HIRSHHORN

BUBBLE

The National Mall is a symbol of American democracy, a space synonymous with free speech where citizens can voice their dissent. There is a disconnect, however, between the discursive space of the Mall and the quiet monumentality of the national museums that line its edges. Particularly mute is the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution. Richard Koshalek, the museum’s director between 2009 and 2013, was determined to make the Hirshhorn’s location matter. Standing within a stone’s throw of the U.S. Capitol, and with 180 embassies and 500- plus think tanks nearby, the site was, in his opinion, an opportunity for the Hirshhorn to become a cultural institution in dialogue with policymaking. Although art and politics are inherently and implicitly intertwined, this new museum extension provided an opportunity to take this relationship a step further. The architectural project thus invites politics into the core of the museum, which acts as a think tank for arts and culture and an agent of cultural diplomacy.

The Hirshhorn is an iconic example of midcentury architecture designed by Gordon Bunshaft. Affectionately called the “Brutalist Donut,” the circular building hovers fourteen feet above the ground and is situated adjacent to the sculpture garden. The museum’s architectural significance, prominent position, limited footprint, and circular form precluded a straightforward expansion. The perfect site was therefore the “doughnut hole”—the building’s 115-foot-diameter courtyard.

In contrast to the stone and concrete monuments that line the Mall, the Bubble is a lightweight pneumatic structure imagined to be inflated by the Mall’s democratic air. It is a single volume of air contained within a thin, translucent membrane—a soft building nestled within a hard building. The intervention is seasonal, erected for two months each year. At the start of the fall programming season, the installation arrives by truck and is unfurled, hoisted, inflated, and restrained by cables. There are no mechanical connections between guest and host—a necessity, given the Hirshhorn’s historical significance and preservation protocols. Instead, a series of cable rings constrict the membrane, pulling it away from the inner wall of the courtyard while additional cables tether the Bubble in place. The resulting contours modulate internal acoustics for public lectures, forums, film screenings, and exhibitions while simultaneously contorting to the building’s hard geometry. At the end of the season, the Bubble is deflated, rolled up, put back onto a truck, and returned to a storage facility until the following year.

In a city known for legislation, the Bubble seemed to occupy an ambiguous space in the law, raising questions without clear answers: Is a volume of air considered a building? Should it conform to the same building-code standards as a brick-and-mortar structure? What, exactly, are the rules of the game? Three authorities held jurisdiction over the project: the National Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the Hirshhorn museum board. Satisfying all three required both negotiation and novel interpretation of the rules.

At 153 feet tall, the Bubble exceeds the vertical limit set by the Height of Buildings Act of 1910, which ensures that no building competes for attention with the Capitol. The only exceptions are ornamental “spires, towers, domes, pinnacles, [and] minarets.” The project was exempt from the height limit because the Bubble was defined as a soft dome in a language similar to the monuments lining the Mall.

The Bubble was fully engineered and obtained all necessary government approvals. It was also set to host its first program, developed in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations. After four years in the making, however, the Bubble was abruptly canceled. Financial austerity measures being implemented across the Smithsonian—coupled with political concerns about the museum’s ability to control program content—led museum trustees to lose their nerve and splintered the board’s once unanimous support for the ambitious project. A final vote on the Bubble during the May 23, 2013, meeting of the Hirshhorn board failed to reach consensus. The museum director resigned in protest the same day.