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  • An Interview with Kathryn Gustafson
  • Charles Henry Rowell and Kathryn Gustafson (bio)

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Photograph courtesy of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol

[End Page 777]

This interview was conducted via email during August 2015.

ROWELL:

What distinguishes your landscape design for the new structure called the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) from others you have created for other public buildings?

GUSTAFSON:

All of our landscape designs are distinguished by their specificity. We strive as landscape architects to create designs for each unique place. So I would say that all of our landscapes are different. They look as much as possible, and feel as much as possible, as being of the place where they are located—with each design based on deep research of the site’s history and ecology. When we are designing, we consider what will be happening in each landscape once it’s built, so that we can better represent the program and the people that are to engage with the places we design.

ROWELL:

As you created a landscape design for NMAAHC, did you give consideration to the general landscaping surrounding other buildings on the National Mall, especially those structures adjacent to or not far from the location of the NMAAHC? If so, what were those considerations? How did you address those concerns?

GUSTAFSON:

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is set within an extremely historic and defined landscape: It is in Washington, DC, on the National Mall, adjacent to the Washington Monument, the White House, and the Oval Garden. This landscape has origins going back to the 1700s and has been formed over time as our country has grown. The different areas are overseen by the National Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts, the Friends of the Washington Monument, and by other civic groups that are interested in the entire area. Our main goal with the Parks Department, with the architects, and with our client was to integrate this building into its context, while at the same time help to create an identity for this building.

If you look at the Context Plan, it clarifies the way that the Museum is sited on the parcel of land. You will see clear connections to both the Mall—extending east from the Museum towards Union Square, the Grant Memorial, and the US Capitol—and the adjacent Washington Monument’s grounds. The Museum’s site is like a junction between these two landscapes, with the third part of that junction being the White House grounds. As a result of the location, you are dealing with three different historical eras of design: [Pierre Charles] L’Enfant designed the entire Mall with a rectilinear design that joins the Capitol; the Art Nouveau design influence introduces a completely different type of geometry to the Washington Monument; and the White House, which is more Palladian and neoclassical. When you walk the site you see that the visual approaches to the Museum are totally different from each of the four corners of the site, which is unlike any other museum site. All of the other museums are [End Page 778] approached from a major road or from the Mall. We are approached from the White House, from Constitution Avenue, from the Mall, and the Washington Monument. So we basically have four different influences that are all culminating into one very powerful site. I think the way in which David Adjaye, lead design architect, has designed this building to rise up from that site, and rise up with these different influences, is very poetic.


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National Museum of African American History and Culture: Context Plan

Courtesy of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol

Our site also has a nine-foot grade change stepping downhill from the height of the National Mall to Constitution Avenue. The original topography explains why we have a distinct low point on the site, and why we have a distinct high point. There was a stream called Tiber Creek along Constitution Avenue that later became a canal. That canal was an entryway for goods and services into the city, and it is believed that slaves and...

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