Sackler Gallery, Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Insitution. December 2021
Bringing outside inside
Under the Enid Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle is a museum complex that most people would never think even existed at first glance. One half of it is the Sackler Gallery of Asian Art. The architect, Jean Paul Carlhian, is not a name many people are familiar with and he did not leave behind a huge architectural legacy. Nevertheless, the complex is one of my favorite buildings in the District.
One of his most enduring achievements is largely underground. The entrance pavilions of the National Museum of African Art and the Sackler Gallery of Asian Art appear at first blush like exotic National Mall gatehouses for the Smithsonian Castle. But the twin granite structures front for a 400,000-square-foot complex containing gallery spaces, classrooms, offices, and storage vaults.
Those twin museums are some of the most beautiful interior spaces in Washington. I also think they stand on its head the idea that underground buildings must be somehow devoid of natural light. In a future where climate will be far more extreme, these kinds of buildings may increasingly become the norm whether it be something akin to the Shire from Lord of the Rings or Carlhian's galleries under the Haupt gardens. There is something so UNclaustrophobic about them. If this is our unavoidable climate-dictated architecture, I hope it resembles this.
As for the collection, the simple idea that all of "Asian art" could somehow be reduced to a smallish museum is ridiculous. For what pieces the gallery has, they are displayed most fabulously, like rare gems. The "wow factor" is there most certainly. The claim, though, that it is representative of anything more than the randomly acquired collection of a rich man would be quite absurd. The gallery's space for touring, specialized exhibitions is probably the most sensible part of the museum. At such an exhibition, one could no doubt get a complete view of the art of one Asian culture in one time period. Otherwise, the Sackler Gallery is more like the Smithosonian's jewel box of pretty Asian artifacts. Edward Said, you did make occasional sense in Orientalism.
Do go for the architecture, though. It might change your mind about "underground".