Unbuilt Washington

How might Washington, D.C., be different today if some proposed architectural projects had actually been built? The Museum’s upcoming exhibition Unbuilt Washington will show that the cityscape residents and visitors now take for granted was far from inevitable.

Unbuilt Washington will feature unrealized proposals for noteworthy architectural and urban design projects in Washington, D.C., and its environs from the 1790s to the present. In addition to exploring how the city might be different today if some of these projects had been built, the exhibition will address the reasons—whether political, economic, cultural, or technical—that these proposals were never executed. Also, the exhibition will challenge common assumptions about the physical character of Washington, and in so doing, illuminate the complex processes underlying the creation of buildings and cities, reveal the influence of unbuilt projects on subsequent designs that were realized, and demonstrate that past proposals may offer important lessons for the design of future projects.

The featured projects will be organized into thematic sections:

• The Search for Appropriate Form: Projects that reflect ongoing debates about the character of public and private buildings in pre-modern Washington
• Changing Attitudes Toward the Cityscape: Proposals for urban plans and infrastructure projects that reveal shifting attitudes regarding the city’s public realm and the balance between local and national interests
• Emergence of the Modern City: Projects from the mid-to-late 20^th century that shed light on the city’s sometimes reluctant incorporation of modernist architecture and planning
• Polemics: Proposals in which architecture is used as a tool for expressing socio-political views or exploring broad planning and design theories
• 21st-Century Washington: Recent proposals that reflect the city’s increasingly cosmopolitan culture, the growing importance of private development, and the rise of sustainable design

The Museum is collaborating with the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the AIA Foundation, the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|DC), the Washington Architectural Foundation, and Hanley Wood to organize two complementary exhibitions in conjunction with Unbuilt Washington. One of these will trace the history of the Progressive Architecture Awards for unbuilt work, and will be presented at the AIA National Headquarters, opening in conjunction with the 2012 AIA National Convention, to be held in Washington. The other exhibition will present winners in the Unbuilt Awards program sponsored by AIA|DC and will open in May 2012 at the new District Architecture Center.