red), we see the brutalist ceiling in four directions. The D.C. metro system is considered the second or third largest in the U.S. after New York City, although some list it as second or third after Chicago. The city’s ridership is higher than Chicago’s because they don’t have a Metra train system. Riders swipe their transit card on entering a station and swipe it again when exiting; the fare varies the distance of the ride. It’s a very efficient, beautiful, well run system.

And as I was leaving, the cherry blossoms were blooming. Can’t wait to return when this coronavirus curve has flattened!