DC STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE DETERMINATION OF ELIGIBILITY FORM

PROPERTY INFORMATION

Property Name(s): Smithsonian Quadrangle Street Address(es): 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20560 Square(s) and Lot(s): Reservation 3A Property Owner(s): Smithsonian Institution The property is being evaluated for potential historical significance as: An individual building or structure. A contributing element of a historic district:1 A possible expansion of a historic district: Specify A previously unevaluated historic district to be known as: Specify An archaeological resource with site number(s): Specify An object (e.g. statue, stone marker etc.): Specify A new multiple property/thematic study regarding: Specify Association with a multiple property/thematic study: Specify Other: Specify See continuation sheets for current photographs of the property, map, description, rationale for the proposed determination of eligibility, images, drawings, and other pertinent information.2 ______PREPARER’S DETERMINATION Eligibility Recommended Eligibility Not Recommended Applicable National Register Criteria: Applicable Considerations: A B C D A B C D E F G

Prepared By: Daria Gasparini, Principal, Robinson & Associates, Inc. Date: May 25, 2017 DC SHPO REVIEW AND COMMENTS Concurs with Recommendation Does Not Concur with Recommendation

David Maloney Date: District of Columbia State Historic Preservation Officer Reviewed by: DC Government Project/Permit Project Log Number:

1 The Smithsonian Quadrangle is a contributing element of the National Mall Historic District. See Robinson & Associates, Inc., National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “National Mall Historic District,” August 31, 2016, prepared for the National Park Service. Although the purpose of this individual Determination of Eligibility for the Smithsonian Quadrangle is not to elaborate extensively on its contributing status to the historic district, a brief explanatory statement in the Previous Evaluations section is provided.

2 All photographs are by Robinson & Associates (June 2016) unless otherwise indicated. DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 1: Aerial view of the Smithsonian Institution Building (foreground) and the Smithsonian Quadrangle’s Enid A. Haupt Garden, National Museum of African Art entrance pavilion (upper left), and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery entrance pavilion (upper right). (Photo courtesy Martin Stupich.)

Figure 2: View looking northwest from Independence Avenue of the entrance pavilions to the National Museum of African Art (right foreground) and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (left background), Smithsonian Quadrangle.

2 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 3: View looking north across the central parterre of the Enid A. Haupt Garden, Smithsonian Quadrangle, to the Smithsonian Institution Building.

Figure 4: Map of the Mall with the location of the Smithsonian Quadrangle identified with an orange star. [USGS Topographic Map, 2014] 3 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 5: Site plan showing the location and arrangement of the Enid A. Haupt Garden and the aboveground pavilions of the Smithsonian Quadrangle. [Image courtesy Surfacedesign]

INTRODUCTION

The Smithsonian Quadrangle is located on a 4.2-acre site within the Smithsonian’s South Mall Campus, which encompasses approximately 12 acres of land within the National Mall Historic District in Washington, D.C. The site is bounded by the Freer Gallery of Art (Freer Sackler Gallery) on the west, the Smithsonian Institution Building (the Castle) on the north, the Arts and Industries Building on the east, and Independence Avenue on the south. (See Figure 5.) The Quadrangle comprises a multilevel subterranean structure with three aboveground entrance pavilions set within a rooftop garden dedicated as the Enid A. Haupt Garden. The building functions as a combined museum, office, education, and support complex that contains the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Center, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and the National Museum of African Art. The Smithsonian Quadrangle (1983-87) was designed by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott (Jean Paul Carlhian, Design Principal) in the postmodern style following a concept by Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura. The landscape architect of record was Sasaki Associates. In 2016, the Smithsonian Quadrangle was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing building to the National Mall Historic District.

PURPOSE AND METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this Determination of Eligibility is to provide an evaluation of the Smithsonian Quadrangle for its potential significance as an individual building under the National Register of Historic Places Criteria for Evaluation in satisfaction of the requirements of the D.C. Historic Preservation Office. A Determination of Eligibility is an initial consideration of the National Register eligibility of a resource used to fulfill a state or federal agency’s obligations under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. It provides objective, accurate, and meaningful documentation of a historic resource to assist in reaching a consensus determination between an agency and a State Historic Preservation Office and can be followed by further evaluations.

For the purposes of this Determination of Eligibility, the Quadrangle is classified as a building. This classification, which is consistent with Quadrangle’s resource type in the National Register nomination for the National Mall Historic District, refers to the historically and functionally related unit comprised of the Enid A. Haupt Garden, the entrance pavilions to the Sackler Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, and the Ripley Center, and the Quadrangle’s subterranean structure.

4 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

The content of this Determination of Eligibility follows the guidelines established by the D.C. Historic Preservation Office. It includes a description of the resource focusing on its principal public spaces, a concise narrative describing the historical background in which the building and its associated landscape were designed and developed, a description of key changes to the building and grounds over time, an evaluation of significance, and a list of key features. Since this Determination of Eligibility does not recommend that the Quadrangle is individually eligible for the National Register at this time, it does not define a period of significance or provide an evaluation of integrity. It does, however, include a list of “key features,” which have been defined as the important extant features remaining from the original construction. Drafting this list assisted in the process of evaluating the resource and provided a knowledge base to guide decision making. The list of key features may also be used as reference for future evaluations of the Quadrangle’s individual eligibility.

The evaluation of significance section includes a summary of the Quadrangle’s existing National Register status as a contributing building of the National Mall Historic District and an assessment of its potential significance as an individual building at the local and national levels. The evaluation follows the U.S. Department of the Interior guidelines for applying the National Register Criteria for Evaluation and Criteria Considerations. The National Register Criteria for Evaluation include: Criterion A, for properties associated with significant events; Criterion B, for properties associated with significant persons; Criterion C, for properties that embody distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, properties that represent the work of a master, or properties that possess high artistic value; and Criterion D, for properties that yield information important to prehistory or history. Due to the fact that it was completed in 1987, this Determination of Eligibility also evaluates the Quadrangle under National Register Criterion Consideration G, for properties less than fifty years old. Criterion Considerations set forth special standards for listing certain kinds of properties usually excluded from the National Register. Criterion Consideration G states that special exception is made for properties of the recent past that are of exceptional importance at the national, state, or local level. National Register guidelines state that Criterion Considerations are applied only to individual properties, not to contributing elements of eligible historic districts. Components of eligible districts do not have to meet special requirements unless they make up the majority of the district or are the focal point of the district.

This Determination of Eligibility recognizes that decisions concerning the significance of properties, especially the exceptional importance of properties as required to meet Criterion Consideration G, can be made reliably only when the relationship of individual properties to other similar properties is understood. As such, the development of historic contexts – organizational frameworks based on themes, geographic limits, or chronological periods – is a key step in decisions about the identification, evaluation, and registration of historic properties. Several kinds of information are needed to develop an historic context, including surveys or inventories, published sources, and archival research. Currently, historic contexts in which to evaluate the individual contributions of the Quadrangle exploring such themes as postmodern architecture in Washington, D.C., the events and trends that shaped the late twentieth-century development of the Smithsonian Institution, and many other topics of the immediate past do not yet exist.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Smithsonian Quadrangle is a postmodern style building designed by architect Jean Paul Carlhian of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott with landscape architects Sasaki Associates, following a design concept developed by architect Junzo Yoshimura. It was constructed between 1983 and 1987 on a site south of the Smithsonian Institution Building. This Determination of Eligibility has determined that the Quadrangle does not now qualify as exceptionally significant at the national or local level as required under National Register Criteria Consideration G for resources less than fifty years of age. As such, this evaluation recommends that the building does not at this time meet the eligibility requirements for individual listing in the National Register. Consideration should be given to reviewing the potential significance of the resource when adequate local or national historic contexts are available or when

5 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle additional time has passed. This Determination of Eligibility recognizes the current National Register status of the Quadrangle as a contributing resource of the National Mall Historic District and concludes that this is the appropriate level of recognition at this time.

DESCRIPTION

Overview

The Smithsonian Quadrangle is comprised of three underground levels containing exhibition galleries, administrative offices, and educational spaces, three aboveground entrance pavilions, and a designed landscape. The building’s substructure is constructed of a 42-inch-thick reinforced concrete foundation mat located 57 feet below grade, 30-inch-thick reinforced concrete foundation walls, and a subterranean roof structure consisting of a concrete deck covered by a double-layer membrane.3 Between the roof membrane and the earth fill and top soil above is a drainage void created by a 6-inch layer of gravel resting on precast concrete blocks with integrated pedestals.4 The Quadrangle’s superstructure consists of three discrete aboveground structures placed in a garden landscape and sited to approximate a quadrangle, or open-air courtyard, south of the Smithsonian Institution Building. They include the one-story rectangular pavilions that flank the entrance to the Enid A. Haupt Garden from Independence Avenue and lead to the Sackler Gallery and the National Museum of African Art and the circular pavilion located in the northwest corner of the site that accesses the Ripley Center. The rectangular pavilions share a similar form and massing and are both clad in granite with copper roofing. The total size of the building (including the aboveground pavilions) is 360,000 gross square feet, ninety-six percent of which is located underground. (See floor plans in Appendix A.) The 4.2-acre Haupt Garden provides a setting for the entrance pavilions and features a central parterre, two formal component gardens, broad footpaths, trees and other plant materials, and a variety of small-scale features.

National Museum of African Art

Exterior Description The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art specializes in ancient and contemporary African visual arts. The entrance pavilion to the museum is located in the southeast quadrant of the Quadrangle site. (See Figure 5.) The museum’s exhibition galleries and support spaces are located underground within the Quadrangle’s subterranean levels.

The museum’s one-story entrance pavilion measures 92 feet long along its east-west axis and 62 feet wide. It is 24 feet high measuring to the top of the cornice and 36 feet high at the top of the domes on the roof. The pavilion is faced with “Sunset Red” granite from Texas that has a pink hue selected to harmonize with the red brick façade of the adjacent Arts and Industries Building. The round arch Beaux- Arts articulation of the Freer Gallery of Art is the influence for the circular motif evident in many aspects of the pavilion’s design.5 The roof features six copper-clad domes and granite finials. (The center dome on the south side has a skylight.) Circular shapes are used at the entrances to the pavilion and within the

3 Press release, “The Smithsonian’s New Underground Museum Project,” September 1987, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 06-225: Smithsonian Institution, Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation, Building Files, Box 45, hereafter shortened to SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 45. The Quadrangle was constructed using slurry (or diaphragm) walls. This system employed concrete walls that functioned both as load-bearing elements and as a watertight membrane.

4 Smithsonian Institution press release, “The Smithsonian’s New Underground Museum Project,” September 1987, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 45.

5 Edwards Park and Jean Paul Carlhian, A New View from the Castle (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987): 104-5. 6 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle round-arch windows and blind windows that articulate the exterior bays. (See Figure 6.) The window on the south façade has blue tinted glass; the three openings on the north have clear class. The pavilion is divided into three bays on the north and south façades and two bays on the east and west. The main entrance to the museum is located on the west façade of the pavilion, where the entrance and exit doors are set perpendicular to the west façade within a deep recess. Additional doors are located in the center bay of the north façade and in the south bay of east façade. With the exception of the entrance bays, there are round-arch windows or blind windows with stylized keystones in the center of each bay. Flat granite panels and bands suggesting pilasters, a stringcourse, and frieze articulate the exterior walls of the pavilion. The granite used on the exterior has various finishes. Around the windows and doors the granite is polished; along the roofline the stone is rough.

Interior Description The ground floor of the National Museum of African Art entrance pavilion functions as a lobby and visitor services area. (See floor plans in Appendix A.) Along the entire north side of the ground floor is a long rectangular gallery under three domed coffers. (See Figure 7.) Three tall, glazed, arched openings along the north wall of the gallery provide natural light to the interior. Within the center arch is a double door. On the south side of the ground floor is an open, curved staircase that descends to the first sublevel, as well as an elevator lobby, a small security screening area, and a room containing storage lockers. The staircase has granite treads and risers and metal handrails. (See Figure 8.) A pair of elevators near the east door provides access to the lower levels. The interior walls of the pavilion are limestone. Wallboard panels (not original) with a wood cornice (not original) cover the lower half of the walls of the gallery. (See Figure 7.) Decorative wood screens (not original) are set within the arched openings of the south wall of the gallery. The door and window frames are painted metal. The floors of the pavilion are granite.

Clustered around the staircase landing on the first sublevel of the National Museum of African Art are several exhibition galleries. (See Figure 9.) A skylight measuring 117 feet long and 8 feet wide provides natural light to the gallery spaces south of the stair hall. The floors of the galleries are carpeted, and the walls are wallboard with plywood backing. The walls of the main circulation corridors and stair halls are limestone. In addition to the museum galleries, public areas of the first sublevel include a gift shop and restrooms. The elevator vestibules have wood floors and wood paneled walls. The second sublevel of the museum includes a double-height exhibition gallery, a lecture hall, and a workshop. On the third sublevel, at the bottom of the light well created by the open staircase, is a shallow circular fountain basin with a single center jet. The basin has blue tiles and a painted metal rim. There is an exhibition gallery on this level as well as administrative offices and a corridor that provides public access to the Ripley Center.

