Sue Conley, co-founder of Cowgirl Creamery
@ National Harbor
Q:What's your favorite food TV show or host?
A:"John Shields of 'Chesapeake Cooking.' He was a deep appreciation for local foods."
RICHARD ROSS HAS photographed some of the world's most beautiful spaces, has made light a tangible subject, has peered into the faces of soldiers and gang members, and into the stolid emptiness of bomb shelters. This eclectic artist with the searching mind now turns his lens on "The Architecture of Authority," still, sterile or imposing places in which we the people are at a disadvantage, whether it's a Montessori school, Secret Service headquarters or even, wittily, an art gallery. The show is on display at the National Building Museum through Aug. 16.
» EXPRESS: How did you come to the subject?
» ROSS: I have no idea. It's sort of like, ideas fall into place at some point in your life. I studied international relations and political science, and I didn't want to do another series of beautiful photographs that were going to seduce.
» EXPRESS: What tripped the trigger?
» ROSS: I started out with going to a confessional in Santa Barbara and seeing the size of it, and then through a friend going down and looking at the robbery homicide interview room at Parker Center [the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters] and I realized the two were exactly the same size. ... It's like, "Let's get in this very intimate space and you tell me a secret and I'll tell you a secret, and that will make it all better."
Continue Reading "The Art of The State: Richard Ross' 'The Architecture of Authority'" »
PULL IN AT any designated scenic overlook in this country, and if there are facilities, they probably stink like summer camp and look like Siberian prison toilets.
It needn't be this way. As showcased in "Detour: Architecture and Design Along 18 National Tourist Routes in Norway," an exhibition at the National Building Museum, structures that frame the public's experience of nature can themselves be inspirational.
Architecture shows are always dependent on video (shipping fees being a real bear), and the most ingenious part of the "Detour" installation is an early 1900s-style viewing enclosure that screens footage of completed projects. Visitors peer into brass openings to see bridges, platforms and bird-watching blinds in use. Below the screen runs a sculpted map of Norway outfitted with LEDs that light up to indicate where each project is sited.
THESE PEOPLE MUST be deranged. They have cities where they water the trees with melted snow or light big grass fires to feed the soil. They warm their water underground, charge their batteries with the sun, plant weeds on the roof and some prefer wind power to coal. And they call this natural?
At the National Building Museum, "Green Community" will leave you thinking — hoping, maybe — that humans aren't such compulsive vandals after all. The notion of greenness comes up a notch from vegan shoes and Tom of Maine toothpaste to whole societies apparently hellbent on better housekeeping. There's Greensburg, Kan., redressing last year's killer tornado with energy-efficient new buildings and rain-absorbing landscape; little Stella, Mo., which with just 180-odd people has established, of all things, a town growth boundary; and our very own Arlington, where in 20 years, a Metro line has helped turn empty asphalt steppes into a new civilization.
THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM expands its scope to examine not just buildings, but also the "world between our buildings" — parks, gardens, sidewalks and so on.
A solar farm in Denmark and geothermal pipelines in Iceland are just two of the locales in this exhibit — other communities featured include Maui; Mendoza, Argentina; Greensburg, Kan.; and D.C. green initiatives.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; Oct. 23, 2008-Oct. 25, 2009; 202-272-2448. (Judiciary Square)
Photo courtesy of National Building Museum
JUST IN TIME for Halloween comes Ghost Tours at one of the capital's creepier buildings, the National Building Museum. By day, it's one of D.C.'s most beautiful structures, but at night, the museum is inhabited by the ghost of John Wilkes Booth co-conspirator Mary Surratt (aka your tour guide) and plenty of other ghoulies.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; through Nov. 23, 8-9 p.m.,$18; 202-272-2448. (Judiciary Square)
Written by Express contributor Nathan Martin
WITH IMAGES RANGING from microscopically enhanced microbes to come-hither syphilitics, "An Iconography of Contagion: 20th-Century Health Posters and the Visual Representation of Infectious Disease" may be the sickest show in town. Michael Sappol culled 20-odd graphics from the vast holdings of the National Library of Medicine to tell the story of the communiques that brought medicine to the masses. Before moving to the National Academy of Sciences' C Street NW building in the fall, the exhibition remains on view by appointment for a couple of weeks at the Keck Center.
» EXPRESS: The World War II-era VD posters demonize women. Why?
» SAPPOL: Part of that reflects a kind of larger social misogyny. VD is a difficult disease for people to deal with because it deals with sexuality in a society which doesn't really like to have public discussion of sexuality.
» EXPRESS: What was the target audience in this case?
» SAPPOL: These posters in particular are aimed at men. They're done by male artists, they are intended to mobilize men to take measures to deal with venereal disease, so they're saying, "Men, watch out for women." These posters are not put in places where women are likely to see them. They're put into health clinics for men or military bases.
LEAVE IT TO the Capital Fringe Festival to go out with a quirky bang. In a grandiose show of spinning around poles, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange will spend Friday evening and Saturday afternoon doing a passionate dance with (drum roll please) ... the National Building Museum!
The show, titled "Mortar and Muscle: Animating Architecture," sets the building in motion as dancers move around columns, under archways and on stage platforms. A tutorial on watching a dance and a scavenger hunt are also part of the fun. Also, unlike so many Cap Fringe events, this baby's free.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; Fri., July 24, 6:30 p.m. & Sat., July 25, 2 & 4 p.m., free; 202-737-7230. (Judiciary Square)
Photo courtesy of the National Building Museum
THE DETAILS THAT Washington-area Hillary Clinton supporters have been looking for are beginning to filter out: the time and place for that speech on Saturday in which the New York senator is expected to suspend her campaign and endorse fellow Democrat Barack Obama.
It's the National Building Museum. (Map here.) At high noon.
USAToday's OnPolitics blog has the PDF of the statement, which says doors will open at 10 a.m. and that the event is, of course, open to the press.
» "Clinton to end campaign in Washington Saturday" [AP via Google]
» "Clinton's schedule for Saturday: Noon at the National Building Museum" [USAT]
Photo from Clinton's Tuesday night speech by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
JEAN NOUVEL recently won the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in architecture. He'll be speaking (presumably about the architecture, not the prize) at the National Building Museum tonight.
The general public will pay $30 per ticket, while museum members pay $20 and students $10.
» National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW; Tues., 7 p.m., $10-$30; 202-272-2448. (Judiciary Square)
Photo courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel
WANT TO KNOW why so many Chinese musicians have perfect pitch? Or how self-deception could be an adaptive trait? Or whether your Iron Maiden tattoo needs a numerical edit?
Only one show will take you there.
Now concluding its brief fourth season, the recurring miniseries WNYC's "Radio Lab" is the brainchild of sonic innovator Jad Abumrad. His highly processed storytelling has yielded the first genuinely distinctive public-radio template since "This American Life."
Thursday, he and esteemed science journalist Robert Krulwich will show a Koshland crowd how they make the magic happen.
» EXPRESS: Your narrative style involves a lot of looping, repetition, multiple voices, etc. It can be pretty jarring.
» ABUMRAD: We get a lot of nastygrams on the e-mail from people who don't like the style. They're, like [adopting kvetchy elderly voice], "Why the noises? Stop stuttering! Why do the people repeat themselves?"
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