Washington: Symbol and City

So I kicked off the tour of the Museums of Washington DC last Sunday with the National Building museum which had an exhibit called Washington: Symbol and City. I learned a couple of things but came away a bit disappointed as I found the exhibit a bit disjointed. First I should say that you really need to expect to spend at least 2 hours at any single museum exhibit. I biked there which was a nice 3.2 mile bike ride each way, but only got there at 3:30 when the museum closed at 5.

The Exhibit was basically two sections. The first was mostly about the urban planning of the city as a whole and its significant monuments. Had some pieces about the initial land acquisition, the thought behind the street layouts, and detail about the design and build out of the Capitol building, White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Jefferson Memorial. Also spent some time on the 1901-1902 Park commission which significantly influenced the look and contents of the diamond shaped Federal area between those significant buildings.

The second room was a series of sections focusing on different, somewhat related subjects like Education, Housing, Water, Trains and Canals, the Pentagon and Naval Yards, and some sections I admittedly did not get to. While there were some parts of the second section that I thought were pretty interesting, I think as a while, the exhibit lacked enough of a common theme pulling it all together other than the obvious that it is all part of the city of Washington. But duh, of course it is.

I think a 2 room 2 hour exhibit is not really enough to cover so broad a topic so it would have been better off piecing some things that had more of a narrative thread connecting them and leave off the other stuff. But then maybe different exhibits are aimed at different levels of detail and I came away judging this one against a goal it just had not set for itself.

Unfortunately, the exhibit I should have seen and maybe will make my way back to was House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage. This probably sounds like watching paint dry for most people, but this is right in my wheel house.