O Say Can You See?

7 ways to survive while Julia Child’s kitchen is closed for 7 months

On December 3, the museum announced the temporary closing of Bon Appetit! Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian. The last day to see this popular exhibition, which features the 14-by-20-foot kitchen from the legendary cook’s Cambridge, Massachusetts home, will be Sunday, January 8, 2012.

The exhibition showing Julia Child’s kitchen

The next day, museum staff and volunteers will begin packing all of the tools, utensils, appliances, and gadgets that have been on display in the kitchen since Bon Appetit! opened in 2002. Everything will be carefully stored while a new and larger gallery space is prepared. In late summer, the kitchen will go back on view, with all of its parts and pieces exactly as Julia had arranged them before she donated the kitchen to the Smithsonian in 2001.

Over the course of the next several months, watch this space for news about the new exhibition. In the meantime, the museum team offers suggestions on how to cope for a few months sans Julia Child’s kitchen.

1. Visit the two NMAH websites about Julia Child: Bon Appétit! Julia Child’s Kitchen, where you can virtually explore the kitchen, its history, and many of Julia’s kitchen tools; and What’s Cooking?, which features curators’ stories of collecting the kitchen.

2. Remind yourself of Julia’s masterful cookbooks. Our favorites: Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes One and Two; The French Chef; From Julia Child’s Kitchen; Kitchen Wisdom; The Way to Cook; Baking with Julia; and Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. Pick a recipe and cook it for someone or, better yet, invite someone to cook with you!

3. Make French bread (Mastering, Vol. Two). While you’re waiting for the dough to rise, watch reruns of Julia’s cooking shows on Public TV or get the DVDs of her early French Chef series.

4. Immerse yourself in Julia’s biography by reading about her life: Appetite for Life, by Noel Riley Fitch; Julia Child, A Life, by Laura Shapiro; My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme; As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto, edited by Joan Reardon.

5. Cook with the museum staff—check out our previous blog posts, which reveal how we challenged ourselves to cook our favorite Julia Child recipes in 2009. Get the inside scoop from George Washington University Museum Studies students who helped the museum team conduct condition surveys of hundreds of Julia’s tools and cookware in 2011.

6. Pour yourself a glass of wine and watch Julie and Julia, the 2009 film starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Stanley Tucci, and directed by Nora Ephron.

7. Brush up on your cake baking skills, because you’ll want to bake a cake in honor of Julia’s 100th birthday on August 15, 2012. May we suggest the exquisite Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba) cake (Mastering Vol. One, and also in The Way to Cook)?

Paula Johnson is Curator with the Division of Work and Industry at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

The museum's architecture: Classical with modern details

Have you ever wondered why the exterior of the National Museum of American History looks the way it does?

Architectural sketch of the proposed Museum of History and Technology

Originally called the Museum of History and Technology, the building was designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White to blend the traditional architecture of the National Mall with more modern design to reflect the museum’s technological subject matter as well as its own role as a cutting edge museum. According to a 1988 interview with architect Walker O. Cain, “this [1950s and 60s] was a curious time. It isn’t that modern had taken over or that the traditional had totally relinquished control; the problem was how to resolve the two.” As a result, the building is what Cain describes as “classical in definition, and the detailing is modern.”

(Left) National Museum of Natural History, c. 1911. Smithsonian Institution Archives. (Right) National Gallery of Art West Building. Photo by flickr user iainr.

Classical architecture in the style of ancient Greece or Rome is characterized by symmetry, repetition, domes, carved decorations, columns, and large broad terraced bases. Many buildings on the National Mall, like the National Museum of Natural History, the National Gallery West building, the Lincoln Memorial, and the United States Capitol, show this classical influence. The cumulative effect of these designs was intended to create a “monumental core” within the nation’s capital, suggesting legitimacy, splendor, formality, and a firm grounding in history.

(Left) Lincoln Memorial, c. 1920. Smithsonian Institution Archives. (Right) United States Capitol Building. American Sculpture Photograph Study Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Modernist architecture, on the other hand, is characterized by less ornately decorated exteriors, more sheer planes, and abstract shapes. The Hirshhorn Museum and Scultpure Garden and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art are good examples.

(Left) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, c. 1986. Smithsonian Institution Archives. (Right) National Gallery of Art East building. Photo by Flickr user iainr.

