Dome

The north elevation, close view, showing deep set windows; The National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall opened in September 2004. Fifteen years in the making, it is the first national museum in the country dedicated exclusively to Native Americans. The five-story, 250,000-square-foot, curvilinear building is clad in a golden-colored Kasota limestone that is designed to evoke natural rock formations that have been shaped by wind and water over thousands of years. The museum is set in a 4.25-acre site and is surrounded by simulated wetlands. The museum's east-facing entrance, its prism window and its 120-foot-high space for contemporary Native performances are direct results of extensive consultations with Native peoples. The museum's architect and project designer is the Canadian Douglas Cardinal (Blackfoot); its design architects are GBQC Architects of Philadelphia and architect Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Choctaw). Disagreements during construction led to Cardinal being removed from the project, but the building retains his original design intent, and his continued input enabled its completion. The museum's project architects are Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects Ltd. of Seattle and SmithGroup of Washington, D.C., in association with Lou Weller (Caddo), the Native American Design Collaborative, and Polshek Partnership Architects of New York City; Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi) and Donna House (Navajo/Oneida) also served as design consultants. The landscape architects are Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects Ltd. of Seattle and EDAW Inc., of Alexandria, Virginia. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 1/27/2008)