Two years and seven public consultations later, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. is ready to present again its controversial proposal by Hiroshi Sugimoto to redesign its 1.5-acre sunken garden to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). The latest version of the proposal will include a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), with mitigation efforts and explanations, but still with design elements that some preservationists have opposed: an enlarged U-shaped reflection pool, instead of the original rectangular one, to accommodate a performance platform, and new retention walls of stacked stone, rather than the current deteriorating concrete aggregate walls (which could be repaired or rebuilt). The Hirshhorn last presented its plans to the NCPC in December 2020 in a virtual public hearing (and first in June 2019), where it was granted approval only if the museum addressed those two major changes with “a comprehensive rationale.” The garden, as well as the museum itself, was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and opened in 1974.
Critics argue that Sugimoto’s plan does not honor the garden's history.
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