7 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 6: National Museum of African Art entrance pavilion, looking east.

8 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 7: Ground floor of the National Museum of Figure 8: Ground floor of the National Museum of African Art pavilion, looking west. African Art pavilion, looking south.

Figure 9: First sublevel of the National Museum of African Art pavilion, looking southeast.

9 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Exterior Description The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is one of the Smithsonian’s two museums of Asian Art. (The other is the Freer Gallery of Art, which opened to the public in 1923 and is connected to the Sackler Gallery by an underground passageway.) The entrance pavilion to the Sackler Gallery is located in the southwest quadrant of the Quadrangle site. (See Figure 5.) The museum’s exhibition galleries and support spaces are located underground within the Quadrangle’s subterranean levels.

The Sackler Gallery entrance pavilion has the same dimensions as the National Museum of African Art pavilion – 92 feet long by 62 feet wide. (See Figure 10.) It measures 24 feet to the top of the cornice and 38 feet to the apex of the roof, which features six copper-clad pyramidal forms and finials. (The center pyramid on the south side has a skylight.) The pavilion is faced with “Rockville Beige” granite from Minnesota. This granite was chosen to complement the cream-colored stone of the adjacent Freer Gallery. While the design of the National Museum of African Art pavilion features circular shapes and round arches, the design of the Sackler Gallery pavilion employs a pyramid motif inspired by the towers of the Arts and Industries Building.6 Like the east entrance pavilion, the Sackler Gallery pavilion is three bays wide by two bays deep, and the exterior walls feature granite panels and bands suggesting classical architectural treatments. Diamond shapes are used to articulate the pavilion’s main entrance, window and door openings, and blind windows. The principal entrance to the Sackler Gallery pavilion is on the east façade on axis with the entrance to the National Museum of African Art pavilion. It features entrance and exit doors set perpendicular to the west façade within a deep recess. Additional doors are located in the center bay of the north façade and in the south bay of west façade.

Interior Description In plan, the ground floor of the Sackler Gallery pavilion is nearly a mirror image of the ground floor of the National Museum of African Art pavilion. (See floor plans in Appendix A.) The space includes a long rectangular gallery along the north wall, an entrance vestibule with security desks near the east doors, a diamond-shaped open staircase that provides access to the first sublevel, a small locker storage area, and an elevator lobby near the west doors. (See Figure 11 and Figure 12.) Tall glazed openings with interior screens (not original) along the north wall of the gallery look out onto the Haupt Garden. The interior walls of the pavilion are limestone. The floors are granite. The diamond-shaped staircase to the first sublevel has granite treads and risers and a painted metal handrail. The open staircase surrounds a light well that extends to the third sublevel where there is a shallow diamond-shaped fountain basin with two water jets. The basin has green tiles and a painted metal rim.

On the first sublevel of the Sackler Gallery there are exhibition galleries and a gift shop. A long, narrow north-facing skylight illuminates the exhibition galleries located south of the stair hall. The landing at the base of the stair is granite, and an adjacent lobby area has oak flooring. The corridor outside the gift shop also has wood flooring. (See Figure 13.) The walls of the galleries are wallboard with plywood backing; the floors of the galleries are carpeted. An underground passageway on the first sublevel connects the Sackler Gallery with the Freer Gallery of Art. The second sublevel of the Sackler Gallery has a gallery, classroom, and other support spaces. The lowest level includes a large exhibition space, administrative offices, and a corridor connecting to the Ripley Center.

In addition to the public museum spaces on the first, second, and third sublevels of the Quadrangle, there is a loading dock (on the first sublevel), museum support spaces, offices and administration areas used by Smithsonian staff, a research library, and mechanical rooms. These spaces are not open to the public and have not been surveyed for the purposes of this evaluation.

6 Park and Carlhian, A New View from the Castle, 104-5. 10 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 10: View looking west of the entrance pavilion to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Quadrangle.

11 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 11: Ground floor of the Sackler Gallery Figure 12: Ground floor of the Sackler Gallery entrance pavilion, looking south. entrance pavilion, looking northwest.

Figure 13: First sublevel of the Sackler Gallery, circulation corridor and elevator lobby.

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S. Dillon Ripley Center

Exterior Description The S. Dillon Ripley Center, which occupies the third sublevel of the Quadrangle, is accessed by a pavilion located in the northwest corner of the site. (See Figure 14.) The pavilion is constructed of limestone and has a 42-foot-diameter circular footprint. Its design features a copper domed roof with a scalloped edge. The roof is supported on smooth columns; several of the bays between the columns are glazed. The main entrance to the Ripley Center entrance pavilion faces north toward Jefferson Drive.

Interior Description On the ground floor of the Ripley Center pavilion is an entrance hall with a security screening area. (See floor plans in Appendix A.) The interior walls of the pavilion are limestone, and the floors are granite. The ground-floor space has a domed ceiling. From the lobby, a curved staircase and an elevator descend to the first sublevel where a set of escalators extend two levels down to the third and lowest level of the Quadrangle complex. (See Figure 15.) The staircase and elevator also provide access to the second and third sublevels from the ground floor. Adjacent to the large multilevel escalator hall is a colonnaded rotunda, which serves as a transition space between the hall and a vast concourse measuring 285 feet long, 28 feet wide, and three stories high. (See Figure 16 and Figure 17.) The floor of the concourse, or great hall, is tiled. At the center of the space is a square fountain basin; on either side of the fountain along the length of the hall are three large circular planters. At the east end of the great hall is a trompe l’oeil mural by artist Richard Haas that portrays a foliated sunken garden with stone arches and a long vista depicting the Smithsonian Institution Building and the Arts and Industries Building.7 (See Figure 18.) Along the north side of the great hall are studios, classrooms, and a lecture hall. South of the great hall are offices and administrative spaces, a conference suite, and the Discovery Theater, a box space without built-in seats that is used primarily for children’s theater and related activities. In addition, two corridors leading from the great hall provide access to the third sublevels of the Sackler Gallery and the National Museum of African Art. Along the south side of the third sublevel is a large mechanical room.

Exhibition panels (not original) cover the lower walls of the great hall and the lower halves of two double-height mirrors set in arched openings at the center point of the hall. (See Figure 17 and Figure 19.) The mirrors (now partially concealed) originally created the illusion of a cross axis at the midway point of the space. The doorways to the classrooms and studios along the north wall of the great hall feature flush wood doors with glazed sidelights and glazed transoms. The doorways along the south wall leading to the offices of the Smithsonian Associates, the International Center, and the Friends of the Smithsonian feature double glass doors with glazed transoms (not original). The doorframes each have a simple architrave and a projecting cornice on flat brackets. Within the upper half of the south wall of the great hall is a series of fixed interior windows. On the opposite side of the hall, the upper wall features several horizontal bands of fixed windows. Two glazed corridors pass above the great hall at the second sublevel. The ceiling of the great hall has four 10-foot-square skylights.

7 The Haas mural is an accessioned artwork that is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collections. 13 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 14: S. Dillon Ripley Center entrance pavilion, looking east.

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Figure 15: Ripley Center escalator hall. Figure 16: Ripley Center rotunda.

Figure 17: Ripley Center great hall, looking west. Note the two double-height mirrors set in arched openings at the center point of the hall (on the far left and far right of the photograph).

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Figure 18: East wall of the Ripley Center on the third Figure 19: Ripley Center great hall, looking southwest. sublevel of the Smithsonian Quadrangle.

Enid A. Haupt Garden8

The Haupt Garden covers a 4.2-acre rectangular site composed of a large central parterre (a formal garden consisting of planted beds set on a level surface) that is bordered on the north, east, and west by lawn panels. The eastern and western panels form the setting for two formal component gardens, two museum pavilions, a loading dock ramp, skylights, enclosed stairwells, and other small-scale features. Broad brick footpaths with granite curbs provide circulation through the space. In addition to acting as the roof of the Quadrangle’s underground structure, the Haupt Garden provides a setting for its entrance pavilions, integrates the grounds south of the Castle with the surrounding urban landscape, and formalizes the approach to the south entrance of the Smithsonian Institution Building from Independence Avenue.

At the center of the Haupt Garden is an elaborate parterre. (See Figure 3 and Figure 20.) The parterre’s rectangular garden bed is arranged along the north-south axis defined by the south doors of the Smithsonian Institution Building and the Renwick Gates, which stand at the south entrance to the Haupt Garden along Independence Avenue. The perimeter of the parterre is defined by hooped iron wickets and a granite curb. Various garden ornaments, including urns and a sundial (not original), as well as signage are placed within niches along the short and long sides of the parterre. The Renwick Gates are a pair of decorative wrought-iron carriage gates set in four sandstone pillars that were fabricated and installed as part of the development of the Haupt Garden. The design of the gates was adapted from an unrealized 1849 design by James Renwick, Jr., the architect of the Smithsonian Institution Building, for the south

8 The garden was named after Enid Annenberg Haupt (1906-2005) the American publisher, philanthropist, and garden enthusiast who donated the funds for the project’s development. 16 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle entrance to the Smithsonian grounds.9 They were constructed in 1987 from red sandstone salvaged from a late nineteenth-century jail that once overlooked the Anacostia River before it was demolished in the early 1980s. The sandstone used to build the jail came from a quarry in Seneca, Maryland, and was the same material used for the construction of the Castle.10 The parterre is surrounded by brick paving (not original) with granite edging. Rows of saucer magnolias planted within the lawn panels along either side of the parterre frame the space and define the visual corridor from the Renwick Gates to the south entrance of the Smithsonian Institution Building. (Several of the magnolias along the double row have been lost due to shallow soil conditions.)

East of the central parterre is the Fountain Garden, which forms the setting of the entrance pavilion to the National Museum of African Art. Inspired by traditional Persian gardens, the Fountain Garden uses water as its primary design element.11 It features an octagonal brick plaza with a single fountain jet at its center. Four low granite walls surround the plaza. Along the top surface of each wall segment is a runnel connecting two shallow bowls at each end. Within each bowl is a single miniature fountain jet. Water traveling along the runnels from each bowl collects in a small basin at the bottom of a niche cut into the center of each wall segment. At the north edge of the plaza is a chadar, a form of man-made waterfall or cascade often used in Persian gardens. (See Figure 21.) The chadar features a tiled inclined slab (the tile is not original) set within a granite frame. A thin sheet of water flows over the slab and collects in a shallow rectangular pool at its base. At the east, south, and west edges of the octagonal plaza are seating areas paved with brick and defined by low granite walls. The top surface of the end of each wall features a shallow bowl carved into the granite with a single fountain jet at the center. The east-west axis of the Fountain Garden is aligned with the west entrance of the Arts and Industries Building. Tall hedges in the earthen banks surrounding the plaza and behind the chadar enclose the space. The entrance paths leading into the garden from the east and west are lined with pairs of saucer magnolias. (The easternmost magnolia along the south side of the path leading to the Arts and Industries Building is no longer extant.)

In the western half of the Haupt Garden is the Moongate Garden, which forms the setting of the entrance pavilion to the Sackler Gallery. Inspired by Chinese gardens, the Moongate Garden features circles and squares, traditional symbolic forms representing, respectively, heaven and earth.12 The principal materials of the garden are water and stone. At the center of the garden is a shallow square pool with a circular granite island. Four granite bridges, placed in alignment with the four cardinal points, cross the pool to the island. A footpath paved in brick with granite edging surrounds the pool. At the northwest and southeast entrances to the garden are massive carved blocks of granite set together in pairs to form circular passageways or “moon doors” (di xue). (See Figure 22.) The outside surfaces of the moon doors are roughly finished, while the curved interior surfaces are polished. Moon doors are traditional architectural elements in Chinese garden design. In the northeast and southwest corners of the garden, the moon doors are laid flat against the earth rather than standing upright. They are surrounded by low shrubs. At the northwest and southeast entrances to the Moongate Garden are rectangular seating areas laid with brick.

9 An engraving of the gates appears in Robert Dale Owen’s Hints on Public Architecture, which was published in 1849. See Owen, Hints on Public Architecture: Containing, Among other Illustrations, Views and Plans of the Smithsonian Institution (New York: G.P Putnam, 1849): 109.

10 Smithsonian Institution Archives, “Renwick Gates in the Enid Haupt Garden,” available at http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_10078, accessed December 16, 2014, and James M. Goode, Capital Losses, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2003): 345.

11 Persian garden philosophy and style influenced the design of gardens in North Africa, Andalusia, and beyond. The Fountain Garden is modeled after the legendary Court of the Lions at the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century Moorish palace in Granada, Spain.

