The vast Great Hall of the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., is as tricky to program as it is impressive to behold. More than 300 feet long and several stories high, the Renaissance Revival hall is often rented out for private events, and its columns and arcades provide a suitably grand backdrop during gala dinners. But the space tends to swallow up lectures and other small-scale public programs. To make better use of it, the museum installed a giant maze as the centerpiece of its summer programming.
On July 4, the Bjarke Ingels Group’s BIG Maze opened in the hall, part of the museum’s annual Summer Block Party, which includes crowd-friendly events such as Sunday concerts and an outdoor barbeque stand. Even at 57 feet square and 18 feet high, the maze occupies only the eastern third of the Great Hall. What better way to emphasize the building’s colossal scale than to insert another, roofless structure inside it?
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