Mary's Workplace

Mary is lucky enough that for the second time in her career her workplace is the grand National Building Museum. I’ve included some highlight photos that hardly do the place justice, including a couple of shots of some outside details, including terra cotta sculptures and friezes, and of the Corinthian columns that screen the interior atrium, which are described as some of the largest classical columns in the world.


The National Building Museum describes its home as follows, summarized from the NBM website:

“…Built between 1882 and 1887, the project began following a Senate Appropriations Committee approval of $250,000 to purchase a suitable site and construct a fireproof building for the US Pension Bureau’s headquarters…The building was designed for two distinct functions: to house the Pension Bureau and to provide a suitably grand space for Washington’s social and political functions.”

-From http://www.nbm.org/about-us/historic-building/

Mary’s current work is with a government organization that guides and oversees the design process for significant elements of US culture, including buildings, monuments, and even medals and awards. In fact, several examples of this work are part of the exhibition she led that is currently on display at the NBM – see http://www.nbm.org/exhibitions-collections/exhibitions/century-of-design.html.  That’s why I visited her at lunch time a few days ago, to check out the show.

She also worked at the museum a few years back as a curator, and before that, she worked in development. One of the last shows she did in this role (she is credited as Guest Curator for this one) was on the Anacostia Waterfront, and is visible on the NBM site at http://www.nbm.org/exhibitions-collections/exhibitions/dc-builds.html.

Two other highlights were the “On Track: Transit and the American City” exhibition, and a series on Smart Growth topics that was done in collaboration with the Urban Land Institute.

Her work is interesting and rewarding – that’s something we all wish for, but the workplace she gets to go to is really something special. There aren’t a lot of places like this special building around.