12 The Moongate Garden was inspired by the architectural and symbolic elements found in the Temple of Heaven, which was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in Beijing, China.

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The footpaths between the seating areas and the moon doors are laid with granite pavers and cobblestones. The entrance paths are flanked by pairs of saucer magnolias. Other trees in the Moongate Garden include a weeping Japanese cherry and a weeping beech. The earthen bank along the north edge of the garden is planted with liriope.

Near the northeast corner of the Haupt Garden is the Downing Urn (1856), which is set within a circular planted bed surrounded by a brick patio.13 (See Figure 23.) The lawn surrounding the urn is planted with a ring of three little-leaf linden trees. The 4-foot-high marble urn was designed by architect and landscape designer Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) and sculpted by Robert E. Launitz to commemorate the pioneering landscape gardener, horticulturalist, and author Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852). It rests on an inscribed marble pedestal. Another prominent feature of the Haupt Garden is the bronze sculpture located in the brick plaza outside the west entrance of the Arts and Industries Building. The sculpture, titled Spencer Baird (1978), is the work of artist Leonard Baskin (1922-2000). It depicts Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-87), who during his tenure as the second secretary of the Smithsonian Institution oversaw the construction of the Arts and Industries Building.

Figure 20: View across the Haupt Garden’s central parterre, looking northeast.

13 The Downing Urn is owned by the National Park Service and maintained by the Smithsonian Institution. 18 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 21: Fountain Garden. Figure 22: Moongate Garden.

Figure 23: Downing Urn. Figure 24: Enclosed stairwell.

Within the Haupt Garden are several structures associated with the Quadrangle’s substructure, including six skylights, eight enclosed stairwells, and a vehicular ramp. The skylights provide natural light to the underground levels of the Quadrangle, and the stairwells provide a means of egress. Two of the skylights are located south of the entrance pavilions to the Sackler Gallery and the National Museum of African Art along either side of the Renwick Gates. They measure 117 feet long by 8 feet wide, and at the east and west ends of the skylights are stairwells. Each of these structures is faced in granite, and their south façades form perimeter walls along Independence Avenue. Two pairs of 10-foot-square skylights are located in the lawn panels on either side of the northern end of the central parterre, and two stairwells are located to the east and west of the brick pavement surrounding the south end of the central parterre. These structures have granite walls and are screened from view with vegetation. Within the lawn along the south façade of the Smithsonian Institution Building are two additional enclosed stairwells. These structures are clad in red sandstone, the same material used to construct the Castle and the Renwick Gates. (See Figure 24.) They feature standing-seam copper gable roofs. The vehicular ramp is located along the western edge of the site with access from Independence Avenue. It is covered with a steel lattice structure.

In addition to the vegetation surrounding the component gardens and described above, plant materials within the Haupt Garden include flowering ornamentals, herbaceous borders, and large shade trees. (For a list of remaining original plant materials see the Key Features section below.) In the lawn along the south façade of the Smithsonian Institution Building there are American hollies, two ginkgo trees, and a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana). Along the north façades of the museum pavilions are rows of katsura trees. Additional tree species include Chinese evergreen oak, southern magnolia, saucer magnolia,

19 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle paperbark maple, and silverbell. Other plant materials found in the garden include blue milkweed, yew, and Japanese fatsia.

Circulation features of the Haupt Garden include wide brick footpaths laid in a herringbone pattern with gray granite curbs and narrower footpaths leading to the Fountain Garden and the Moongate Garden. The brick footpaths along the eastern and western edges of the site feature alcoves for seating and for the seasonal display of potted plants. Small-scale features include benches in a wide variety of materials and styles, such as wood Lutyens benches, wood slat benches, and cast-iron settees and chairs. Other small- scale features include planting pots and cast-iron urns, single-globe lampposts, signage, and trash receptacles. Views within the Haupt Garden include the view looking north from the Renwick Gates of the south façade of the Smithsonian Institution Building and the reciprocal view from the south entrance of the Castle down the 10th Street axis; the view looking east from the Fountain Garden to the west façade of the Arts and Industries Building; periodic views from the footpaths within the Haupt Garden of the Mall, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the Arts and Industries Building; periodic views from the footpaths within the Haupt Garden of the entrance pavilions to the Quadrangle Complex; and the sweeping view of the Mall and the Washington Monument from the entrance to the Ripley Center.

20 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Early Development of the City of Washington

On July 16, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, officially titled “An Act for Establishing the Temporary and Permanent Seat of the Government of the United States,” which authorized President George Washington to select the site of the first permanent capital of the United States. In January of the following year, Washington announced his choice – a diamond-shaped tract measuring 10 miles square located at the convergence of the Potomac River and its Eastern Branch (Anacostia River).14 Washington also appointed Peter (Pierre) Charles L’Enfant, a French artist and engineer, as the architect of the new capital. L’Enfant’s Plan of the City Intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government of t[he] United States consisted of an orthogonal street grid superimposed over an array of radiating diagonal avenues, ceremonial parks, and greenswards. Principal buildings, monuments, and parks were assigned to prominent topographic points, granting them “the most advantageous ground, commanding the most extensive prospects.”15 L’Enfant created intentional vistas along the avenues and streets that allowed for reciprocal views between major buildings and sites.

In 1792, the government purchased a total of 541 acres for federal building sites and divided this land into seventeen parcels. These original appropriations were described by location and function in a note accompanying surveyor Andrew Ellicott’s engraving of the L’Enfant plan and were depicted graphically in a map prepared by James R. Dermott in 1795-97. Original Appropriation No. 1 was set aside as the site for the “President’s Palace.” What is now the Mall, from the U.S. Capitol Grounds on the east to 14th Street on the west, was part of Original Appropriation 2.16 The Mall was envisioned by L’Enfant as a grand boulevard visually connecting the Capitol with the grounds set aside for an equestrian monument to Washington.

Throughout the early nineteenth century, Washington’s growth was slow. The development of public land was hindered by a lack of funds, and property was lost to private interests. Efforts to improve the landscape of the city during this period focused on the grounds surrounding the President’s House and the Capitol. Only modest attempts were made at grading and paving the streets.17 Instead of being improved as a single landscape, the commons spreading west from the Capitol was divided into several tracts by the crossings of 6th, 7th, 12th, and 14th streets. Due in part to the stagnant condition of the Washington City Canal, which ran along the north side of the Mall, these tracts were generally seen as undesirable and received little attention. This began to change by the mid-nineteenth century with the construction of the Smithsonian Institution Building along the south side of the Mall.

14 The tract consisted of 64 square miles ceded from Maryland and 36 square miles from Virginia. Iris Miller, Washington in Maps, 1606-2000 (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2002): 48.

15 Ibid., 38. Miller provides a transcription of L’Enfant’s notes “Observations explanatory of the Plan.”

16 The Mall was later divided into Reservation Nos. 3-6A. The Smithsonian Quadrangle is located within Reservation No. 3, a contributing element to the L’Enfant Plan of the City of Washington, District of Columbia, which was listed in the National Register in 1997. See Sara Amy Leach and Elizabeth Barthold, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, “L’Enfant Plan of the City of Washington, D.C.,” April 24, 1997.

17 Robinson & Associates, Draft National Historic Landmark nomination titled “The Plan of the City of Washington,” January 4, 2001, which updates and amends Sara Amy Leach and Elizabeth Barthold, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, “L’Enfant Plan of the City of Washington, D.C.,” 1997 (on file at the D.C. Historic Preservation Office): 58-59.

21 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

The Smithsonian Institution Building and the Genesis of the South Yard

In 1838, a bequest of over half a million dollars from the estate of Englishman James Smithson was brought to the United States to establish an institution of learning in the federal capital. The Smithsonian Institution was authorized by an act of Congress dated August 10, 1846. Its Board of Regents rapidly selected a site on the Mall and an architect – James Renwick, Jr. (1818-1895). Renwick’s Medieval Revival-style building, which has come to be known as the “Castle,” was constructed between 1847 and 1855.18

The design for the Castle was a departure from the classically inspired public buildings that populated Washington at the time. Instead, its style evoked English collegiate architecture, considered an appropriate reference for an educational institution such as the Smithsonian. The building was constructed of rusticated red sandstone quarried from Seneca, Maryland. Overall, it featured a balanced composition of irregularly shaped forms, including an assemblage of architecturally diverse towers. At the time of its construction, the Castle accommodated all of the Smithsonian’s assorted functions, combining a museum, library, laboratories, art gallery, and lecture hall. In its early years, the Castle also served as living quarters for the Smithsonian’s first secretary, Joseph Henry (1797-1878).

With the construction of the Smithsonian Institution Building underway, the Mall had become the focus of efforts to improve the city. In October 1851, a group of influential city leaders, including Secretary Henry, approached President Millard Fillmore with the idea of landscaping the Mall. The president asked Andrew Jackson Downing, the country’s pre-eminent theoretician of landscape design in the first half of the nineteenth century, to develop a plan for the Mall. Downing’s plan was strikingly different from the Baroque and Neoclassical principles that guided L’Enfant. It consisted of a series of six compatible “scenes,” exemplifying various garden types.19 The “Smithsonian Pleasure Grounds” between 7th and 12th streets were planted according to Downing’s picturesque style with a variety of trees and shrubs set closely together “to give greater seclusion and beauty to its immediate precincts.”20 The grounds around the Smithsonian Institution Building and the White House were the only elements of Downing’s plan that were carried out before his death in 1852. His collaborator, Calvert Vaux, designed an urn dedicated to Downing’s memory, which was installed on the Smithsonian grounds in 1856. The improvements made in the 1850s following Downing’s plan mainly addressed the landscape north of the Castle. Photographs from the 1850s and 1860s indicate that the Smithsonian grounds were sparsely planted on the south. (See Figure 25.) Early features of the south grounds included a picket fence and a small shed in the southeast corner of the lot.

By the 1870s, the Smithsonian Institution had considerably outgrown the Castle. Additional space was critically needed to properly care for and exhibit its growing collections and to allow for the acquisition of the international and domestic exhibits donated to the United States following the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. For a time, the Smithsonian considered building an addition to the Castle, but this idea was quickly disregarded, and an entirely separate museum was conceived and developed. The Smithsonian chose architect Adolf Cluss (1825-1905), a German-born American immigrant with the firm of Cluss & Schulze, to design the building, which was built on a site adjacent to the Castle on the east.

18 The Smithsonian Institution Building was listed in the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites on November 8, 1964. It was made a National Historic Landmark on January 12, 1965, and listed in the National Register on October 15, 1966.

19 Therese O’Malley, “‘A Public Museum of Trees’: Mid-Nineteenth Century Plans for the Mall,” in The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1991): 66-68.

20 Ibid.

22 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

The U.S. National Museum (now the Arts and Industries Building) was constructed between 1879 and 1881.21

Soon after the construction of the Arts and Industries Building, the grounds south of the Smithsonian Institution Building were pressed into utilitarian service.22 Smithsonian records indicate that part of the landscape, which became known as the south yard, was paved with asphalt as early as 1883. By 1890, the main building of the Smithsonian’s Astro-Physical Observatory was constructed in the south yard. A series of expansions and improvements to the observatory occurred over the next several decades, including the construction of various sheds and annexes. By 1915, the facility, which had been surrounded by a fence to form a small compound, measured 16,000 square feet.23 In addition to the observatory, the south yard was occupied by a succession of buildings, including a two-and-a-half story wood shed, which became the primary location of the Smithsonian’s taxidermist shop. The construction of the Freer Gallery of Art on a site directly west of the south yard began in 1916. The Freer Gallery of Art was designed by architect and landscape designer Charles A. Platt (1861-1933). Due to delays caused by the United States’ involvement in World War I, the museum did not open until 1923.24

In 1917, the War Department erected a single-story metal structure measuring approximately 70 feet by 260 feet in the southeast corner of the south yard. (See Figure 26.) It was built on a concrete slab and was initially used for the maintenance and repair of aircraft engines during World War I. After the war, the structure was transferred to the Smithsonian, which adapted it for the display of aircraft. The exhibition space, initially called the Aircraft Building, opened to the public in 1920. When the National Air Museum was created in 1946, it occupied the building until a permanent museum was built.25 Historic photographs of the area also indicate that part of the south yard was once used as a tennis court.

21 By 1917, the National Museum was officially referred to as the Arts and Industries Building, reflecting the emphasis of its collections on the industrial arts, technology, and American history. The Arts and Industries Building was listed in the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites on November 8, 1964. It was made a National Historic Landmark and listed in the National Register on November 11, 1971.

22 Carole Ottesen, A Guide to Smithsonian Gardens (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2011): 29.

23 Bruce D. Smith, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, “The History of the South Quadrangle, Smithsonian Institution,” February 1981, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 86-086, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Facilities Services, Records, Box 4, hereafter shortened to SIA, Acc. 86-086, Box 4.

