The Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden reopened to the public Oct. 31 after a four-year renovation, bringing 60 artworks to a 1.3-acre outdoor gallery on Washington’s National Mall. The redesigned space adds new routes through its sunken landscape and restores an underground passage between the garden and museum plaza. The project offers visitors a different way to move among familiar works and newer pieces.
Artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto led the redesign, with Quinn Evans serving as architect of record. The project architect describes three areas: an open West Gallery for events and temporary installations, a Central Gallery with a stage surrounded by a reflecting pool, and an East Gallery arranged as a sequence of viewing rooms for Modernist works. The layout is meant to accommodate sculpture as well as performance art and time-based media.
The garden now has five entrances, according to The Art Newspaper’s preview. A 60-foot-wide entry from the Mall restores an earlier feature of Gordon Bunshaft’s original design, while gently sloped paths connect the different levels. East and west overlooks offer additional places to look across the garden. Quinn Evans says the paths create accessible connections throughout the space.
One of the largest changes is below ground. The passage linking the museum plaza and garden, closed to the public in the 1980s, has reopened with a stainless-steel installation by Sugimoto called ‘Passage of Reflectance.’ The Art Newspaper reported that Sugimoto designed its mirrored finish to reflect the garden and people moving through it. The passage connects the plaza to the garden.
The central pool and stage give the garden room for public programs alongside its collection. Quinn Evans says the west area can support events and temporary installations, while the east gallery offers a sequence of smaller settings for looking at individual works. The project also adds infrastructure for changing art installations and stormwater management, including concealed cisterns that collect water for reuse in irrigation.
Rodin’s ‘The Burghers of Calais’ now sits in its own stone-walled room on the east side. Washingtonian reported before the reopening that the bronze group had been moved so visitors could see the six figures at eye level, sit nearby or walk around the work. The Art Newspaper also placed the Rodin among the works in the east garden. The new setting changes the viewing experience without changing the sculpture itself.
Other works connect the garden’s history with its current collection. The Art Newspaper reports that Henry Moore’s ‘King and Queen’ is one of five works by the artist on view, and places Rodin’s cast in the east garden. Quinn Evans describes the East Gallery as a sequence of viewing rooms for Modernist masterworks. Across the garden, newer commissions and acquisitions sit beside works from earlier installations.
The west area includes Yoshitomo Nara’s ‘Sentinels of Stillness,’ a group of three monumental heads, according to The Art Newspaper. It is part of a section for newer commissions and rotating displays. Washingtonian also highlighted ‘Eight,’ by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, a work designed to evoke a swimming pool when seen from above. The piece is a sculpture to look at, not a pool visitors can enter.
The renovation’s design was debated before construction. The Art Newspaper reported that an early version of Sugimoto’s stacked-stone plan drew criticism from Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, who said it disrupted the garden’s Modernist design. The report says the design was adjusted after public consultation and meetings with federal review bodies. The finished garden combines those stone walls with restored elements of Bunshaft’s 1974 design and Lester Collins’ later intervention.
The reopening also included a scheduled art-making program for teens. A My Smithsonian listing described a free Teen Studio session on Oct. 31 for ages 13 to 19, with a garden tour and materials for building miniature sculpture gardens. The listing gives the program’s schedule; it does not document attendance. It does show how the newly reopened landscape can serve as a place for learning and creative activity as well as for viewing art.
With more collection works outdoors, new routes and space for changing installations, the garden is set up to keep shifting as artists and programs change. The project’s design team describes it as a flexible setting for modern and contemporary art; the independent previews show how individual pieces can be encountered at a closer scale or from a new angle. The reopening makes that evolving outdoor gallery available again on the National Mall.
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