My op-ed in today's
@washingtonpost: "Not Every Smithsonian Has to Be on the National Mall: The Women's History and Latino Museums Should Be Built on the Energy Department Headquarters Site." [pictured] To quote:
The collapse of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum bill last month was ugly... But the tumult that killed the bill should not distract from a separate problem: the proposed site.
In October 2022,
@smithsonian announced its favored sites for two long-authorized museums: the American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino. The storied institution wanted to jam them into two awkwardly shaped parcels of land on the National Mall: one close to the Washington Monument, the other by the Tidal Basin...
Yet the Mall ought to be preserved from massive structures that block important views and occupy much-needed public space... A solution is staring the Smithsonian in the face...
Directly across Independence Avenue from the Smithsonian Castle is the soon-to-be-vacated James V. Forrestal Building, which served as the Energy Department headquarters... Forrestal is a stained Brutalist superblock, a product of 1960s urban renewal.. .
[T]he Office of Management and Budget authorized Forrestal’s expedited disposal last year...
The timing could not be better. With the megastructure gone, the Women’s History Museum and the Latino Museum can replace it...
The damage [to the neighborhood] could be further repaired by using the Forrestal site as a catalyst for overhauling the surrounding district. A plan developed in 2023, in a
@civicartsociety collaboration with Catholic University’s architecture school, would accomplish that by extending the Mall southward from the Smithsonian Castle to the waterfront, replacing the Brutalist Southwest Federal Center with 15 acres of green space. The plan connects the Mall to the Wharf through museums, plazas and promenades.