Photos

This is a view of the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, which occupies the top three floors of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s north wing. The Center is an open study/storage facility displaying over thirty-five hundred objects from the collections of the Museum in drawers and glass cases, where earlier glass cases housed patent invention models [the Museum is housed in the Old Patent Office (see here for more information on the building and its history), and United States patent law originally required inventors to submit scale models of their inventions, which were retained by the Patent Office]. In the Luce Center, visitors can see works that would otherwise not be on view due to space restraints in the Museum’s main galleries. Computers are scattered throughout the facility, to assist with finding the object you want. It is an excellent concept, and the surroundings - with open mezzanines and large skylight - make it feel open and accessible rather than crowded.

Technical: Rotated to straighten, cropped to center, a bit of increased contrast, and sharpened.