24 The Freer Gallery of Art was listed in the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites on November 8, 1964, and in the National Register on June 23, 1969.

25 Bruce D. Smith, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, “The History of the South Quadrangle, Smithsonian Institution,” February 1981, SIA, Acc. 86-086, Box 4.

23 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 25: South façade of the Smithsonian Institution Building, 1858. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Box 30, Folder 7, Local Number 63881 or MAH-36881.]

Figure 26: Aerial photo of the south yard, 1932. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 86-086, Box 3]

24 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Development of the Quadrangle Concept and South Yard Bicentennial Improvements

S. Dillon Ripley (1913-2001) became the eighth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1964 and directed a period of intense institutional growth, which included the development of eight new museums and five new research facilities. Among his plans during the first few years of his tenure was the redevelopment of the south yard. This began in April 1966, when James C. Bradley, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution under Secretary Ripley, sent a proposal to the General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service, which had responsibility for constructing Smithsonian facilities at the time. The proposal outlined several new projects including a two-story underground parking garage to the rear of the Smithsonian Institution Building and a garden in the south yard that would serve as a terminus for the 10th Street Mall (later renamed the L’Enfant Promenade).26 Around the same time, Ripley was exploring the feasibility of an underground addition to the Freer Gallery of Art.27 Over the years, Ripley’s vision for the south yard continued to evolve. By 1969, in an internal Smithsonian memo, he expressed the idea of transforming the south yard into a collegiate “quadrangle” through the construction of a building along Independence Avenue that would enclose the space created by the Freer, the Castle, and the Arts and Industries Building.28 Soon after, the proposed Freer extension was being reconsidered within this context.

By 1974, however, no progress to advance the quadrangle concept had been made. Instead, with the U.S. Bicentennial approaching, the Smithsonian shifted its focus toward temporary improvements that would “provide a meaningful contribution to the Bicentennial ambiance…for visitors to the Mall during the ’76 season.”29 A summary from the environmental study prepared as part of the proposed improvement project described conditions within the south yard at the time: “The Yard in its current mode serves many diverse uses including: parking for visitors, students, and employees, storage, exhibit space, mammal preparation, greenhouse, rest area, and pedestrian thoroughfare….”30 The report also itemized existing buildings, which included a two-story shed with a taxidermy shop, an electric shop, storage areas, and classroom space; a one-story metal structure used as an exhibition space by the National Air and Space Museum; and a greenhouse with associated office space.

Dan Kiley and Partners The landscape architecture firm Dan Kiley and Partners prepared a plan for the bicentennial improvements. (See Figure 27 and Figure 28.) In a statement accompanying the plan, the firm described the concept, writing: “The detail of the garden will reflect its uncertain future. Simple, sometimes temporary materials will be used where this is appropriate or expedient. The gentle, grass-covered berms, the meandering paths, the lily ponds, and the restored fountain will create an atmosphere which is suffused at once with a natural imagery that does not require expensive material to sustain it. Superb existing trees will be retained and supplemented by new plantings. Along Independence Avenue a wrought-iron fence will protect the garden from the street; this is punctured on the axis of the original Institution building by gates designed by J. Renwick, Jr. but never built.”31 With input from the

26 Quadrangle Chronology, no author, no date, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42.

27 Dean Anderson, “Chronology of Development Plans for South Yard,” April 1982, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 45.

28 Quadrangle Chronology, no author, no date, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42 and Dean Anderson, “Chronology of Development Plans for South Yard,” April 1982, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 45.

29 Letter and attachments from Phillip K. Reiss, Director, Office of Facilities Planning and Engineering Services, to Charles Atherton, Executive Secretary, Fine Arts Commission, February 10, 1975, SIA, Acc. 86-086, Box 3.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid. Note that the “restored fountain” described in the quote referred to a cast-iron fountain in the Smithsonian’s collection at the time and not to an existing site feature. 25 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Smithsonian’s Horticultural Services Division, Kiley’s south yard redevelopment plan included a planted bed based on the embroidery parterre designs used at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Fairmont Park, Philadelphia. The National Capital Planning Commission approved the proposed plan as a temporary measure for the bicentennial pending a long-range plan for permanent development. Demolition started in the fall of 1975, and the project was complete the following summer. The as-built design differed from the conceptual plan in several key ways. A surface parking lot was constructed in the western half of the yard, replacing the proposed conservatory, the parterre was shifted on axis with 10th Street, and the fountain proposed for the eastern half of the site was never realized. (See Figure 29.)

Figure 27: South Yard Development Location Plan, Dan Kiley & Partners, ca. 1975, showing the south yard project in the context of 10th Street. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Oversize Folders]

26 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 28: Detail from South Yard Development Location Plan, Dan Kiley & Partners, ca. 1975. The as-built design differed from this conceptual plan in several ways. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Oversize Folders]

Figure 29: View of the Victorian parterre completed in 1976 as part of the south yard bicentennial redevelopment by Dan Kiley & Partners. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Box 31, Folder 21, Negative No. 76­ 15440-3.]

27 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Design and Construction of the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Early Concepts With the U.S. Bicentennial improvements in place, the Smithsonian engaged the architectural firm Wilkes and Faulkner Associates to develop a preliminary building program and site evaluation for the south yard that would advance Ripley’s college quadrangle concept. The report, finalized in March 1977, proposed two aboveground buildings along Independence Avenue and underground space for the Freer Gallery expansion and other needs. The next year, while Secretary Ripley was traveling in Asia, he personally approached Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura (see text below on the design team) to discuss the south yard project. In Ripley’s view, Yoshimura’s skills at representing traditional Japanese sensibilities with a modernist aesthetic and integrating buildings within their landscape were well suited to the environmental limitations of the south yard.32 Yoshimura agreed to prepare a concept study, which was finalized in September 1978 and presented to the National Capital Planning Commission that November. The commission’s initial reaction to the concept was focused on the aboveground structures. In a letter to Yoshimura dated December 19, 1978, Ripley reported, “…one suggestion of Mr. [David] Childs is extremely pertinent I believe, namely, that both buildings should be considered as garden ornaments. That is to say both buildings should be light and airy in construction and feeling, and should represent the same relationship to the garden that a large ornamental sculpture or structure would. Thus they would be part of the garden, and they would enhance the garden in its feeling and mood.”33

Planning continued through the spring of 1979. That March, E. Verner Johnson of Boston, an architecture firm specializing in museum planning and design, prepared a space allocation survey for the Quadrangle project that incorporated programming for the National Museum of African Art, which had been transferred to the Smithsonian Institution by public law dated October 5, 1978.34 In April, the Smithsonian received Yoshimura’s revised concept study that took into consideration the Verner Johnson survey. “The design objective is to develop the site into a jewel-like garden in the monumental core of Washington, incorporating two small above-grade structures,” read the report.35 The 1979 concept study included several key components that would carry forward throughout the design of the Quadrangle: two flanking museum entrance pavilions, three underground levels, an existing linden tree, and the Renwick Gates. (See Figure 30 and Figure 31.) In addition, the Quadrangle project would incorporate a central parterre bed due to the popularity of the Victorian parterre created for the site for the bicentennial. Design changes would ultimately remove the underground parking planned for the third sublevel, the east entrance ramp, and the light wells/sunken gardens from Yoshimura’s plan. In addition, the scale and design of the entrance pavilions would change significantly. A key milestone in the development of the Quadrangle project occurred in July 1979, when Congress passed a bill authorizing an appropriation of $500,000 to plan the project.

32 EHT Traceries, Inc. and Surfacedesign, Inc., “South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report,” 95% Draft dated June 2015, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, 112. Ripley’s choice may also have been influenced by his desire to strengthen the Smithsonian’s connections in Asia and solicit funds.

33 Letter from Ripley to Yoshimura, December 19, 1978, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 45.

34 The National Museum of African Art (originally the Museum of African Art) was founded in 1964. Prior to its move to the National Mall with the opening of the Quadrangle, the museum was located on Capitol Hill.

35 Junzo Yoshimura, “The Smithsonian Institution South Garden Development Concept Study, April 1979,” 3, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42. 28 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 30: Detail from “The Smithsonian Institution South Garden Development Concept Study, April 1979,” Junzo Yoshimura, Architect. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 45]

Figure 31: Detail from “The Smithsonian Institution South Garden Development Concept Study, April 1979,” Junzo Yoshimura, Architect. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 45]

29 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 32: Detail of a photograph of a model for the Smithsonian Quadrangle reproduced in a 1980 development brochure. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 42]

Final Concept by Jean Paul Carlhian of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott In December 1979, Phillip K. Reiss, the director of the Smithsonian’s Office of Facilities Planning and Engineering Services, notified Yoshimura that government contracting processes required a U.S. firm to “develop a more definitive statement of the Quadrangle for presentation to the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Congress.”36 Thus, in early 1980, as part of a quietly held public competition, the Smithsonian distributed Yoshimura’s concept study to seven architectural firms to solicit proposals for finalizing and securing approval of the conceptual schematic design plans for the Quadrangle project.37 The firm that was selected was Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott (see text below on the design team). Guided by Yoshimura’s conceptual framework, the Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott team, led by design principal Jean Paul Carlhian, was initially tasked with defining the concept in terms of structure, amplifying selected features, and translating the concept into construction documents.38 Over the next three years, however, as the project was advanced toward final approval, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott had a greater hand in the design of the Quadrangle, as substantial changes were made to meet the requirements of the Smithsonian as well as the various committees and commissions that had approval authority over its development.

36 Chronology with notation “As given to Verner Johnson, April 1980,” author unspecified, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42.

37 EHT Traceries, Inc. and Surfacedesign, Inc., “South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report,” 95% Draft dated June 2015, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, 114.

38 Letter with Work Statement attachment from Phillip K. Reiss, Office Design and Construction, to Richard Potter, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, July 7, 1980, in research materials provided by the Smithsonian Institution, Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation.

30 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

In October 1980, after reviewing the Smithsonian’s conceptual plans for the Quadrangle project, the Joint Committee on Landmarks of the National Capital (now the Historic Preservation Review Board) issued a report that determined the project would have an adverse effect the National Mall, the Smithsonian Institution Building, the Arts and Industries Building, and the Freer Gallery of Art through the introduction of “alien architectural elements which will alter and diminish the integrity of the setting of the Landmark buildings, and their relationship to each other and to the Mall.”39 The landmarks committee also opposed the proposed light wells north of the museum pavilions, stating that they would be a contradictory element in the concept of a landscape setting for the Castle, and took issue with the design of the pavilions. “No matter how small [the pavilions] become they will not be small enough to appear as garden structures in the picturesque sense without losing all purpose for their being,” the report concluded.40 The Committee of 100 on the Federal City also issued a statement on the proposed development. It objected to the pavilions for reasons of incompatibility and advocated for maintaining the historic openness of the south yard. “There is no historic dictate to enclose the Quadrangle with additional buildings,” the statement read.41 The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation raised objections to the project due to the potential impact of the proposed development on surrounding buildings. The Advisory Council, however, agreed to withdraw their objections if certain conditions were met. These included relocating the garage ramp to the west side of the site and restudying the design of the pavilions to reduce their perceived height and scale and their impact on the setting of the Smithsonian Institution Building and the Arts and Industries Building, among other items.42 Review by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission also guided the development of several key aspects of the design. For example, as part of the review process, the Smithsonian team was urged to avoid overly symbolic or referential designs for the pavilions that could be perceived as evoking a “world’s fair” atmosphere on the Mall. As a result, Carlhian revised the style of the pavilions to be “less specifically ethnic, more classical.”43 Also, to meet Secretary Ripley’s concern that the pavilions present an “appropriately dignified” presence in order to attract private funding for construction, the structures were scaled up and granite was used as the building material.

With the passage of Public Law 97-203 on June 24, 1982, Congress approved the construction of the Smithsonian Quadrangle, and later that year Congress appropriated funding for the project. In September 1982, the Smithsonian received a major gift from Arthur M. Sackler, a psychiatrist and philanthropist, that included funding for construction and an extensive collection of Asian art. The Quadrangle’s Asian art gallery was named after Sackler in recognition of his donation. Funding for the gallery was also provided by the Japanese government.

Construction The ground-breaking ceremony for the Smithsonian Quadrangle took place on June 21, 1983, and construction began the following month. The Quadrangle was built using slurry (or diaphragm) walls, a structural system of below-grade walls that form a cutoff barrier to restrict groundwater flow and support

39 Joint Committee on Landmarks of the National Capital, Report of the Joint Committee on Landmarks, October 23, 1980, in research materials provided by the Smithsonian Institution, Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation.

40 Ibid.

41 Letter from Marion K. Schlefer, Committee of 100 on the Federal City, to Jerry R. Shipplett, Acting Chief, Facilities Planning and Environmental Branch, GSA-NCR, October 17, 1980, in research materials provided by the Smithsonian Institution, Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation.

