National Gallery of Art East Building

On one of the most sensitive sites in the United States, on the Mall at the foot of the Capitol, the National Gallery of Art requested an expansion facility to complement the existing National Gallery. Programmatically two different buildings were required: a museum to house large, travelling exhibitions and to provide the infrastructure and ceremonial spaces lacking in the early twentieth-century building, and also a separate study centre / office facility. In solution, the trapezoidal site was sliced into two triangles, one for each function, with a triangular atrium unifying the whole. In plan, section and elevation, the interlocking volumes merge inseparably in a spatial dialogue of rigorous geometry, technical innovation and exacting craftsmanship.