Past Exhibition New Release: 1998

National Gallery Commemorates 20th Anniversary of East Building with Works Showing Early Architectural Designs

"I sketched a trapezoid on the back of an envelope. I drew a diagonal line across the trapezoid and produced two triangles. That was the beginning."
-- I. M. Pei, National Geographic, November 1978

Washington, DC -- Rare conceptual sketches by I. M. Pei, architect of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, are among some twenty works that shed light on the early creative process of the pioneering architecture in the exhibition A Design for the National Gallery of Art: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of I. M. Pei's East Building, on view in the Gallery's East Building auditorium, March 27 - October 11, 1998.

Drawn entirely from the Gallery's archival holdings, the exhibition also includes working studies by I. M. Pei's design team, small sketches from a diary notebook, drawings by architectural draftsman Paul Stevenson Oles, and a scale model of the East and West Buildings. These works show the innovative solutions Pei and his team found as they explored, eliminated, and re-explored creative possibilities for the building's overall plan, exterior profile, and roofing for the atrium.

Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art, said, "The challenges of designing a multi-purpose space for modern art on a trapezoidal plot of land that related to the Gallery's original West Building can be seen in these early design sketches. Those of us who worked at the Gallery at that time had the satisfaction of seeing one of the most significant buildings of the decade come to fruition."

The East Building is a gift to the nation from Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. On July 9, 1968, the trustees of the National Gallery of Art selected I. M. Pei to design a new building for the museum to provide much needed additional space for exhibitions and other museum activities and a home for a new art history research center. The building was to be constructed on an irregularly shaped plot of land directly to the east of the Gallery's original West Building, which had been reserved for the museum since it was established in 1937. It was important that the new building not only conform to the unusual plot, but be appropriate to the monumental scale of the Mall and remain in harmony with the design of John Russell Pope's classicizing West Building, which had opened to the public in 1941.

In a moment of insight, I. M. Pei realized that the difficult trapezoidal plot of land could be divided into two triangles, one an isosceles triangle whose base was bisected by the strong east-west axis of the West Building and the other a smaller right triangle. Pei's design team then searched for an ideal geometry, reflected in quick working studies that taken together provide insight into the gradual evolution of the building plan. The exhibition presents a select group of these imaginative studies, taken from more than 130 surviving sheets, which record various considerations of the façade treatment and the painstaking process of designing a roof for the museum's central atrium.

Since its opening dedication on June 1, 1978, the East Building has been host to many of the Gallery's most highly attended exhibitions: The Splendor of Dresden: Five Centuries of Art Collecting, an Exhibition from the German Democratic Republic (1978), the major exhibition celebrating the opening of the East Building; Rodin Rediscovered (1981-82); Treasure Houses of Britain (1985-86); The Art of Paul Gauguin (1988); Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration (1991-1992); and most recently, Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906 (1997).

The East Building is also home to works from the Gallery's permanent collection of paintings and sculpture by major twentieth-century artists, including Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. In addition, it houses the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, a research library, an extensive photographic archive, administrative offices, and an auditorium where lectures and films are presented on a regular basis.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

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phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

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