Recently, on a visit to Washington, DC, I had the chance to tour the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall, designed by David Adjaye (NA 2013). Much has been written about the museum, both about its critically important commemoration of African American history and its unique architecture. Following are a few of my observations from the visit to call attention to the important role public architecture can play to invite, inform, entertain, and otherwise engage visitors, enrich their cultural experience, and make historical narrative palpable.
“I wanted to create a design that transforms the museum from a viewing experience into a narrative experience. I’d like visitors to walk away feeling as though they’ve been on a journey.”
David Adjaye, as quoted in a Q&A with the Design Museum
Credit: Alan Karchmer 
Credit: Alan Karchmer
The Museum and Its Setting
The NMAAHC fills the westernmost and last available site on the Mall, looking out on the Washington Monument to the west and the Department of Justice to the northeast. The NMAAHC stands dark, quiet, and resolute in stark contrast to the white marble monuments and memorials that surround it. Depending on the time of day, and whether it stands in sun or in shade, its intricately detailed lattice façade is full of emotion, and reacts, sometimes shimmering, sometimes closing down in shadow. There are carefully placed openings in the bronze-toned aluminum veil that encloses the museum to frame views of the surrounding monuments and memorials. Adjaye’s building engages us immediately, speaking to us in no uncertain terms about a different American history than the other museums on the Mall. Beginning with its iconic form, a three-tiered Yoruba tribal crown, and its foundations deep in the earth, the architecture symbolizes the narrative of the African American experience of forced migration, and prepares the visitor for this story told through an extensive exhibition.
“I was completely moved by the corona motif. It seemed like a way to start to tell a story that moves from one continent, where people were taken, along with their cultures, and used as labor, then contributed towards making another country and new cultures.”
David Adjaye, as quoted in the New York Times
The Experience Inside
Inside, the didactic display of African American history begins at a level far below grade to recount the tortured history of the journey from Africa to America in slave ships. The story unfolds in three “chapters,” reflected in the three-tiered design, and beginning with historical galleries 60 feet below the Mall in spaces described by Adjaye to NPR as like a crypt. A second chapter investigates the migration from the South to urban settlements in the North; and a third part of the narrative relates the African American contributions to contemporary art and culture.
The visitors’ experiences are greatly enhanced by three layers of building enclosure: the first layer is a circulation zone outside the galleries that connects them to one another; the second layer is a high performance glass curtainwall that addresses universal concerns for sustainability; the third is the bronze-toned filigree panels that temper the light and views. Visitors move from gallery to gallery and floor to floor in the dynamic space between inside and outside. Think of the galleries as a series of buildings stacked within a building. The interstitial space between inside and outside is clad in matte grey panels, a neutral mask through which visitors move into the galleries where they can focus on the complex and emotive displays designed by exhibition designer Ralph Applebaum. The exhibits range from the troubling history of the migration to the uplifting aspirations of an amazingly resilient community. The galleries employ sound, light, video, and two- and three-dimensional objects to represent past and present day African American experience. The journey vacillates between an intense narrative in the enclosed galleries, and out into the light again to a partially transparent, partially translucent space. In this in-between space visitors can get their bearings and look out to the Mall.
Architecture As a Social Art
The NMAAHC embodies key attributes of architecture as a social art. How Adjaye’s museum creates the link between form and content is most extraordinary to me. The building contains large spaces and small, dark spaces; bright views to the outdoors; and a very deliberate itinerary from a beginning 60 feet below grade, reminiscent of the bowels of slave ships, culminating on the top floor with the ecstatic display of contemporary African American contributions to art and culture. The historical and cultural narrative is communicated by the architecture even before the remarkable exhibition draws us in.
The museum is an affirmation that architecture is fundamentally about the people it serves. Every part of the experience that recounts African American history is enriched by the complete reciprocity between the narrative and the architecture that contains it.
At their most basic, buildings have the power to transform lives in practical ways by providing shelter and protection from the elements. In more subtle ways, architecture can also provide comfort, company, beauty, symbolic presence, and personal empowerment to expect more for and of ourselves.
All buildings reflect histories that connect us to the past, the present, and the future. This is poignantly displayed in Adjaye’s museum on the Mall. The NMAAHC connects a complicated and troubling history with an aspirational future told in words, images, sounds, and architectural form.
It should be noted that projects at the scale of the NMAAHC could never be designed and executed by one person. Collaborating with Adjaye Associates were members of three other architecture firms and countless other design consultants with special expertise. The three firms that partnered with Adjaye Associates were Davis Brody Bond, SmithGroup, and the Freelon Group. The exhibition designer was Ralph Applebaum.
David Adjaye’s National Museum of African American History and Culture opened on September 24, 2016.
Paul Broches (NA 2013) is a partner at Mitchell Giurgola Architects and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. His work begins with architecture as a social art. Designs are informed by a dedication to the craft of building, the frequent involvement of artists in the design process, and by collaboration among MG colleagues. Broches is a member of the Berkeley Prize Committee, a national awards program for undergraduate students intended to foster architecture as a social art through research, writing and criticism; and the Goodman Fellowship Selection Committee at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation.
