The Hirshhorn Building - Bunshaft's Concrete Drum
A stop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, designed the Hirshhorn as a hollow cylinder of concrete mixed with crushed pink granite, which gives it its warm color. The outside wall has almost no windows, which protects the art and makes the building look sealed and mysterious from the Mall.
The drama is on the inside. The galleries on the second and third floors circle the building in two rings: the outer one for paintings and sculpture, the inner one ringed with glass that looks down into the courtyard and its fountain. The only long window is a balcony on the third floor that faces the Mall.
In 2018, artist Hiroshi Sugimoto redesigned the lobby, adding round tables made from the trunk of a single Japanese nutmeg tree.
Next, take the escalator down to the lower level for Barbara Kruger.
More on Wikipedia: Gordon Bunshaft · SOM · Hiroshi Sugimoto
Stops on this tour
- Washington Monument
- National Museum of African American History and Cu
- National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- National Gallery of Art
- United States Capitol
- United States Botanic Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Air and Space Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle
- Freer Gallery of Art
- Jefferson Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- White House Ellipse
- White House
- Lafayette Square