The exhibition, marking the Neue Galerie's 20th anniversary, is the first time in a decade that the Ronald S. Lauder Collection has been publicly viewable.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC. As designed by Gordon Bunshaft, a rectangular pool in the garden echoes a window and balcony on the 1974 museum s façade. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Facing challenges from a federal planning authority and advocacy groups, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC is under pressure to revamp or justify elements of a significant redesign of its sunken sculpture garden.
The original Japanese Zen-inflected garden, which spans 1.5 acres next to the National Mall, was completed in 1974 by the architect Gordon Bunshaft as a complement to the museum’s distinctive Modernist drum-shaped concrete and granite building. The garden’s Brutalist gravel walkways and lack of shade made it inhospitable to visitors during Washington’s hot summers, however, prompting the Hirshhorn to enlist the landscape architect Lester Collins three years later to add trees, plant beds and other vegetatio