Washington’s Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden has reopened with outdoor galleries reshaped by Hiroshi Sugimoto. The redesign restores the tunnel connecting the garden to the museum plaza and makes room for a larger collection display. New routes, stacked-stone walls and flood-control infrastructure accompany the changes to the Smithsonian museum’s landscape on the National Mall.
Arts··Night
A closed passage returns to use
The Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden, part of the Smithsonian museum complex on Washington’s National Mall, has reopened following a redesign led by artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto. Quinn Evans, the project’s architect of record, announced the completed reopening on October 31. The underground passage between the museum plaza and garden is accessible again after being closed to the public in the 1980s. It now contains Sugimoto’s stainless-steel installation Passage of Reflectance.[1]
Stone walls frame a larger sculpture display
Sugimoto’s design retains the garden’s Modernist sculptures while reshaping the outdoor spaces around them. An August preview had described the planned return of bronze works by artists including Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore, with dry-stacked stone walls defining the galleries. The completed scheme has a flexible West Gallery for temporary installations, a Central Gallery with a pool-surrounded stage and an East Gallery of outdoor viewing rooms. Quinn Evans says the outdoor galleries display 50 per cent more collection works.[1], [2]
New paths accompany flood protection
The project responds to Gordon Bunshaft’s original 1974 design and Lester Collins’ 1980 intervention. Concrete retaining walls were reconstructed to preserve their appearance, and gently sloping paths connect the different spaces. Concealed stormwater infrastructure addresses flooding in the sunken garden. Rainwater is filtered through planting beds before being stored underground, treated and reused for irrigation.[1]