42 Letter from Thomas F. King, ACHP, to Andrea Mones, GSA, April 2, 1981, SIA, Acc. 86-086, Box 4.

43 Reprint of Mary Ann Tighe, “The Quadrangle Comes Full Circle,” Northwest Orient (March 1984): 41-51, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42.

31 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle excavations and structures. European contractors began using slurry walls in the 1950s for the construction of underground reinforced concrete structural wall systems.44 By the 1960s, the technique was brought to the United States. The first major project constructed in the United States using this system was the World Trade Center (1967-69).

During construction, the Smithsonian requested several changes to the design in response to the recommendations of the museum directors. These included the elimination of the coffered ceilings in the exhibition galleries “to achieve a flat ceiling that would permit a more versatile lighting and design scheme,” the removal of “all windows that overlook the large central exhibition gallery shared by the two museums,” and the elimination all colored-glass windows and the mirrors in stairwell niches.45 The museum staff also took issue with the number and location of skylights in the design due to concerns with natural light in the galleries. After meeting with museum staff, including exhibition designers, lighting consultants, and others, Carlhian conceded some points, but not all, and urged that the skylights be completed as originally conceived.46 By autumn 1985, the building’s roof was in place and topped with drainage gravel and top soil. Ten little-leaf linden trees and fourteen magnolia trees were planted. In October 1986, construction was complete on the third sublevel, and the offices there were occupied.47 The Haupt Garden was inaugurated in May 1987, and on September 28, 1987, the Smithsonian Quadrangle was opened.

44 Wolfgang G. Brunner, “Development of Slurry Wall Technique and Slurry Wall Construction Equipment,” in GeoSupport 2004: Drilled Shafts, Micropiling, Deep Mixing, Remedial Methods, and Specialty Foundation Systems, eds. John P. Turner and Paul W. Mayne (Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2004).

45 Memo from Sylvia Williams and Tom Lawton to Tom Peyton, April 15, 1985, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42. Carlhian’s original design called for amber tinted glass in the south window of the Sackler Gallery pavilion and blue tinted glass in the south window of the National Museum of African Art pavilion. In response to the request by museum staff, the amber tinted glass was not installed in the Sackler Gallery pavilion. As a result, only the National Museum of African Art pavilion featured a tinted-glass window (blue) on the south façade. See Park and Carlhian, A New View from the Castle, 145, 155.

46 Letter from Carlhian to Frank Gilmore, May 15, 1985, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42.

47 Ibid. 32 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 33: View across the Smithsonian Quadrangle looking northwest during construction, ca. 1985. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225 Box 45.]

As-Built Design The result was a multipurpose facility spread across three underground levels with three aboveground pavilions and additional secondary support structures placed within a garden landscape. (See Figure 34 through Figure 36.) By placing the majority of the complex underground and locating the entrance pavilions at the edges of the site, the intent of the design was to create an enclosed “quadrangle” south of the Smithsonian Institution Building containing an intimate public garden. The one-story museum pavilions created a barrier along Independence Avenue, while the circular entrance pavilion to the Ripley Center enclosed the space along the northwest edge. Structures within the site were arranged to block views from the quadrangle of the Forrestal Building, which was considered highly intrusive, enhance the view and emphasize the axis along 10th Street, and highlight the view of the west entrance to the Arts and Industries Building.

The design of the Haupt Garden was a collaborative effort between Sasaki Associates and Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott.48 While Sasaki Associates was the landscape architect of record, Carlhian’s firm was responsible for most of the hardscape detailing, such as the designs for the Moongate Garden and the Fountain Garden.49 The landscape featured formal and informal design elements and a variety of plant materials. Orthogonal rows of magnolia trees flanked the entrance paths along the central parterre and the paths leading to the thematic gardens. In contrast, the trees in the lawn south of the Castle were more naturalistically placed and the path south of the Castle featured a gentle curve, which allowed for broad swath of greenspace immediately south of the historic building. The Sasaki Associates/Shepley,

48 Carlhian and Hideo Sasaki were colleagues at Harvard, and the two firms had worked together on previous projects, including Harvard’s Leverett House.

49 EHT Traceries, “Sasaki (Dawson) Interview,” informational interview on the Haupt Garden/Quadrangle design process and the Freer rehabilitation, email from Bill Marzella, EHT Traceries, to Sharon Park and William Donnelly, Smithsonian Institution, April 18, 2016. The planting plan is on a drawing sheet with both Sasaki Associates and Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott on the title block.

33 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott design team consulted with landscape architect Lester Collins and the Smithsonian’s Office of Horticulture on the selection of plant materials. The choice of materials for the Fountain and Moongate Gardens was dictated in part by what would be appropriate for Asian and African gardens. Other considerations, such as the site’s shallow soil depth and Washington’s summer heat, also guided the selection of plant materials. Vegetation was used to camouflage the intrusive nature of the skylights, the stairwell structures, and the entrance to the loading dock and to soften the edge of the austere east façade of the Freer Gallery.

Figure 34: Site plan for the Smithsonian Quadrangle. [Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 41]

Figure 35: Architectural rendering of the Smithsonian Quadrangle in section. [A Guide to Smithsonian Architecture]

34 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 36: View of the Smithsonian Quadrangle, September 1987. [Smithsonian Institution Archive, 87-10129-2, siarchives.si.edu]

Design Team

The Smithsonian Quadrangle design and construction team included Junzo Yoshimura (Concept Architect); Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, Boston, Massachusetts (Architects) with design principal Jean Paul Carlhian; Sasaki Associates, Watertown, Massachusetts (Landscape Architects); Shooshanian Engineering Associates, Boston, Massachusetts (Mechanical and Electrical Engineers); Ewell W. Finley, P.C. (EWF), Washington, D.C. (Structural Engineer); and Blake Construction Company, Washington, D.C. (Contractor). In addition, Smithsonian records indicate that landscape architect Lester Collins consulted on the design of the Haupt Garden. Collins advised on the selection and acquisition of plant materials and, on at least one occasion, presenting the landscape plans to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts on behalf of the design team.50 James R. Buckler of the Smithsonian’s Office of Horticulture also had role in the landscape design, assisting with the selection of plant materials and developing the furnishing plan.51

. Junzo Yoshimura (1908-1997) was a Japanese architect trained in Tokyo. He was a protégé of Antonin Raymond, who established a practice in Japan after moving to Tokyo to work on the

50 See Transcript, Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, September 14, 1982, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C. Note that transcripts are not considered official records of the Commission of Fine Arts meetings as they often contain transcription errors. Collins had a strong association with the Smithsonian, having worked on the rehabilitation of the Hirshhorn sculpture garden, which was completed in 1981.

51 Documents in the Smithsonian Institution Archives indicate that the design of the Haupt Garden was a collaborative effort. A pamphlet on the Haupt Garden (undated though likely produced for the opening of the garden) reads: “The design of the garden was a collaborative effort between the principal architect, Jean Paul Carlhian of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott; the landscape architectural firm of Sasaki and Associates, Inc.; landscape architect Lester Collins; and James R. Buckler, Director of the Smithsonian’s Office of Horticulture.” See Smithsonian Institution, Office of Horticulture, “Enid A. Haupt Garden,” Smithsonian Gardens, Enid A. Haupt Garden, Clipping Files – SI Publicity. 35 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

construction of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel. In 1940, Yoshimura spent over a year living and working in Raymond’s studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania. After returning to Japan, he established his own firm. One of Yoshimura’s most well-known commissions in the United States is the Japanese House, an exhibition house originally constructed in 1953 in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After the MOMA exhibit closed, the house was relocated and reconstructed in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park where it stands today. Yoshimura’s later works in Tokyo include the Nara National Museum (1972) and the Norwegian Embassy (1977).

. A successor firm of the office of H. H. Richardson, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott (now Shepley Bulfinch) has a long and venerable history. The firm received significant professional recognition during the 1970s. In 1973, the firm received the American Institute of Architects Firm Award, the highest award given to an architecture firm by the association.52 In addition, the firm had seven of its leading architects promoted to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows in recognition of their contributions to the field. The Quadrangle project team at Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott included Jean Paul Carlhian, Design Principal; Richard M. Potter, Principal-in-Charge; and Robert T. Holloran, Project Architect.

. Jean-Paul Carlhian (1919-2012) was born and raised in Paris. After training at the École des Beaux-Arts he moved to the United States to pursue a degree at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where he was a Wheelwright fellow. In 1950, Carlhian joined the long established Boston architectural firm Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott (then Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott and now Shepley Bulfinch). Over the course of his career, Carlhian became one of the firm’s leading architects. He was also on the staff at Harvard, where he taught a course with Josep Sert and Hideo Sasaki on urban design.53 His projects included two residential towers at Harvard University – the Leverett House (1961) and Mather House (1972). At Vassar, Carlhian designed College Center (1975), a major addition to the college’s historic Main Building (1861-65).54 Along with the Smithsonian Quadrangle project, other public commissions included the Warren B. Rudman United States Courthouse (1999) in Concord, New Hampshire. A fellow of the American Institute of Architect, Carlhian played an active role in the organization, serving as chairman of the national Committee on Design.

. Hideo Sasaki and Associates (now Sasaki Associates) was founded by landscape architect Hideo Sasaki (1919-2000) in 1953. Born in California, Sasaki was educated at Berkeley and the University of Illinois. In 1948, he graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design with a Master of Landscape Architecture. In 1953, he made a final return to Harvard to teach and practice, eventually becoming the chair of the department of landscape architecture, a position he held from 1958 to 1968. By the early 1980s, when the Quadrangle project was being designed, Sasaki was retired from full time practice.55 Both in his career and as an educator Sasaki valued a

52 Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Database, “Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott,” available at https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/107684, accessed June 23, 2016. The award citation noted that the firm’s alumni made the office “as much an institution as any of the handful of U.S. architectural schools that are of comparable age.” See “AIA Awards,” New York Times, March 25, 1973.

53 Michael Larice and Elizabeth Macdonald, eds., The Urban Design Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013): 110.

54 The architect of the Main Building was James Renwick, Jr.

55 Melanie Simo, The Offices of Hideo Sasaki: A Corporate History (Berkeley, California: Spacemaker Press, 2001): 10-11, 86, and The Cultural Landscape Foundation, “Pioneer Information: Hideo Sasaki,” available at http://tclf.org/pioneer/hideo-sasaki, accessed June 21, 2016.

36 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

comprehensive approach to planning and design that focused on the interaction of land, building, and the greater environment. The firm carried on this legacy. Notable projects include the John Deere and Company Headquarters (1964) in Moline, Illinois, and the Christian Science Center (1975) in Boston.

. Lester Collins (1914-1993) was an influential landscape architect of the modern era. He received a master’s degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and later, during Gropius’ tenure, served as the head of the department of landscape architecture. In 1953, he moved to Washington. His body of work was diverse, ranging from row house garden design to town planning, and throughout his career he challenged traditional notions about landscape design. In Washington, where he practiced for twenty-seven years, his body of work included landscapes for the National Zoo, Georgetown University, Gallaudet University, and a renovation of the sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn Museum.56

Postmodernism

The postmodern period in architecture and landscape architecture began as an academic movement in the 1960s when established theories on modern architecture and planning were giving way to a new wave of critical thinking. Jane Jacobs’ early attack on modernist planning in Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) along with architect Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972) by Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour were highly influential.57 Venturi’s theoretical writings were rebellious in nature, stating at one time that less is not more, but rather “less is a bore” – a direct contradiction of Mies van der Rohe’s early dictum.58 He is credited with leading architectural theory toward postmodernism, which reached its maturity by the mid­ 1970s. The term postmodern (or post-modern) was given currency by theorist and designer Charles Jencks to describe the philosophical and design shift when modernism’s emphasis on form and functionalism, and its indifference to historical precepts and styles, were abandoned and the possibilities of an anti-rational, pluralist aesthetic were promoted. Architects working in the style utilized this pluralistic approach to simultaneously convey many meanings to the viewers and users of their buildings and to established links between the present and the past. Jencks coined the term “double coding” to describe this characteristic of postmodern design.

Postmodernism began as a critique and evolved into a style that defied classification. Writing in 1983, architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable offered the following characterization of postmodern design: “…its sources are the near and distant past, and its values, which turn away from society and inward to personal tastes and concerns, are primarily and almost exclusively aesthetic.”59 In their book Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism, published in 1986, authors Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman labeled the style “Second Modernism,” and described it as a movement saturated in historical forms and allusion, symbolism, and other explicit content foreign to earlier modernism.60 In an essay

56 Robinson & Associates, Inc., “DC Modern: A Context for Modernism in the District of Columbia, 1945-1976, Historic Context Study,” January 23, 2009, prepared for the D.C. Historic Preservation Office, 46.

