Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - Washington, DC
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 38° 53.299 W 077° 01.370
18S E 324556 N 4306327
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden was established in 1974.
Waymark Code: WMRZQM
Location: District of Columbia, United States
Date Posted: 08/29/2016
Views: 5
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.
The Hirshhorn is sited exactly halfway between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol, anchoring the southernmost end of the so-called L’Enfant axis (perpendicular to the Mall’s green carpet). The National Archives/National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden across the Mall, and the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art building several blocks to the north, also mark this pivotal axis, a key element of both the 1791 city plan by Pierre L’Enfant and the 1901 MacMillan Plan.
The building itself is an attraction, likened by some to a large spacecraft parked on the National Mall. The building is an open cylinder elevated on four massive "legs," with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard. Before architect Gordon Bunshaft designed the building, the Smithsonian staff reportedly told him that, if it did not provide a striking contrast to everything else in the city, then it would be unfit for housing a modern art collection."