By Sheila Wickouski
There are many museums in Southwest, but what Southwesters see daily in their cityscape is now in a museum exhibit of its own. Capital Brutalism, through June 30, 2025, at the National Building Museum features seven DC buildings in the Brutalist style of architecture that first arrived in Washington in the 1950s and 1960s as homes were razed to build less expensive public buildings of concrete. Four of the buildings featured in the exhibit are in the Southwest quadrant.
The1962 “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture” emerged from President John F. Kennedy’s Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space and is still in use today. Its purpose was to design federal buildings that represented the best in contemporary architecture and reflected local design. Through archival documents, drawings, models and photography, Capital Brutalism follows the timeline of how these buildings were constructed and includes a glance into the future of what can be re-imagined as possible architectural updates for the 21st century.
THE WEAVER BUILDING
The first federal building to be constructed under these principles was the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, home to the headquarters of theU.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, (HUD) on 7th Street SW, which was constructed between 1965-68.
At its dedication, President Lyndon B. Johnson touted it as “a lasting architectural asset to our capital city and our country.” Decades later, HUD Secretaries would label it “among the most reviled in all of Washington—and with good reason” and as “10 floors of basement.”
The exhibit presents a re-imagination of the Weaver Building that would address both the growing housing crisis and decline in the office building market with an effort to repurpose rather than demolish. The architecture firm Brooks + Scarpa’s design converts almost half of the existing building into over 300 units of affordable housing while preserving the original structure. .
THE FORRESTAL BUILDING
The James V. Forrestal Building was completed in 1969. It was first built for the Defense Department as “the little Pentagon” and then in 1977 became the headquarters for the newly created U.S.Department of Energy.
A New York Times article by Ada Lousie Huxtable in 1965 summarized the design as ”too big to be trivial and too competent to be offensive.”
Splitting for Difference, Reimagining the Forrestal Building, a 2024 Unbuilt project, courtesy of the Studio Gang architects, proposes a “third way” forward for the building, pushing to work with the visual monotony but structural flexibility of the design while considering issues like the climate crisis in order “to allow our cities to grow and evolve in a healthy way while minimizing carbon emissions.”
THE HUBERT H. HUMPHREY BUILDING
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building houses the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and was completed in 1977. It was among the first DC buildings to apply for air rights in order to build directly above a tunnel, specifically the Interstate 395 tunnel.
Architects Marcel Breuer and Herbert Beckhard of Marcel Breuer & Associates, in collaboration with Nolan-Swinburne and Associates, worked to accommodate the tunnel and an Independence Avenue sewer line which ran diagonally under the building. The text at the exhibit describes, “they carefully placed large, load-bearing columns that could support bridge-like trusses at the penthouse level. These trusses support vertical hangers, which hold each of the six office floors. Because the office floors are hanging from the trusses, the primary mass of the building appears to float above the plaza level.”
Fast forward to 2025, when DC-based architecture firm BLDUS, led by Andrew Linn and Jack Becker, reimagines the Humphrey Building as the “Temple of Play.” This would require the creation of a new executive Department of Play with the stated purpose of “fundamentally reorienting the perspectives of Americans toward play and happiness.” Their proposal describes this new Temple of Play as the largest playground in the world…,” it would attract people of all ages during every season.”
THE HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN
Several blocks away is the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Established in 1966 by an act of Congress, with the collections and funding from Joseph Hirshhorn, designed by architect Gordon Bunshalft, the museum opened in 1974. A standout among the buildings on the National Mall both for its shape and design, the Hirshhorn’s roundness provides circular galleries to view art exhibits in a continuing path, rather than divided into separate galleries. The New York Times described it as “a fortress of a building that works as a museum.”
In 2009, the Hirshhorn Museum hired the architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DSR) to design an additional 11,000 square feet of event space for the museum. The unconventional “Bubble” is described as “a seasonal inflatable space that “oozes” out the top and from underneath the relatively petite, hollow-core building.” However, after years of striving to bring the Bubble to fruition, the project was canceled in 2013 due to cost concerns.
A trip to the National Building Museum helps visitors make connection between art and architecture, and to wonder at the contrasts of what we see in museums and what we see around us as part of the cityscape that we share.
