Several months after announcing that the joint team of SOM and Selldorf Architects will oversee the most significant interior revitalization project undertaken at the Hirshhorn Museum in its nearly half-century-long existence, the Smithsonian Institution has revealed that the latter firm has also been tapped to lead a major overhaul of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM).
The Gordon Bunshaft–designed Hirshhorn, where a contentious redesign of its Modernist sculpture garden is now underway following a facade restoration project, is one of several prominent Smithsonian museums lining the National Mall. SAAM, on the other hand, is located nearly a mile north of the Mall and is one of two museums—the other being the National Portrait Gallery—located within the sprawling old Patent Office Building in Washington’s D.C.’s Chinatown. Both museums were closed for several years while their shared Greek Revival–style landmark home underwent extensive renovations; both reopened in 2006 as a joint facility known as the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture.
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