57 Diane Ghirardo, Architecture After Modernism (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996): 13-18.

58 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996): 560.

59 Ada Louise Huxtable, “Rebuilding Architecture,” in On Architecture, Collected Reflections on a Century of Change (New York: Walker & Co., 2008): 215. First published in New York Review of Books, December 22, 1983.

60 Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman, Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986.

37 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle published in 1989, historian Mary McLeod advanced the concept that postmodernism addressed the themes of historical styles, regionalism, decoration, urban contextualism, and morphologies.61 A few years later, the British architect, critic, and historian Kenneth Frampton wrote, “…it is difficult to arrive at the fundamental character of the Postmodern phenomenon….”62

In effect, the style represented a shift toward the inclusion of formal architectural language and historically eclectic ornament, albeit in an often mannerist or abstracted mode, an awareness of contextual complexities in urban sites, and the use of organic materials. The historic preservation movement, to a certain extent, embraced the postmodern notions of contextualism and historicism. Those that defended the style accepted that compatible buildings could be contemporary, while not radically different in size, massing, and articulation. Notable practitioners included Philip Johnson, Michael Graves, and Robert Venturi, among others. Graves’ Portland Public Service Building (1982) and Philip Johnson and John Burgee’s AT&T Building (1984) are widely recognized as emblematic of the style.63

In the field of landscape architecture, postmodernism could be described as an aesthetic that “placed a high value on context, a sense of history, the importance of color, and preference for complexity and ambiguity over the ‘clarity’ of modernists.”64 The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes postmodernism as embracing “wide-ranging social, economic, cultural and ecological histories of a site and the equally diverse needs of potential users.”65 Postmodern landscapes often employed fragments of the past to evoke or reference a prior use. Examples include Franklin Court in Philadelphia, which was a bicentennial project designed by Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown. There, the landscape within the inner court recalled an eighteenth-century garden and included a structural frame evoking Benjamin Franklin’s house and print shop.66 Postmodern landscape design was also closely aligned with the conservation movement and the renewal of degraded landscapes.

Historians Claudia and George Kousoulas, authors of Contemporary Architecture in Washington, D.C., note that, locally, the postmodern movement was given a late, but enthusiastic reception due in part to Washington’s strong classical tradition and its aversion to modern architecture.67 As a result in part of Washington’s conservative building environment, the city’s postmodern architecture leaned toward historicism. Rather than making a contrasting statement through the use of colorful cladding, abstracted forms, or whimsicality, local examples of postmodern architecture emphasized contextualism. In addition to the Smithsonian Quadrangle, examples of the style in the Washington area include Tycon Towers (1986) in Vienna, Virginia, by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, Market Square (1990) by Hartman Cox, and the AARP Building (1991) by Kohn, Pedersen, Fox. Local examples of postmodern landscapes

61 Mary McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: from Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” Assemblage 8 (February 1989): 22-59.

62 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 3rd ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992): 306.

63 The Portland Public Service Building was listed in the National Register in 2011. The AT&T Building is not listed locally or nationally.

64 David P. Fogel, Clues to American Gardens (Washington, D.C.: Starhill Press, 1987): 60-61.

65 The Cultural Landscape Foundation, “A New Focus on Postmodernism Landscapes,” available at http://tclf.org/news/features/new-focus-postmodernist-landscapes, accessed August 12, 2016.

66 The Cultural Landscape Foundation, “Franklin Court,” available at http://tclf.org/landscapes/franklin­ court?destination=search-results, accessed June 22, 2016.

67 Claudia Kousoulas and George Kousoulas, Contemporary Architecture in Washington, D.C. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995): 32-33.

38 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle include Freedom Plaza, by Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, and EDAW’s column garden at the National Arboretum, which exemplify the style’s utilization of site-specific references to historic events and places.

The design of the Smithsonian Quadrangle embraced many postmodernist themes. As such, it employed an eclectic and combinatorial layering of historical elements to evoke a complex set of contextual references. The Quadrangle’s architectural and landscape design elements established links with its museum collections, its immediate setting on the Mall, and its larger place among Washington’s classical edifices. The Moongate and Fountain Gardens, for instance, referenced traditional garden designs to create visual clues that communicated the contents of the Quadrangle museums. The Victorian parterre drew from historical styles to evoke the urbanistic frame created by the Arts and Industries Building, and the Renwick Gates supplied the grounds with a postmodern “fragment” that referenced the architecture of the Castle. The museum pavilions also incorporated site-specific references drawn from the shapes and forms of the Freer Gallery and the Arts and Industries Building. Adding another layer of complexity to the design, the pavilions featured architectural ornamentation that linked the Quadrangle with Washington’s classical traditions. Typical of the postmodern style, however, these elements were reimagined in a simplified and abstracted manner. For example, the exterior walls of the museum pavilions were articulated with stylized keystones, pilasters, and friezes. On the interior, the doors along the south wall of the Ripley Center concourse featured simplified architraves, cornices, and brackets. The rotunda was defined by a ring of robust classical columns. The design of the circular entrance pavilion to the Ripley Center added to the Quadrangle’s eclecticism by echoing the exotic pavilions used in English picturesque gardens.68 Finally, in affirmation of the postmodern movement’s preservation ethos, the design protected existing fabric by integrating a large preexisting European linden tree (no longer extant) into the site plan.

Critical Reception

A survey of contemporary reviews and critical assessments of the Smithsonian Quadrangle begins with the evaluations of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts during the later stages of the design review process. Initial criticism of the Quadrangle design as developed by Jean Paul Carlhian came from Walter Netsch, an architect with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and member of the Commission.69 During a meeting on September 16, 1981, Commissioner Netsch criticized the design of the pavilions, stating that they struck him as “elitist” and therefore inappropriate for the context. He remarked, “…there is nothing elitist with [the Castle]. I mean it is a vigorous old Victorian statement. It is kind of marvelous sitting there, and the building on the left is sort of a Beaux Arts affair and it seems to me [that] the Beaux Arts is kind of winning the battle, you might say, for the enclosure.” He concluded his assessment stating that the pavilions were “sort of demanding in a kind of post-modernist way….”70 His colleague and chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, J. Carter Brown, defended the design, stating that it provided, “…the two best pavilions that we can find that will go with what one sees when one is on the surface and what one sees, primarily, are these Victorian collective buildings, and it is within the Victorian collective system to have subgardens that have a reference to an exotic area of the world, so perhaps one could subsume the idea there would be an Oriental garden on one side and an Islamic garden on the other, but one would not

68 Specifically, the pavilion design was derived from a drawing for a conservatory by the nineteenth-century English architect George Stanley Repton. See Jean Paul Carlhian, “Smithsonian Institution: South Quadrangle Project,” in The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1991): 324.

69 Netsch is perhaps best known for his design of the U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel (1962), near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

70 Transcript, Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, September 16, 1981, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.

39 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle try to express in the architecture of the two buildings the specific areas of the world they are referring to, because I just don’t think it is going to wash.”71 At a later Commission of Fine Arts meeting on the site design, landscape architect, Edward Durrell Stone, Jr., gave his approval “with regret,” noting that the garden elements seemed to be “simply put down onto the carpet” without relations to the various buildings in the Quadrangle.72

Before construction was complete, Carlhian himself expressed concern over some of the modifications he was asked to make to the design. In September 1985, Carlhian wrote to Robert McCormick Adams, who replaced S. Dillon Ripley as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1984, stating, “the South Quadrangle project is in trouble.”73 The architect went on to convey that changes to the public galleries, including the cutting up of exhibition spaces, the stripping away of architectural features, and the “general cheapening of the overall spatial quality of the public areas,” was damaging the original concept and “contributing to the general downgrading of the architectural quality of the South Quadrangle public exhibition galleries.”74 Carlhian’s views were echoed in an article appearing in the September 1987 issue of Architectural Digest, which featured the Quadrangle on its cover. The magazine’s editor, Mildred F. Schmertz, FAIA, wrote the feature article. While Schmertz generally praised the Quadrangle’s “three beautifully proportioned and executed pavilions” she added that “the architects lost control of the underground exhibition galleries, and it shows.”75 The article continued, “…the building’s principal exhibition space, designed to be used in common by both museums or separately with a moveable partition in place, has been permanently halved by the construction of a fixed partition…A band of interior windows overlooking the space has also been blocked up on both sides of the non-permanent wall. Equally disappointing is the fact that almost all of the architectonic elements that were to shape the interior, including axial sequences of carefully proportioned rooms, were altered….The curators, by concealing or underplaying the architectural envelope, have made sure that visitors will have nothing to directly look at or indirectly perceive but the exhibits themselves. Few outstanding museums or galleries could be thus described.”76 In Schmertz’s view, the architects had more success with the Ripley Center, where “skylights illuminate a monumental space” and with the above-grade pavilions, which she described, writing, “In Carlhian’s hands the downstairs walk is celebrated in nobly proportioned yet geometrically complex skylit shafts sheathed in limestone. The six-bay pavilion interiors have been designed to be empty and grand – uncluttered narthexes with coffered ceilings, granite-paved floors, and large north windows offering untinted views of the garden and the Castle.”77

Reviews of the Quadrangle by nationally-recognized critics were mixed. In the New York Times, architectural critic Paul Goldberger characterized the pavilions as “clunky,” “woefully simplistic,” “awkward,” and “heavy-handed.” Despite this, he called the general layout “complicated, but quite clever.”78 He characterized the plan of the Ripley Center as “strong,” with a skylit concourse serving as a

71 Ibid.

72 Transcript, Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, November 14, 1982, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.

73 Letter from Carlhian to Adams, September 17, 1985, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42.

74 Ibid.

75 Mildred Schmertz, “Underneath a Garden: New Museum and Research Complex for the Smithsonian Institution,” Architectural Digest 175, no. 10 (September 1987): 112-121.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Paul Goldberger, “A Smithsonian Dig Results in Two Museums,” New York Times, September 20, 1987. 40 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

“welcome antidote to the gloom of most below-ground institutions,” but tempered his remarks, writing: “The issue here is the actual look of the space, which is one part airport concourse, one part post-modern apartment renovation.”79 Writing in the November 1987 issue of the journal Architecture, critic and editor Donald Canty reviewed the Quadrangle. Calling it “masterful placemaking” on the Mall, Canty praised the composition, writing, “The ensemble is full of counterpoint – and respect. The pavilions are pleasing in form, handsomely detailed, and finely crafted….”80 He noted that while the pavilions intruded on oblique views of the Castle from Independence Avenue, the full width of the building was clearly visible from the Renwick Gates. Canty admired the design of the Haupt Garden for creating an “engaging sense of place” and a “very pleasant Washington experience,” but his admiration did not extend to the interior and underground spaces. “The three-story-tall concourse of the third level below grade,” he wrote, “…is a grand but somehow unresolved space, where neoclassical details and ornament contrast with expanses of pure modernism.”81 In a brief item in the November 1987 issue of Progressive Architecture, author Thomas Vonier described the museum entrance pavilions as “wildly out of scale in the handsome gardens” and asserted that “their exaggerated geometries suggest caricature, with cartoonlike references….”82

More recent evaluations of the Smithsonian Quadrangle are also contradictory. In the book Buildings of the District of Columbia, authors Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee praise the site design for creating “a welcome sense of closure” and “an intimate interlude within the greater Mall area,” but criticize its stylistic diversity, stating that it “verges on visual chaos.”83 The text continues: “The convergence on one small plot of American ground of six structures representing widely disparate historical, cultural, and artistic traditions is almost too fantastical. Carlhian intended to give them cohesion through geometry, but his own buildings are so strong that they add to the admixture rather than neutralize its riotous variety.”84 Accolades, however, are given to the interior of the Ripley Center: “Interpenetration of vertical and horizontal space by skyways, glass walls, and layering of three levels of wall surfaces assure a comfortable and open space amply lit by natural and artificial light.”85

In 1990, the General Services Administration awarded the Smithsonian Quadrangle and the Enid A. Haupt Garden design awards in architecture and landscape architecture. The jury report for the awards read, “…in this case, on a difficult and constrained site, building, landscape, and public enjoyment are skillfully and happily integrated as one.”86 The GSA, however, tempered its praise of the project as it stated in the jury report that “the general level of submission was disappointing….”87 A few years later, in

79 Ibid.

80 Donald Canty, “Masterful Placemaking Beside the Mall,” Architecture: The AIA Journal 76, no. 11 (November 1987): 43-48.

81 Ibid.

82 Thomas Vonier, “Adding Two New Museums to the Mall,” Progressive Architecture 68, no. 12 (November 1987): 25-27.

83 Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee, Buildings of the District of Columbia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993): 96-97.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid.

86 1990 GSA Design Award Recipients, no date, no author, SIA, Acc. 06-225, Box 42.

87 Ibid. 41 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

1995, the project was recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Federal Design Achievement Award.

