Smithsonian selects finalists for African-American museum

The National Museum of African American History and Culture, to be constructed on Constitution Avenue near the Washington Monument, may turn out to be a stony sculptural edifice or a glass-faced building framed in steel.

The Smithsonian Institution announced Thursday that it has narrowed the list of 22 firms competing for the museum commission to six finalists with diverse outlooks on design.

“They’ve all demonstrated a passion for African-American culture,” museum director Lonnie Bunch said at a press briefing yesterday. “They have the skills to help us craft a structure that will enhance the National Mall.”

All six teams include black design principals, and four firms are members of the National Organization of Minority Architects. Several are led by architects experienced in designing museums and institutions in Washington.

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners LLP - the New York firm responsible for the National Gallery of Art’s East Building and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum - is collaborating with Devrouax & Purnell Architects-Planners PC of Nationals Park baseball-stadium fame.

Foster + Partners Ltd., the British firm behind the canopy over the courtyard at the Old Patent Office Building, has formed a joint venture with URS Corp., an international engineering firm.

Another finalist experienced in Washington bureaucracy is the Israeli-born architect Moshe Safdie, who has teamed with District-based Sultan Campbell Britt & Associates. Mr. Safdie designed the headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on New York Avenue Northeast as well as the headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace, under construction at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue Northwest.

New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an edgy boutique firm best known for Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, has formed an alliance with KlingStubbins Inc., a large six-office firm with a practice in the District.

Architect Antoine Predock of Albuquerque, N.M., who is working with Moody Nolan Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, brings experience designing the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and an addition to the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington state.

The only team with a portfolio of black-history museums is Freelon Adjaye Bond, a group of architects teamed with the SmithGroup of Washington.

Architect Philip Freelon of Durham, N.C., designed the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in Baltimore and the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. New York-based Max Bond is the architect behind the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Ala.

This team may have a leg up in the two-month-long competition. In 2007, Mr. Freelon and Mr. Bond were hired by the Smithsonian to come up with a conceptual framework for the 300,000- to 350,000-square-foot museum on the Mall.

The six teams of finalists will base their designs for the museum on these preliminary plans. Each group will be paid a stipend of $50,000 to develop its final vision.

The submitted proposals will be judged by a panel of museum officials, architects and other experts from April 1 through 3. Mr. Bunch, who is one of the 11 jurors, said he is looking for a “signature green building” that “speaks about the resiliency, optimism and spirituality of the African-American experience.”

The winner of the design competition will be announced on April 10. Judges will base 60 percent of their decision on the design and 40 percent on the architects’ ability to collaborate with each other and the museum staff.

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