National Museum of the American Indian
Washington, DC’s latest source of buzz breaks the mold

By Patrick Totty

In a symbol-obsessed city that would have invented tea-leaf reading if the Chinese hadn’t beaten it to the punch, the Sept. 21 opening of the $219 million, 250,000-square-foot National Museum of the American Indian packs about as much symbolism as a body can take:

The museum’s location on a 4.25-acre site next to the National Air and Space Museum puts it at the heart of the capital city’s incredible ensemble of museums. If American Indians are this country’s forgotten people, the new museum’s location takes a lot of sting out of that characterization.

The building’s architectural design boldly breaks two molds: It ventures way beyond Washington’s official neo-classical groove, forsaking straight lines, Roman columns and cornices, and white marble cladding for an almost Gaudi-esque five-story design incorporating light earth tones and curving walls that look as though they’re doing slow undulations. The design is intended to call to mind a southwestern mesa. It works.

That’s bold enough for federal architecture, but the museum spanks Washington’s commercial architecture by showing all the city’s hack building designers how to make things look different without looking silly. If you take a walk downtown, beyond the city’s resolutely dignified government buildings, Washington reveals itself as a Disney-like pastiche of overwrought columns, pediments, cupolas, cornices, colonnades and entrances slapped onto modern curtain walls.

Yikes.

The third bit of symbolism – and probably the most important – is that this new museum is the distillation of years of dickering, positioning and back and forth between several constituencies: the Smithsonian Institution (under whose aegis the museum operates), the Congress (which okayed the museum 15 years ago) and scores of American Indian tribes who did not always share a common vision of what the museum should be.

The tension in the museum is between noting and honoring 10,000 years of habitation in North American by Indian tribes and the 500 years of war, theft and exile that marked much of the fate of Indians at the hands of European and American powers since 1500.

Exhibits are divided into three main areas: “Our Universes,” which looks at the religions and philosophies of the hundreds of tribes that once populated what would become the United States. “Our Peoples” tells the story of Indians from their point of view, stretching back thousands of years. “Our Lives” focuses on contemporary Indian life, including many tribes’ struggle with alcoholism, unemployment and the despair that has often accompanied the destruction of old tribal beliefs and customs.

One of the museum’s most dramatic features is the Wall of Gold, which juxtaposes gold objects and figurines created by Indian craftsmen with gold weapons and money fashioned by Europeans. Perhaps more than any other aspect of material existence, it was the differing attitudes between Indians and Europeans regarding gold that did so much to affect the fate of many tribes.

Outside of New York City, Washington is hands-down the best museum town in the U.S. As this new addition to the Smithsonian’s magnificent ensemble comes online, remember: It’s free. However, chances are the lines are going to be long for awhile, so the museum may still be issuing “timed passes” – entrance tickets that require you to show up at a certain time. If that seems like a hassle, hey, did we mention it’s free?

Here is the museum’s web address: http://www.nmai.si.edu/