DESCRIPTION OF CHANGES

Alterations to the Quadrangle have modified the original landscape design as well as the interior spaces. Despite the Smithsonian’s best efforts, the European linden tree in the northeast corner of the site died in 1989 and was removed. The Downing Urn and three little-leaf linden trees were installed in its place.88 At some point (date unknown), several large trees were removed from the entrances to the museum pavilions to allow for clearer site lines for visitors.89 In 1990-91, the Smithsonian replaced the Haupt Garden’s original crushed stone paving with brick. (See Figure 37 and Figure 38.) The change was made because the crushed stone surface was puddling during and after rains, it posed difficulties for the disabled and the elderly, and the material was being tracked into the museums.90 At an unknown date in the 1990s, the original half-round granite stone paving in the basin of the Moongate Garden fountain was replaced with black granite tile for ease of maintenance.91 Other changes to the landscape have included moving the lampposts from the paths to the turf lawns. More recently, in 2014, the sour gum trees that lined the eastern path of the Haupt Garden were removed to provide a construction staging area during the renovation of the Arts and Industries Building. When work was complete, the trees lining the path were replaced with silverbells, and the brick paths and lawns were restored.92 In 2015, the original fish scale pattern granite wall of the chadar in the Fountain Garden, which was cracked and costly to repair, was replaced with a tile backing.93 (See Figure 39 and Figure 40.)

Changes to the Ripley Center have included the 2004 redesign of the third sublevel to accommodate the Discovery Theater, which was relocated from the Arts and Industries Building. Also, at some unknown date(s), wallboard panels were installed along the great hall, which partially concealed the two large mirrors at the center of the space, and the basin of the fountain within the great hall was removed. (See Figure 45 and Figure 46.) Alterations to the entrance pavilion of the National Museum of African Art have included the installation of wallboard panels over the lower walls of the gallery and the placement of decorative wood screens in the arched openings of the south wall of the gallery. (See Figure 7.)

88 The Downing Urn was originally located on the Mall southeast of the present entrance to the National Museum of Natural History. It was moved to the garden east of the Smithsonian Institution Building in 1972 before being installed in the Haupt Garden in 1989. See EHT Traceries, Inc. and Surfacedesign, Inc., “South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report,” 95% Draft dated June 2015, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, 37, 133.

89 William Donnelly, Landscape Architect, Smithsonian Gardens, comments on 90% Draft DOE submittal (draft dated June 30, 2016).

90 Minutes, Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, October 25, 1990, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.

91 William Donnelly, Landscape Architect, Smithsonian Gardens, comments on 90% Draft DOE submittal (draft dated June 30, 2016).

92 EHT Traceries, Inc. and Surfacedesign, Inc., “South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report,” 95% Draft dated June 2015, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, 134.

93 The tile backing is considered a temporary repair. See William Donnelly, Landscape Architect, Smithsonian Gardens, comments on 90% Draft DOE submittal (draft dated June 30, 2016).

42 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 37: View of the Haupt Garden looking northwest, 1987. Note the original crushed stone paths, the placement of the lampposts, the continuous hooped iron wickets, and the open character of the site as originally designed. [Smithsonian Institution Archive, 87-6830-5, siarchives.si.edu]

Figure 38: View of the Haupt Garden looking northwest, 2016. Today, the paths of the Haupt Garden are paved with brick, the lampposts have been removed from the paths and set within the grass panels, the iron wickets are missing from around the niches in the parterre, and the character of the site, due to the growth and maturity of the plant materials, is less exposed. [Photo courtesy Carly Bond, Smithsonian Institution]

43 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 39: View of the chadar in the Fountain Garden with its original granite fish scale pattern backing (no longer extant), no date. [Photo courtesy William Donnelly, SI Gardens.]

Figure 40: View of the chadar in the Fountain Garden with replacement tile backing, 2016.

44 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 41: View of the Fountain Garden looking south, 1987. [“New Treasures on the Mall,” Smithsonian Magazine 18, no. 6 (September 1987): 44, from Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 42]

Figure 42: View of the Fountain Garden and the north façade of the National Museum of African Art pavilion, 2016. [Photo courtesy Carly Bond, Smithsonian Institution]

45 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 43: View of the Moongate Garden looking south, illustrating the original half-round granite basin paving, 1987. [“New Treasures on the Mall,” Smithsonian Magazine 18, no. 6 (September 1987): 45, from Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 42]

Figure 44: View of the Moongate Garden looking south toward the north façade of the Sackler Gallery pavilion, 2016. [Photo courtesy Carly Bond, Smithsonian Institution]

46 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Figure 45: View of the Ripley Center concourse looking west, 1987. Note the scalloped fountain basin (no longer extant) and the large mirrors along the walls. [“New Treasures on the Mall,” Smithsonian Magazine 18, no. 6 (September 1987): 53, from Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 06-225, Box 42]

Figure 46: View of the Ripley Center concourse looking west, 2016. Note the addition of the wallboard panels along the walls of the great hall, which partially conceal the two large mirrors at the center of the space (on far left and right side of photo).

47 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

EVALUATION OF SIGNIFICANCE

Previous Evaluations

National Mall Historic District The Smithsonian Quadrangle is a contributing element of the National Mall Historic District under Criterion A (properties associated with significant events) in the area of education for the period 1791 to the present.94 Formed through the bequest of British scientist James Smithson, the Smithsonian was chartered by Congress in 1846 to promote “the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” a goal it has pursued in the development of national collections in the realms of science, history, and art and through wide-ranging publications and public programs. The Smithsonian has developed into the nation's premier collection of museums and one of the most influential educational institutions in the United States. Eleven of the Smithsonian Institution’s nineteen museums are located in the National Mall Historic District, as are thirteen of the institution’s twenty research libraries. Each of the museums and libraries – including the Quadrangle – contributes to the district as part of this nationally significant complex, as the repository of the nation's collections and as the centers of important research and education.

South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report The South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report (draft dated June 2015) prepared for the Smithsonian Institution documents and evaluates the site roughly bounded by Jefferson Drive on the north, 7th Street, SW, on the east, Independence Avenue, SW, on the south, and 12th Street, SW, on the west, which includes the Smithsonian Quadrangle. The report determined that the South Mall Campus is significant under National Register Criterion A (properties associated with significant events) for the period 1846­ 1998 for its association with the growth and evolution of the Smithsonian Institution from its foundation in 1846 to the present. The buildings and landscapes within the campus are intrinsically linked to the prominence of the Smithsonian Institution. The Cultural Landscape Report lists the Quadrangle and its components as contributing to the South Mall Campus under National Register Criterion A.95

Evaluation of Individual Significance

Properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places must possess both historic significance and integrity. To be considered historically significant, they must meet at least one of four National Register Criteria. The Criteria for Evaluation are: Criterion A, for properties associated with significant events; Criterion B, for properties associated with significant persons; Criterion C, for properties that embody distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, properties that represent the work of a master, or properties that possess high artistic value; and Criterion D, for properties that yield information important to prehistory or history.

Ordinarily, cemeteries, birthplaces, or graves of historical figures, properties owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures that have been moved from their original locations, reconstructed historic buildings, properties primarily commemorative in nature, and properties that are

94 Robinson & Associates, Inc., National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “National Mall Historic District,” August 31, 2016, prepared for the National Park Service.

95 The following elements are listed as contributing features of the Quadrangle in the Cultural Landscape Report: the S. Dillon Ripley Pavilion “Kiosk,” the Arthur M Sackler Gallery Pavilion, the National Museum of African Art Pavilion, the Above-Grade Quad Egress, Skylight, and Mechanical Enclosures, the Quad Loading Dock and Ramp, the Fountain Garden, the Moongate Garden, the Victorian Parterre, the Quad Fencing and Gates, the Renwick Gates, Andrew Jackson Downing Urn, the Spencer Fullerton Baird Statue, and the Vegetation. See EHT Traceries, Inc. and Surfacedesign, Inc., “South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report,” 95% Draft dated June 2015, prepared for the Smithsonian Institution, 167-174.

48 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle less than fifty years old are not considered eligible for the National Register. However, such properties will qualify if they are integral parts of districts or if they meet special requirements called Criteria Considerations. Because the Smithsonian Quadrangle was completed in 1987, Criteria Consideration G must be applied in evaluating its significance.

Criterion Consideration G states that special exception is made for properties of the recent past that are of exceptional importance at the national or local level. Exceptional importance may reflect the extraordinary impact of a political or social event or it may apply to a category of resources so fragile that survivors of any age are unusual. Exceptional importance may also be represented by a building or structure whose developmental or design value is quickly recognized as historically significant by the architectural or engineering professions. A determination of eligibility for a property less than fifty years of age must address two issues. First, it must provide a straightforward description of why the property is historically significant with direct reference to the specific relevant National Register Criteria. Second, the determination must contain deliberate, distinct justification for exceptional importance under the applicable Criteria.96

National Register Criterion A and Criteria Consideration G

Under Criterion A, a property can be significant due to its association with a specific event marking an important moment in prehistory or history and/or a pattern of events or a historic trend that made a significant contribution to the development of a community, municipality, or the nation.

The historic associations of the Quadrangle do not meet the requirements of exceptional importance for the resource to be individually eligible at the local or national level under Criterion A and Criteria Consideration G. While the educational and outreach facilities housed in the Quadrangle are characteristic of the Smithsonian’s continuing mission to promote “the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” the individual contributions of the Quadrangle to the development of the institution have not been shown to have an extraordinary impact that signifies exceptional importance. In addition, while the National Museum of African Art and the Sackler Gallery are representative of the Secretary Ripley’s efforts to fortify and increase awareness of the Smithsonian’s non-Western collections, the trend of individual museums for different cultural traditions did not begin with the National Museum of African Art or the Sackler Gallery. An earlier example is the Freer Gallery.

National Register Criterion B and Criteria Consideration G

Under Criterion B, a property is significant if it illustrates a person’s important achievements, and length of association is an important factor in evaluating a property under this criterion. Properties significant under Criterion B are typically the locations of important work by individuals, such as a workplace or laboratory.

S. Dillon Ripley, who served as the eighth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1964 to 1984, is acknowledged as a significant institutional director who made great contributions to the development and growth of the Smithsonian. Although the Smithsonian Quadrangle was conceived and developed during Secretary Ripley’s tenure, this association does meet the requirements of exceptional importance for the Quadrangle to be individually eligible at the local or national level under Criterion B and Criteria Consideration G.

National Register Criterion C and Criteria Consideration G

96 The District of Columbia’s historic preservation law does not contain a fifty-year rule, but requires a sufficient amount of time to have passed to judge a property in its historical context. This is partly to avoid excluding obviously exceptional buildings of more recent eras.

49 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

Under Criterion C, properties are significant for their physical design or construction, including such elements as architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, and artwork.

Decisions concerning the significance of properties can be made reliably only when the relationship of individual properties to other similar properties is understood and when there is an established framework for evaluation. Currently, a local or regional historic context does not exist for the period within which the Smithsonian Quadrangle was developed or for the architectural style (postmodern) that shaped its design. DC Modern, a historic context study prepared for the D.C. Historic Preservation Office in 2009, focuses on landscape and architectural projects constructed between 1945 and 1976.97 Nationally and internationally, the postmodern movement in architecture and landscape architecture has only recently been the subject of conferences and symposia. Within the last ten years, the Yale School of Architecture has sponsored exhibitions showcasing the work of postmodern architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Stanley Tigerman. In 2011, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum hosted an exhibit on the style titled “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-1990,” and, in New York, the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art held a two-day conference titled “Reconsidering Postmodernism.” DOCOMOMO-US sponsored a national symposium in June 2016 titled “Beyond Modernism: Moving the Recent Past Forward” that focused on design and theory of the late 1970s and early 1980s. (Note that the Quadrangle was completed in 1987, which would potentially place it outside the period of interest of the symposium.) The significance of one postmodern building, the iconic Portland Public Service Building (1982) by internationally known master architect and AIA Gold Medal winner Michael Graves, was only just recently recognized through its listing in the National Register in 2011.

To justify exceptional significance, it is necessary to identify other properties that reflect the same historic associations and to determine which properties best represent the period in question. At the national level, widely recognized postmodern design projects include the Portland Public Service Building (1982) by Michael Graves, the Allen Memorial Art Museum addition (1977) in Oberlin, Ohio, by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, the AT&T Building (1984) by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, and the Piazza d’Italia (1978) by Charles Moore, among others. These projects are frequently cited in existing literature as notable examples of the style. Among the sources reviewed for this Determination of Eligibility, the Quadrangle merits no mention as a notable example of postmodern architecture at the national level.

