The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age: At the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.

Think about the beach in winter: the sand, the relentless wind. Think about late-afternoon sunlight angling across a shop bench covered with tools, the crunch of gravel as horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians pass by outside. Can you see in your mind's eye a Paris salon off a narrow cobblestone street? Do you hear the voices of highbrows disoriented by the wild new paintings? Can you remember the feel of wood sanded smooth, the smell of spruce, the tight weave of unbleached cotton muslin? Can you conjure a whiff of petrol, hear the chopping sputter of a small engine? Can you imagine the extraordinary sensation of lifting off the ground, not through great physical effort but by pushing levers and intellect, fusing human and machine?

This is not the usual way the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright's invention is framed. But then, the scholars and exhibition designers at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum have spent the past two decades rewriting that story, and it is not surprising that they seized the international spotlight during this past year of centenary celebrations to share their richly textured understanding of the early history of the airplane. Tom Crouch and Peter Jakab, in particular, have made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the technology of flight and, more broadly, of invention.

You very likely have recently seen Crouch, Jakab, and their NASM colleagues on television, heard them on radio, read interviews in newspapers and magazines. In the past year there have been no more ubiquitous SHOT members. T&C readers, of course, are familiar with their books and articles, especially Crouch's The Bishop's Boys and Jakab's Visions of a Flying Machine. Eight years in the planning, The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age, curated by Jakab and designed by Barbara Brennan, is the museum's first attempt to present an exhibition incorporating this new scholarship. It is a wonderful exhibition; it is an imperfect exhibition. Opening last fall, the show will run for at least two years, time enough to visit Washington and experience it for yourself.

"Experience" is the operative word when describing The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age. Jakab and Brennan know that the 1903 Flyer is a compelling artifact, a well-established icon of American history. Their challenge is allow visitors to experience it anew, to transcend the hagiographic texts and simplistic explanations that have rendered the Flyer a relic and the history of aviation a religion.

Perhaps the single most important design decision was to take down the Flyer, move it into its own gallery, and keep it at ground level. Though the press kit and museum staff constantly point out that the exhibition features 170 artifacts (some exceedingly precious and astonishing), this is fundamentally a one-object show. Visitors look at, not up. They see the Flyer the way the people who designed it, built it, and flew it did. In place of skylights that draw the eye heavenward the visitor finds muted lighting and footprints in the sand tracing the Flyer's contours. It really is right there. You can almost touch it, restrained only by clever design and a custom-built iron fence (the volunteer effort of a museum staffer). Visitors seem acutely conscious that they have been afforded a rare privilege.

Jakab and Brennan anticipated this. The Flyer has been lowered twice in the past twenty years. Although both times it happened after hours, a huge crowd of NASM employees, docents, and volunteers gathered, offering to "help." Brennan sensed the possibilities and proposed organizing the exhibition in theatrical terms. A quick look around the gallery and it is easy to spot the three stage sets, one for each of the exhibition...