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Galleries in the history section at the lower levels of the
Project: National Museum of museum. The Jim Crow-era railcar is visible at far right.
African American History & Culture,
1400 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
Lead Design Architects: Adjaye Associates
Architects of Record: The Freelon Group (now part of Perkins+Will)
Associate Architects: Davis Brody Bond
Associate Architects: SmithGroupJJR
Landscape Architects: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol
Structural Engineers: Guy Nordenson and Associates (conceptual);
Robert Silman Associates
MEP/Fire Protection Engineers: WSP Flack + Kurtz
Civil Engineers: Rummel Klepper & Kahl
Geotechnical/Environmental Engineers: Froehling & Robertson
Threat Protection/Blast Engineers: Weidlinger Associates
Surveying/Subsurface Utility Investigation: A. Morton Thomas & Associates
Life Safety Code Consultants: Rolf Jensen & Associates
Cost Estimators: Faithful + Gould
Sustainable Design Consultants: Rocky Mountain Institute
Electronic/Anti-Terrorism/Security Consultants: ARUP North America
EIS/NEPA/Website Tier II Consultants: AECOM
Historic Resource Protection: Robinson & Associates
Public Outreach Consultants: Justice & Sustainability Associates
Lighting Consultants: Fisher Marantz Stone
Acoustical/AV/Multimedia/IT/Telecom Consultants: Shen Milsom & Wilke
Food Service Designers: Hopkins Food Service Specialists
Retail Designers: AA Museum Shops (A BDJ Ventures Company)
Theater/Multimedia Performance Space Designers: Fisher Dachs Associates
Façade Consultants: R.A. Heintges & Associates
Traffic Studies: Gorove Slade
Vertical Transportation Consultants: Lerch Bates
Specifications Consultants: Construction Specifications
Signage and Graphics Consultants: Poulin+Morris
Hardware Consultants: Erbschloe Consulting Services
Commissioning: McKissack & McKissack
General Contractors: Clark Construction Group;
Smoot Construction; H.J. Russell & Co.

onto such a tight site required a number of trade-offs in
design and planning.
The original competition-winning design included a
large, rectangular, elevated plinth containing the main
level of the museum and spanning almost the entire length
of the site from Constitution Avenue to Madison Drive.
Perched atop the southern end of this architectural podium
was to be a rectangular “corona”—a two-tiered tower
enmeshed in an intricate bronze screen, with each tier
flaring outward from bottom to top. The idea for the
corona came from Sir David Adjaye, the Tanzanian-born
principal of London-based Adjaye Associates and the
lead designer for the project, who was inspired by the
crown-like pinnacles of carved posts found on vernacular
buildings of the Yoruba people in what is now Nigeria.
“It is a column capital, [and] it has a pyramid reference,”
said Adjaye, “and despite the passage of time, it
represents the aesthetic world [that] the Africans brought
to America as slaves.”
The proposed design underwent major alterations in
response to comments by review agencies such as the
U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital
Planning Commission. The most significant change was
the elimination of the long, boxy element that was to
house the main level of the museum. While that podium Photo © Alan Karchmer/NMAAHC

A DREAM DEFERRED NO MORE 21