Gang Green

Last week I visited the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.. Amongst the exhibits, The Green House: new directions in sustainable architecture and design.

It sucked.

Throughout, a lot of talk about conserving the earth's resources. Most all the case study houses were modernist trophy homes, in the San Juan Islands, the desert Southwest, on the Batiquitos Lagoon. Aggrandizing owner/builders touted bamboo flooring, precast insulated panels, and recycled agricultural waste composite board. They'll have plenty of time to feel good about themselves on their hour long commutes, or whilst using our extended grid.

What's really green? For starters, preservation, restoration, repair.

Yeah I know there's the occasional green in-fill, like in Venice, where modest colonials are detonated to make way for phallic towers with transparent thermal walls and fiber optic pendant lights. More often, these righteous green jeans-ers command some dreamy eucalyptus grove, verdant countryside, or wet-lands adjacent hillside. Being "sustainable" is the least they can do.

Still, the National Building Museum is cool. Originally the home of the United States Pension Bureau, its most stunning feature is the 300 foot long, 100 foot wide atrium/Great Hall, which soars to 159 feet at its heighest point. Supposedly built of 15.5 million bricks (in 1887), the "Old Red Barn" was designed by Montgomery Meigs, who had served as a quartermaster general of the Union army during the Civil War. The Great Hall is divided into three courts by two rows of colossal Corithian columns, painted to look like marble. The National Building Museum came to occupy the building beginning in 1985.