The Smithsonian Institution revised its design plan for the new National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall, tweaking the way it plans to light the building at day and night. The revision unveiled Thursday to the National Capital Planning Commission paves the way for approval of the building in the fall.
Members of the federal panel expressed concerns in September about plans for a proposed porch overlooking the building, traffic disruption from construction and the surrounding landscape.
The proposed 315,000-square-foot museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution, will be on five acres near Constitution Avenue and 14th Street on the Washington Monument grounds
and will be dedicated to the collection of black historical and cultural materials, according to the plan.
It would be the last museum built on the Mall.
Among revisions submitted by the Smithsonian include reducing the size of skylights — windows installed in the roof — to bring the lights to scale with the surrounding landscape. The plan also says the design team will continue to study the night lighting until it is “more refined” and reflects the desired “subdued palette” that doesn’t distract from the Mall. It also calls for increasing the amount of green space near the building.
The revised plan unveiled Thursday also mandates that large tractor-trailer deliveries occur between 11 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. to minimize traffic interruptions on 14th Street, which has been designated as the service entrance for trucks and gets busy during peak hours.
The plan, however, said the porch still extends 32 feet too far onto the Mall, something designers will have to spend more time studying.
“The porch is seen as an iconic element in African-American culture,” said Ken Walton, a planner with the National Capital Planning Commission. “It’s a welcoming and gathering space.”
Walton said visitors entering the site from the northern boundary will walk on a bridge over water to enter the museum, a symbolic act recalling the Tiber Creek, a canal system that ran along what is now Constitution Avenue. One official on Thursday expressed concerns about visitors crossing water to enter the museum.
“It really is a foreign element in landscaping,” said Peter May, a planning director for the National Park Service.
The National Capital Planning Commission is expected take up the preliminary and final reviews of the plan in the fall, Walton said. Construction is expected to begin in 2012 and be completed by 2015.
Congress, which
has appropriated $245 million for construction, passed legislation creating the museum in 2003.
