Some time ago the Smithsonian Institution announced plans to create a National Museum of African-American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to be built on the National Mall next to the Washington Monument. Not having heard anything of it for a while, I had thought maybe the idea had been abandoned. That would not have been all bad; the conceptual framework for this effort is flawed.
African-American history is an inseparable part of our history as a nation; it is not a distinct, unrelated set of events. I agree that it's a history which deserves a greater representation in our museums than it currently has, but the creation of a separate museum devoted to one part of the whole ignores reality. It smacks of the discredited "separate but equal" theory. The current plan will also create a NMAAHC bureaucracy that will in future jealously guard its separateness, so it's now or never for the Smithsonian to get it right and provide an integrated (in all senses) picture of American history.
I'm sure that's not going to happen, but here is a practical fix, if anyone in high places wants to reconsider: Make the new building a second building of the Museum of American History, much as the National Gallery of Art nearby now has "East" and "West" buildings. That would allow placing African-American topics and exhibits into their proper places in the whole fabric of our history, throughout both buildings.
Meanwhile, the Smithsonian has announced its selection of a design and an architect for the future NMAAHC. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the preliminary design proposals. Several were graceful, architecturally interesting, and would have been good additions to what's already in the area. To me, the winning design is one of the more mundane entries - heavy and fortress-like -- but I'm no architect. What's more important in a museum is display space and accessibility of the exhibits. I hope Smithsonian officials will keep that in mind, now that the design choice has been made, and avoid creating another wasteful architect's-dream/viewer-disaster like the American Indian Museum.
I agree - especially about the chosen design - to me it hearkens back to the much-maligned FBI building. Indeed like a fortress. Why does this happen when the vision for such a project should soar? (Another example is the national headquarters of the United Way - here in Alexandria - it looks like the Maginot Line and is quite forbidding.)
Posted by: Barbara Barton | April 20, 2009 at 02:09 PM