Hirshhorn Museum to Open Updated Lobby in February

Skidmore Owings & Merrill (ranked #1 overall in the 2017 ARCHITECT 50) recently threw a party to celebrate the firm’s 50th anniversary in Washington, D.C. The party was held in the Sculpture Garden of the Hirshhorn Museum, the donut-shaped museum on the National Mall designed by the firm’s late partner, Gordon Bunshaft.

Now, four decades after the firm’s famous museum was completed, its lobby is getting a remake by artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and New Material Research Laboratory, a Tokyo firm cofounded with architect Tomoyuki Sakakida in 2008. The project includes a “reconfigured entrance” as well as new furniture and signage. The updated lobby, which debuts in February, will also feature a coffee bar operated by local company Dolcezza Coffee & Gelato and a light sculpture by artist Olafur Eliasson.

“Hiroshi Sugimoto is an internationally accomplished artist able to move seamlessly between art and design,” said the museum’s director, Melissa Chiu, in a press release. “In our case, his unique aesthetic brings a renewed sense of sophistication and elegance to the lobby while at the same honoring Gordon Bunshaft’s original intentions.”