Smithsonian Museum of American Art and Portrait Gallery

Today my friend Carol and I met at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery. It's really two museums in one.

We were especially interested in seeing the new glass roof over the courtyard. According to the museum's official website, the roof has a steel structure with a glass and aluminium exterior and its surface area is approximately 37,500 square feet. The roof has 864 panes of glass and - Listen to this! - no two panes of glass are alike! The roof, which weighs 900 tons, is supported by eight steel columns.


Note the steel column. Note also the vegetation. There are two 32-foot tall ficus plants and 16 black olive trees in the Courtyard.

Carol and I had a good lunch in the Courtyard Cafe.

Carol

Christine

While in the Portrait Gallery, we visited the Katharine Hepburn exhibit. It was very interesting. On the way to this exhibit, we saw a fascinating Andy Warhol portrait of Ted Kennedy with red and blue diamond dust.