‘Visible Vault’ Brings the National Building Museum’s Collection to Light
Visible Vault: Open Collections Storage at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Photo by Stephen A. Miller, StudioM13
With architects and firms embracing the latest digital methods, including AI, in their design processes, it can be hard to remember that mere decades ago, analog tools were the dominant ones used to build models and draw designs. A new exhibition at the National Building Museum (NBM) in Washington, D.C., Visible Vault: Open Collections Storage, includes a broad array of these implements alongside material samples and studies for and fragments of relics from the built environment.
Photo by Stephen A. Miller, StudioM13
Visible Vault came about in large part thanks to a digitization effort kicked off by museum registrar Nancy Bateman several years ago. The NBM has more than half a million objects in its collection, most of which have never been on public view outside of their uses prior to acquisition, as pieces of built architecture or, in some cases, as playthings (the holdings include hundreds of architecture-inspired toys). Even with the renewed focus on visibility—a much smaller sampling of artifacts were included in the NBM’s 2021 Visitor Center revamp—less than half a percent of the objects held in the collection, around 2,500, are on physical display. The museum does plan to rotate the pieces that are on view as part of Visible Vault periodically, although some of the larger objects are so wholly integrated into the exhibition that their removal seems unlikely. The largest piece on view, at more than 15 feet tall and 13 feet wide, is a cast iron and stamped sheet metal facade from Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution in Salt Lake City that dates back to the early 1900s; the smallest is a 1-inch diameter button from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York that proclaims, “I have seen the future.”
Photo by Stephen A. Miller, StudioM13
On display are relics of the past that have helped to bring about that future, including a blueprint machine, photographic equipment, and material samples ranging from an early roll of linoleum to light-transmitting concrete blocks embedded with fiber optics. With so much to display, object labels are reduced, in most cases, either to a QR code that leads to an Esri Storymap or a three-number sequence that plugs into a searchable database. This digital overlay is useful for hosting the depth of information a researcher might enjoy while also accentuating New York–based Studio Joseph’s maximalist strategy of, simply, presenting and illuminating as much as possible.
The idea of sharing more of a museum’s collection is hardly new. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, for example, is the U.K.’s (still collecting) repository for architectural relics, which also compete for floor space with examples from fashion and furniture design as well as ancient ceramics and contemporary objects. To display even more of its vast holdings, the V&A will open a standalone, publicly accessible storage facility designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) next May. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art famously displays seemingly infinite variations of a single type of object per room and still barely scratches the surface of its actual holdings. The Met’s Henry R. Luce Center, an open-storage space located in its American Wing, allows visitors to dive even deeper into the museum’s collection. And in Los Angeles, DS+R’s The Broad contemporary art museum was designed as a “veil-and-vault” construct, which offers visitors glimpses of collection storage as they make their way to and from the upper-level galleries.
The concept of letting museum-goers see behind the scenes has given way to efforts elsewhere at bringing more of an institution’s collections out of storage and into view. At the NBM, it succeeds admirably, in the form of simple white, glass-fronted cases chock full of curios: shelves of architectural salt and pepper shakers as well as drawers at curious-child level filled with trappings that aspiring designers might find appealing, such as an early set of Lincoln Logs with their owner’s name imprinted on the box, lest they be lost at a playdate.
Photos by Stephen A. Miller, StudioM13
It’s an “architectural treasure hunt,” said NBM president and executive director Aileen Fuchs at the December 14 opening of Visible Vault. The exhibition is “not just a showcase but a moment of discovery,” she added. “It offers an unprecedented peek into the Building Museum’s permanent collection, showcasing some of the most fascinating and complex architectural objects we have, that have been packed in storage until now.”
Photo by Stephen A. Miller, StudioM13
Architectural models on view for the opening include an unbuilt design by Frank Gehry for an expansion of Washington, D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery of Art, now the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. Also featured in model form are I.M. Pei’s Miho Museum in Kyoto, Japan; Victor Lundy’s U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka, and Leon Krier’s vision for an (unbuilt) alternative approach to the National Mall.
With no end date posted for Visible Vault, the NBM pledges to continue offering new glimpses into its expansive collection for years to come.
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