The National Museum of American History features both of these influences. For example, the most distinct feature of the museum’s design is the recessed and projecting bays of the exterior walls. The classical influence on this design is evident in the repetition and symmetry of the bays, which resemble columns like those on the Lincoln Memorial. However, in keeping with more abstract modernist aesthetics, the sheer marble planes merely suggest columns rather than actually forming them. The cornice around the top of the museum is another classical feature, but is also modern in that it breaks from tradition by being supported by horizontal outriggers to create a more abstract “shadow cornice.” Finally, rather than having small windows typically used in classical architecture, the museum features large glass windows, meant to connect the inside of the museum to the outside while providing a view of the surrounding “monumental core” of the city. In these and other features, the classical and modern characteristics combine to create a building that remembers the past while looking to the future.

Ben Miller is an intern with the New Media Program at the National Museum of American History.

Keeping our museum exteriors beautiful (and secure)

For frequent visitors to the museum, the construction outside may seem as though it has been going on forever! Well, in a way, it has.

After September 11, 2001, the National Mall—and Washington, D.C., in general—saw a plethora of “jersey” barriers erupt around the city. These concrete barriers (yes, named after New Jersey where they were invented for use on highways) were on every corner, at every building-placed for the most part haphazardly and hurriedly. Not to mention bollards, which also appeared daily around the city. Although the need for security was real, it became evident that there was also a need for security that could work and yet not detract from the beauty of Washington and the Mall.

The Smithsonian Institution’s “Mall Perimeter Security Project” was initiated shortly after September 11 to prevent damage from potential car bombs and threats to the Smithsonian buildings. The goal was to provide the setbacks required by the Office of Protection Services while at the same time providing an open, inviting, and safe environment for visitors and staff, with minimal impact to the Mall. This was not even easier said than done and, at the outset, those of us involved in this project thought: “How on earth could we ever do this?”

 

Fancy pixel tricks

Pixelization is not usually a desired effect, but it is a much-anticipated event this week at the National Museum of American History. A team of riggers is attaching 960 notebook-sized tiles or “pixels” of polycarbonate resin to the Abstract Flag in the center of the museum. The flag, a focal point and striking new symbol of our renovation, waves over the new atrium heralding the gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the National Anthem. This is an architectural representation of a waving flag—approximately 40 feet long by 19 feet high and made of 15 stripes, or ribbons. The reflective pixels will mirror the light and the movement of visitors in the atrium.

The installation of pixels is a mesmerizing process. Two large lifts move in syncopation carrying riggers and pre-assembled sets of five tiles to be bolted to the undulating metal frame. The pixels, which are both translucent and mirrored, reflect the clothing colors and deliberate movements of the four men. Ribbons of pixels are emerging starting from the top of the frame, and because they are so heavy—weighing a total of about 2000 pounds—two flats with sandbags hang at the bottom to keep it counterbalanced. The work goes remarkably fast, and given the marvelous vantage point from the window in the director’s office I would be surprised if he’s getting much work done.

As the rest of the architectural details of our construction come more into focus each day, one part of the renovation is rapidly and spectacularly pixelating.

Judy Gradwohl is the museum’s associate director for public programs, but don’t look for her over the next few days—she’ll be watching the Abstract Flag take shape.

Raising the flag

If you have been following the renovation at the National Museum of American History, you know that one of the visual centerpieces of our new central atrium will be the large abstract flag that marks the entrance to the Star-Spangled Banner gallery. I’m pleased to announce that we have achieved another milestone towards our reopening by raising the flag’s frame onto the gallery wall.

Previous posts on this blog have featured the undulating frame that will support hundreds of reflective tiles—the architects call them “pixels”—to create the effect of waving stripes, and a large star—a giant prong—that attaches the entire frame to the wall. After assembling all the pieces on the floor, skilled riggers carefully lifted the frame into place and attached it to the marble wall. I watched the “flag raising” on a long Saturday afternoon and it was a privilege to see the care and skill of the team.

Even in its partly-finished state, one gets the sense of how striking this feature will be. The photos below show the frame as it’s being lifted, as well as a rendering showing the final effect.

  

Other parts of the museum are a beehive of activity as well, as construction areas are finished and cleaned, protected artifacts are uncovered, and exhibitions are installed. Behind the scenes, others are busy putting the final touches on a host of new public programs and visitor services. Like any major project, there are bumps in the road. But we are fortunate to have an amazing staff with boundless creativity and abundant energy. Thanks to their efforts, our visitors will explore and experience history in a truly memorable new setting.

Brent D. Glass is Director of the National Museum of American History