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Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard
Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art MuseumRobert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard
Foster + Partners shroud a courtyard with a quiet, ethereal glass canopy for two museums at the Smithsonian Institution.
On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln took the second oath of office on the East Portico of the Capitol, returned to the White House, and then greeted guests that night at his second‹and, sadly, last‹inaugural ball in the Great Hall of the Old Patent Office Building. It was the first time an inaugural ball had been celebrated at a government building, let alone in one that contained what many argued at the time to be one of the finest rooms in Washington, D.C., designed by the well-known 19th-century architect Robert Mills, refinished in 1881 by Aldolf Cluss in dizzying Victorian patterns of marble.
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The Great Hall is still gloriously there, some 143 years later as of this month, and it was joined in November 2007 by what many will agree is one of the finest new rooms in Washington in years‹the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard in the center of the Smithsonian Institution¹s renovated National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum, which have filled the Old Patent Office Building since 1968 (see related story, page 178). It would certainly not be surprising if the next president deems the new courtyard worthy of an inaugural ball come January. Designed by the prolific London office of Foster+Partners, along with SmithGroup¹s Washington office, the three interconnected vaults of the 27,000-square-foot Kogod Courtyard bears a striking resemblance to the soaring glass atrium design of Foster¹s exceptional Great Court of the British Museum [RECORD, March 2001, page 114], in London. But a comparison of the two would be a gross oversimplification, if not downright disingenuous.
“We couldn’t acoustically treat the historic walls of the existing structure, nor could we do anything ‘soft’ on the floor, so that left us with one surface, the roof,” says Spencer de Grey, the cohead of design at Foster. “When you look up at the roof, you will see a series of horizontal aluminum rods, and behind those rods are 9,000 pairs of blue jeans that have been shredded to make an acoustically absorbent surface.” The resulting hushed, serene effect is exactly what you wouldn’t expect in a space consisting of marble and sandstone walls; granite floors with radiant heating and cooling and perimeter ventilation; and that high-tech, rolling glass ceiling. If anything, the courtyard is really a study of the twin architectural conceits of atmosphere and mood, in this case created out of air, light, and flora.
Formal name of project: Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum
Location: Washington, D.C.
Client: Smithsonian Institution
Architect: Foster + Partners
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