In addition, the Smithsonian Quadrangle is not recognized in existing literature as an iconic building of the period or as a prominent or notable postmodern design statement at the local level. A survey of literature on the architecture of the greater Washington, D.C., area for local examples of postmodern architecture and landscapes includes: - Freedom Plaza98 (1980) by Venturi Rauch Scott Brown (Moeller, AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C.); - Folger Library addition (1982) by Hartman Cox (Moeller, AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C.); - Inter-American Development Bank (1983) by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation)

97 Robinson & Associates, Inc., “DC Modern: A Context for Modernism in the District of Columbia, 1945-1976, Historic Context Study,” January 23, 2009, prepared for the D.C. Historic Preservation Office.

98 Freedom Plaza encompasses Reservation Nos. 32-33, a contributing element of the L’Enfant Plan of the City of Washington, D.C., which was listed on the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites and in the National Register in 1997. The area is considered a contributing element of the Plan of the City of Washington because of its role as a space within the historic city plan, not for its current landscape design. See Sara Amy Leach and Elizabeth Barthold, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, “L’Enfant Plan of the City of Washington, D.C.,” April 24, 1997.

50 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

- U.S. News & World Report Building (1984) by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation); - Presidential Plaza (1986) by Keyes Condon Florance (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation); - Republic Place (1987) by Keyes Condon Florance (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation); - Washington Harbour (1987) by Arthur Cotton Moore (Luebke, Civic Art); - Reston Town Center (1989) by RTKL (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation); - Market Square (1990) by Hartman Cox (D.C. Historic Preservation Office, “2016 D.C. Historic Preservation Plan: Enriching Our Heritage” and Luebke, Civic Art); - Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building (1992) by Edward Larrabee Barnes/John M.Y. Lee & Partners (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation); - IFC Headquarters (1993) by Michael Graves (Lee and Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation); - National Arboretum Column Garden by Russell Page/EDAW Brown (Moeller, AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C.); and - Madison Bank Building in Georgetown (date unknown) by Martin & Jones Architects (Luebke, Civic Art).99

Jean Paul Carlhian achieved professional success during his career as a practicing architect, as an educator and mentor, and as leader within the national association of professional architects.100 Although he is credited as the architect who “took Harvard vertical” with the design of two residential towers on the Cambridge campus, his body of work has not been widely recognized as pioneering or highly influential. Nor has his work been the subject of scholarly evaluations. A survey of widely available literature on twentieth-century architecture and postmodernism indicates that Carlhian’s body of work did not receive substantial critical acclaim during his career. In fact, his awards and recognition are relatively limited. In 1960, he received local recognition from the Boston Society of Architects for the Quincy House at Harvard University. Four years later he was the recipient of the AIA National Award of Merit for another Harvard project, the Leverett Towers and Leverett House Library. In 1973, Carlhian was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and in 1989, he was honored with the AIA Edward C. Kemper Award, which recognized outstanding professional service to the organization.101 Carlhian’s body of work did not qualify him for the AIA’s highest award – the Gold Medal. The online DOCOMOMO-US register does not include any projects by Jean Paul Carlhian, or, for that matter, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott.

There is a scarcity of critical evaluations identifying the Quadrangle as an important example of the work of its landscape architect, Sasaki Associates. While landscape architect Lester Collins contributed to the project as a consultant, archival documentation and oral history indicate that his contributions were mainly related to the selection of plant materials. This association alone does not make a strong or compelling case for exceptional significance.

99 See G. Martin Moeller, Jr., AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., 4th ed. (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 2006); Thomas E. Luebke, Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013); Frederick Gutheim and Antoinette J. Lee, Worthy of the Nation: Washington, D.C. from L’Enfant to the National Capital Planning Commission, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); and D.C. Historic Preservation Office, “2016 D.C. Historic Preservation Plan: Enriching Our Heritage,” 46, available at http://planning.dc.gov/publication/2016-district-columbia-historic-preservation-plan.

100 Adam Mazmanian, Journal of the American Institute of Architects, “Harvard, Smithsonian Architect Jean Paul Carlhian Dies at 92,” available at http://www.architectmagazine.com/design/harvard-smithsonian-architect-jean­ paul-carlhian-dies-at-92_o, accessed February 18, 2016.

101 “Kemper Award to Carlhian, Young Citation to Spencer,” Architecture: The AIA Journal 78, no. 2 (February 1989): 18.

51 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

The Quadrangle does not display exceptional significance for its construction or its engineering. It is not a notable early example of slurry wall construction, which was introduced to the United States by European contractors by the 1960s. In addition, while the design of the Smithsonian Quadrangle is one example of the practice of preserving open spaces and historic places by building underground, it is not the first example in Washington, D.C., or on the National Mall. The East Building of the National Gallery, completed in 1978 included a spacious underground component that provided a connection to the West Building while preserving the historic alignment of the L’Enfant plan streets and the spatial arrangement of John Russell Pope’s building. Although not underground, the Hirshhorn sculpture garden, completed in 1974, was sunken below street level to preserve the visual corridor along the Mall’s central greensward. (Several earlier urban design projects had also applied this concept. The construction of the Inner Loop Freeway, now Interstate 395, was tunneled under the east end of the Mall to preserve the existing Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., landscape and the setting of the Grant Memorial.) Nationally, earlier examples of these so-called “invisible additions” include the Cornell University Campus Store (1970) by Flansburgh and Associates, Hugh Stubbins and Associates’ Nathan Marsh Pusey Library (1976) at Harvard, and the Avery Hall extension (1977) at Columbia University by Alexander Kouzmanoff.102

Considering the absence of context on many topics of the recent past, the insufficient recognition of the resource as a notable or groundbreaking postmodern building or landscape, the scarcity of critical evaluations identifying it as an important example of the work of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, Sasaki Associates, or Lester Collins, Jean Paul Carlhian’s body of work, which was well- respected but not widely recognized as highly influential or important, and an absence of exceptional significance for its construction and engineering, the Smithsonian Quadrangle does not possess local or national significance under National Register Criterion C and Criteria Consideration G.103

National Register Criterion D and Criteria Consideration G

The Smithsonian Quadrangle was not evaluated using Criterion D. A comprehensive archaeological survey of the entire site has not been conducted to determine whether archaeological resources are present. The presence of archaeological resources is unlikely due to the fact that the site was entirely excavated for the construction of the Quadrangle.

102 National Trust for Historic Preservation, Old & New Architecture: Design Relationship (Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1980): 94-99.

103 Consideration should be given to reviewing the significance of the resource under National Register Criterion C when adequate local or national historic context for the postmodern period is available or when additional time has passed.

52 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

KEY FEATURES

For the purposes of this evaluation, a list of key features is provided to identify the architectural and landscape elements that date to the original design and individually and collectively contribute to the character of the resource. This list augments the documentation in the South Mall Campus Cultural Landscape Report, will assist with evaluating determinations of adverse effect under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act as a contributing building to the National Mall Historic District, and will provide background for possible future evaluations of the resource’s significance. These key characteristics are outlined below.

Site Spatial Organization - ground plane characterized by a generally level topography with gently rising slopes along the south edge of the site and within the lawn north of the Moongate Garden and a steep incline at the service ramp - vertical plane articulated by the Renwick Gates and adjacent fencing, the massings of the entrance pavilions, the skylights, and stairwell structures, and the trees placed throughout the site, including naturally placed trees within the turf lawns and along the south façade of the Smithsonian Institution Building and symmetrically arranged trees along the parterre and other locations - Overhead planes defined by views and vistas (see below)

Topography - generally level topography with gently rising slopes along the south edge of the site and within the lawn north of the Moongate garden and a steep incline at the service ramp

Circulation - system of pedestrian paths and hardscape areas (brick paving is not original) - granite curbs

Vegetation - American holly trees in the turf lawn south of the Smithsonian Institution Building - Ginkgo trees flanking the south entrance to the Smithsonian Institution Building - Southern magnolia trees near the entrance pavilion to the Ripley Center - Allée of saucer magnolia trees flanking the central parterre - Saucer magnolia tree in the lawn north of the Moongate Garden - Saucer magnolias trees flanking the entrances to the Moongate Garden and the Fountain Garden - Katsura trees along the north façades of the Sackler Gallery pavilion and the National Museum of African Art pavilion - Weeping Japanese cherry tree within the Moongate Garden - Weeping beech tree within the Moongate Garden - Linden trees surrounding the Downing Urn104 - English yew hedges at the foundations of the skylight structures - central parterre - turf lawns

Buildings and Structures - Arthur M. Sackler Gallery entrance pavilion - National Museum of African Art entrance pavilion

104 Although not original to the site design, the trees were planted to replace an earlier linden that had occupied the site and could now be considered a key feature of the landscape.

53 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

- S. Dillon Ripley Center entrance pavilion - Fountain Garden hardscape and built features - Moongate Garden hardscape and built features - Renwick Gates - stairwell structures - skylight structures - entrance ramp and trellis

Water Features - Fountain Garden chadar, fountain jets, water runnels, and pools - Moongate Garden pool

Small-Scale Features - Downing Urn105 - Spencer Baird statue - wood slat benches with curved seats and backs (flanking the central parterre) - Lutyens benches - cast-iron chairs and settees - lampposts - urns surrounding central parterre - hooped iron wickets around central parterre

Views and Vistas - view looking north from the Renwick Gates to the south façade of the Smithsonian Institution Building and the reciprocal view from the south entrance of the Castle down the 10th Street axis - view looking east from the Fountain Garden to the west façade of the Arts and Industries Building - periodic views from the footpaths within the Haupt Garden of the Mall, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the Arts and Industries Building - periodic views from the footpaths within the Haupt Garden of the entrance pavilions to the Quadrangle Complex - sweeping view of the Mall and the Washington Monument from the entrance to the Ripley Center

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Exterior - granite façade and decorative features, including keystones, pilasters, stringcourse, frieze, and finials - diamond-shaped windows, doors, and blind windows - recessed entrance bay with diamond granite frame - copper-clad pyramidal roof forms and skylight - granite skylight and stairwell structure south of pavilion - granite stairwell structure north of pavilion

Interior - ground-floor gallery and entrance vestibules - limestone interior walls - granite floors - painted metal door and window frames - open staircase with granite treads and risers, painted metal balustrade, and handrail

105 As previously mentioned, the Downing Urn is owned by the National Park Service and maintained by the Smithsonian Institution. 54 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

- limestone floors and wood floors of the circulation corridors on the sublevels - limestone walls with inset lighting and pilaster details of the circulation corridors on the sublevels - wood floors and wood paneled walls of the elevator vestibules on the sublevels - shallow diamond-shaped fountain basin with center jets and painted metal rim on third sublevel

National Museum of African Art Exterior - granite façade and decorative features, including keystones, pilasters, stringcourse, frieze, and finials - round-arch windows, doors, and blind windows - tinted-glass window on south façade - recessed entrance bay with round-arch granite frame - copper-clad domed roof and skylight - granite skylight and stairwell structure south of pavilion - granite stairwell structure north of pavilion

Interior - ground-floor gallery and entrance vestibules - limestone interior walls (wallboard panels, wood cornice, and wood screens are not original) - granite floors - painted metal door and window frames - open curved staircase with granite treads and risers, painted metal balustrade, and metal handrail - limestone floors of the circulation corridors on the sublevels - limestone walls with inset lighting and pilaster details of the circulation corridors on the sublevels - wood floors and wood paneled walls of the elevator vestibules on the sublevels - shallow circular fountain basin with center jet and painted metal rim on third sublevel

S. Dillon Ripley Center Exterior - limestone façade with smooth columns and glazed bays - copper domed roof with scalloped edge

Interior - limestone walls and granite floors on ground level of entrance pavilion - stair and escalator entrance sequence from entrance pavilion to sublevels - colonnaded rotunda and open concourse on third sublevel - tile flooring, fountain basin, and planters of concourse - pair of double height mirrors in arched openings at center point of concourse - flush wood doors with sidelights and glazed transoms along north wall of concourse - doorframes along south wall of concourse with architrave, cornice, and bracket details (glass doors and transoms are not original) - fixed-sash interior windows of concourse - trompe l’oeil mural on east wall of concourse - glazed corridors passing through concourse at second sublevel - four square skylights on ceiling of concourse

55 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Archival Repositories

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Gardens

Enid A. Haupt Garden Files

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution Archives

Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation, Building Files ca. 1850-2006 (Accession 06-225) Office of Facilities Services, Records 1975-1985 (Accession 86-086) Office of Design and Constriction, Project Files 1985-1995 (Accession 96-028)

U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C. Records of the Commission of Fine Arts

Materials reviewed included minutes and transcripts of meetings covering the period 1979 through 1993 during which the Smithsonian Quadrangle project was presented to the Commission of Fine Arts.

59 DC State Historic Preservation Office Determination of Eligibility Form for the Smithsonian Quadrangle

APPENDIX A

60 Smithsonian Quadrangle Ground Level Smithsonian Quadrangle First Sublevel Smithsonian Quadrangle Second Sublevel Smithsonian Quadrangle Third Sublevel