Friday, January 04, 2013

Washington DC - Architecture Recap

on the mall in the evening after a day at the i m pei national gallery of modern art, the museum of the native american- the new museum on the mall- a gigiantic sandstone clad undulating surface. primitive offerening to the gods made for incongruous ornaments around the building. directly across were the empty glass modernism of the many ministries of the capital of the world. the hirschhorn gallery of art in its doughnut was showing ai wai wai’s work- which seemed to be easy to use political art. but then what do i know. outside the evening light on the mall was gorgeous, the needle silhouetted against a burning sky. the vietnam memorial was dark by the time we got there and lincoln glowed a blue white in the half light of the sky. after a walk past the korean memorial, the new world war 2 memorial seemed to me to be ironically cut from the same cloth at so many nazi or fascist memorials. symmetrically placed on the axis of the dc monuments- the classically inspired colonnade was strangely reminiscent of speer. dulles airport with its swoop of concrete and expressive structural detail was where i took my flight out to san fransisco. the day obama became president again.






























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