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Waiting room at left, with information and retail pods in the right background. Photo © Anice Hoachlander/Hoachlander Davis
which would make a nice addition to a contemporary suburban A Visitor Center
home, serves as the rock garden's pochi, or meditation porch. for the White House
The third pavilion, made from a recycled shipping container, A short bus ride away from Union Station is the White House
houses restrooms. The three structures were designed to last about Visitor Center, a National Park Service facility located in the
10 years, which is when the area is projected to be redeveloped Commerce Department building on the south side of Pennsylvania
as part of the mammoth Burnham Place project envisaged for Avenue, NW, between 14th and 15th Streets. The visitor center
Union Station. fills the Malcolm Baldrige Great Hall, a large, beautifully detailed
room that spans the front of the building at street level.
“The garage, bus terminal, and train station entry had to
remain in operation 24/7, so construction had to be phased to ensure From 1932, when the building was completed, until 1967, the
maximum pedestrian safety and minimal patron disruption,” Ray hall was used as the Patent Search Room, which was a place where
said. “This requirement led to the desire to have the pavilions researchers could comb through patents cataloged by the Commerce
fabricated offsite as much as practical and then installed overnight, Department. Furnished with rows of wooden desks and chairs,
when minimal pedestrian traffic was present.” The retail and the hall during that period looked something like the main reading
restroom pavilions were built and installed this way. room of a grand public library building.
The design “responded to the constraints of the site and fulfilled The great hall’s size, its proximity to the White House, and its
the requirements of the project brief, addressing the needs of the rich architectural features—including limestone walls and arches, a
passenger population. But it also took the project to a higher coffered ceiling with finely carved details, and bronze chandeliers—
level,” Swaim-Staley said. “Studio Twenty Seven used the project led to its selection as the site for the new White House Visitor Center.
to raise questions about the nature of travel in the 21st century. In Renovation of the room began in 1993, and the center opened
the process they also developed an innovative method to build a in 1995.
geometrically challenging structure [the ovoid-shaped pavilion] on
a limited budget. The result achieves Union Station’s desire for The original center “was [created on] a bit of a shoestring
design excellence, and it adds a new, small, but important icon budget, and some exhibits were built at the last minute in the
within its walls.” nooks and crannies in that beautiful building,” said John Riley
of the non-profit White House Historical Association (WHHA).
Combined with KGP Design Studio’s futuristic bicycle transit By 2010, the visitor center was in need of modernization.
center (see the Winter 2010 issue of ARCHITECTUREDC, page 40),
Studio Twenty Seven’s new bus terminal pavilions make Union To design the new facility, the National Park Service and
Station a bit of a hotbed of leading-edge design in Washington. WHHA turned to SmithGroupJJR and Gallagher & Associates.
SmithGroupJJR—an architectural firm whose work includes the
“USRC has been tremendously supportive through the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall and the
process,” Ray said. “The staff at USRC are historians and visionaries. sublime Normandy American Cemetery Visitor Center in France
They appreciate the national treasure they have in Union Station,
but also support what the future may hold.”
68 WAIT AND SEE
