Past Exhibitions

A comprehensive list of all National Building Museum exhibitions since the institution opened in 1985.

An outdoor exhibition of murals created in early summer 2020 in response to social justice protests. Installed on the West Lawn. A partnership with the DowntownDC BID and the P.A.I.N.T.S. Institute.

This exhibition of photographer Bill Bamberger’s work celebrates the power of basketball to transcend place and build community.

Lawn is an immersive installation in the Great Hall, and the centerpiece of the 2019 Summer Block Party.

Fun House invites visitors to walk through ten years of Snarkitecture projects in an all-new interactive exhibition.

Experience Hive this summer in the Great Hall, an interactive installation by Studio Gang. Open through September 4.

This 2016 installation, designed by James Corner Field Operations, suggested a beautiful, underwater world of glacial ice fields spanning the Museum’s Great Hall.

This summer installation designed by Snarkitecture covers 10,000 square feet and incorporates an “ocean” of nearly one million translucent plastic balls.

Permanently closed.

Dive into the design, construction, and daily life of the Manhattan Project secret cities in the U.S.

An immersive experience bringing visitors into the world of low-income renter eviction.

See the built environment from the eyes of local teens. Participants used photography, art, and writing to create an exhibition about what they think defines Washington, D.C.

Find out how developers, architects, and interior designers are crafting innovative and flexible housing concepts to meet the needs of a rapidly changing America.

"Wright" directly on the walls in an exhibition gallery transformed into an interactive, large-scale “coloring book” inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's work. Open through September 4.

Trace the history and future of D.C.’s historic mental healthcare site. Explore shifting theories about how to care for the mentally ill, as well as recent plans for re-use of the campus.

Explore the extraordinary objects in the Museum’s collection. These physical pieces of the world we design and build inspire new perspectives on the built environment and how to improve it.

Discover how architects are leveraging the advantages of cutting-edge methods of timber construction, including surprising strength, fire resistance, sustainability, and beauty.

The changing streetscape of downtown Washington in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s is presented through the urban photography of Bill Barrett, Chris Earnshaw, and Joseph Mills.

Twelve exquisitely crafted dolls’ houses from the past 300 years illuminate the architectural and social history of domestic life in Great Britain.

This exhibition of monumental black-and-white photographs by landscape architect Alan Ward capture historic landscapes from across the United States.

Photographs, drawings, and artworks depict the revolutionary landscape designs of Oehme, van Sweden & Associates.

A groundbreaking interactive installation by Lebanese-British artist Tania El-Khoury examines the human cost Syria’s civil war.

Stunning large-scale images of the post-earthquake restoration at the Washington Monument and Washington National Cathedral blend documentation with artistic expression.

Compelling images and artifacts examine how design can reduce risk and increase resiliency in the face of nature’s most destructive forces.

More than 60 models reveal how cultural and climatic contexts shape design solutions by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.

Prints, original drawings, and paintings drawn from a private Washington, D.C. collection illustrate a foundationally transformational period in architecture.

This summer installation, designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, features a large-scale maze for visitors to weave through and explore.

Photographs document major public and private commissions by one of the most influential Modernist landscape architects of the 20th century.

This traveling exhibition traces the transformation of Los Angeles into an internationally recognized destination with its own design vocabulary, canonic landmarks, and coveted way of life.

This exhibition presents the accomplishments of the R. Guastavino family, Spanish immigrants whose patented tile vaulting technique created awe-inspiring spaces across the country.

This exhibition explores trends in green design and the growing array of resources available to our next generation of healthy schools.

This summer installation features two nine-hole indoor mini golf courses designed and built by Washington-area architects, landscape architects, and contractors.

The tragedy of Detroit is revealed in thirty haunting, monumentally-scaled photographs depicting windowless hotels, barren factories, collapsing churches, and city blocks reclaimed by prairie grass.

Photographs taken over 25 years document Detroit’s precipitous decline and how the city’s residents have survived.

This collection highlights the building materials, architectural styles, and construction practices that defined urban America from the late-19th to the first half of the 20th centuries .

This exhibition reveals the inherent tensions between the demands of a working seat of government and the desire for a national symbol in the architecture of the nation’s capital.

Explore the work of this celebrated, third-generation modernist architect whose urban oases, corporate campuses, and megastructures reflect the spirit of the post-industrial age.

Fifteen buildings from around the world are rendered in LEGO® bricks by Adam Reed Tucker.

Unbuilt Washington features unrealized proposals for noteworthy architectural and urban design projects in Washington, D.C., and its environs from the 1790s to the present.

Meière designed some of the most memorable murals and mosaics of the Art Deco period. Sketches, painted studies, and scale models bring her creative process to life.

This exhibition showcased the modernist spectacles of architecture and design that nearly 100 million Americans witnessed at six world’s fairs held in the U.S. between 1933 and 1940.

This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see some of the most important drawings in the world of architecture—31, 16th-century works by Italian Renaissance master Andrea Palladio.

Original works from the drawing collections of Historic New England span two centuries and depict changing residential styles and design trends.

Discover how this federal agency has shaped Washington, D.C., from memorials that define our national identity to public parks that enhance our city.

This exhibition traces the unique relationship between parked cars and the built environment and encourages visitors to see these familiar structures in a new way.

See how landscape architect Lawrence Halprin created strong, expressive forms that evoked the structures and processes of nature, often with terracing enlivened by flowing water.

This year’s Summer Block Party features hand-built wooden architectural structures, a book-filled maze, educational programs, interactive art on the West Lawn , and weekly outdoor movies through July.

Inspired by the theme ‘welcoming a stranger,’ the sukkah designs explore social justice issues, the changing landscape, and the traditions of Sukkot.

A selection of 52 images by the renowned urban documentarian to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attack on New York City.

A theater experience by day and a performance space by night featuring Folger Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

"What’s Already There: Sustainable Architecture from Brussels" explores six examples of inventive adaptive reuse.

Notre-Dame de Paris: The Augmented Exhibition is an augmented reality immersion into the history and restoration of the revered cathedral.

Presented in conjunction with “Justice is Beauty: The Work of MASS Design Group,” the Gun Violence Memorial Project is a tribute to the thousands of lives lost to gun violence in America every year.

This exhibition surveys MASS Design Group’s extraordinary portfolio of public-serving design, including completed buildings, proposed projects, and applied research initiatives.

This exhibition examines the border wall from the perspective of design and the ways in which the architecture and landscape of security surround and challenge us.

A cross-section of renowned architectural photographer Alan Karchmer’s professional portfolio, personal images, and artifacts that shed light on his work.

Special Display: Transform DC is a mural project where DC public school students work collaboratively to create large scale murals.

These architectural objects depict real and mythological animals. It’s a curious and wonderful zoo, a small part of our collection of 300,000+ items.

This summer, artist and architect Suchi Reddy, has been selected to transform the Museum’s Great Hall with an elegant and provocative new installation titled Look Here.

Explore the dynamic stories of the six winning teams from the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge.

Explore the past, present, and future of play in this immersive, hands-on installation featuring molded foam blocks of all shapes and sizes.

Special Display: Transform DC is a mural project where DC public school students work collaboratively to create large scale murals.