some viewers it looks even newer than the fifty-year- 

 old Federal Triangle buildings on the north side of 

 Constitution Avenue. 



While the Museum building is not the Parthenon or 

 even the Lincoln Memorial, likewise it is not a char- 

 acterless modern-day of fice building, and the dedicated 

 student of architectural history can spend an hour look- 

 ing at the exterior. There is some detail to be discerned. 

 The window ledges of the ground floor are formed by 

 the upper surface of the massive lower course of mon- 

 oliths, whose rusticated surface contrasts with the smooth 

 blocks above. Each vertical pair of windows on the two 

 exhibit floors is treated as essentially one window, 

 strengthening the vertical lines of the building. 



On the third story, the roof line is set back along the 

 ranges but is entirely vertical on the wings. The third- 

 floor ranges have more granite decoration than the 

 wings, with alternating half-circles and triangles above 

 the windows. The roof and dome are covered with light 

 gray-green slate from Poultney, Vermont, and choice 

 ledges and crevices all over the building — the south 

 portico in particular — are covered with pigeons. The 

 birds are conditioned by many years' worth of attempts 

 to harass them into leaving, and nothing affects them. 

 Like the granite, they are permanent. 



Dome, Stately Entrance, Rotunda 



The building's most pleasing aesthetic feature is prob- 

 ably the dome, best seen from the Mall side. The en- 

 trance from the Mall is stately, with two runs of steps 

 to the south portico. The north entrance is architec- 

 turally the least satisfactory part of the building. Both 

 sides have massive bronze doors. If there is one single 

 criticism to be leveled against the architects, these grand- 

 looking, heavy doors are it. Several generations of me- 

 chanics have oiled them, tinkered with them, and cursed 

 them, but since the day the Museum opened, the public 

 has had difficulty heaving them open. 



The interior of the building is only slightly more 

 detailed than the exterior. The easiest way to see its 

 best features is to go to the second floor and walk around 

 the rotunda, looking both down, to the floor of Ten- 

 nessee marble, and up. The view of the dome and the 

 large windows is even better from the third floor, but 

 this contains offices and collections and is off-limits to 

 tourists. Few of the staff visit the fourth-floor rotunda 

 unless their collections are stored there. 



The rotunda is eight-sided, with the four sides di- 

 rectly facing the wings and the portico being much 

 wider than the four sides in between. Each of these 

 four longer sides has a screen of pillars made of pol- 

 ished brecciated marble. The first-story columns are 

 Doric in style, and the second- and third-story columns 

 are Roman Ionic. As one continues to look upward 

 above the third screen of columns, the four semicircular 



/// this proposal jot the rotunda, drawn in section, 

 enormous bull's-eye windows let light into the area, the 

 interior is adorned with Jigures, and the dome is 

 surmounted by a winged statue. To the left are additional 

 statues at the south entrance, and an exedra — an enormous 

 semicircular entrance befitting a palace. The auditorium, in 

 this fanciful sketch, is placed under the rotunda, indicating 

 a date after 1904 — ajter construction had begun. 



clerestory windows and the arches containing them can 

 be seen. Craning one's neck, it is possible to see the 

 tiled interior of the dome and the skylight. This is al- 

 most as impressive a view as looking into the dome of 

 the Capitol. 



There are three exhibit halls to the north, east, and 

 west on the first floor, and two each on the second 

 floor. By Rathbun's measure, the new building had 

 468,000 square feet (ten and three-quarters acres), of 

 which 220,000 square feet (five acres) was exhibit space. 

 The central hall of each of the three wings has an 

 enormously high ceiling, most of which is roofed by a 

 long, wide skylight. This high ceiling is best seen today 

 from the center of the north hall. A balcony on the 

 second floor, added in the 1960s to Hall 10, permits a 

 better view of the skylight and the plaster molding than 

 tourists in the early days could have had. Still, one 

 wonders why even this relatively simple ornamental 

 detail was put in, for the truth of the matter is that no 

 one looks at it. People come to a museum to see the 

 exhibits, not the shell that contains them. □ 



The New /iuilding 



27 



