News under glass

Were he alive today, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have appreciated the Newseum, opening April 11 on the last revitalized site along Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest.

He spearheaded the four-decade-long effort to revive the inaugural parade route with distinguished buildings and open spaces worthy of “America’s Main Street.”

The Newseum caps his vision with contemporary architecture far bolder than the last major design completed on the street, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

Unlike that bombastic structure, the journalism museum makes no attempt to bow and scrape to classical traditions. It is sheathed in glass, not masonry, to reveal some of its activity inside and counter the sealed-up monumentality so prevalent in Washington.

It also departs from most civic structures in the city by incorporating apartments and a restaurant to connect this lifeless stretch of the avenue to the commercial core to the northwest.

Designed by New York-based Polshek and Partners, the Newseum’s unconventional architecture is somewhat frenetic but well suits its mission to celebrate the hectic job of news gathering and the freedom of the press upon which journalism relies. In case you missed the point, a huge stone tablet affixed to the Pennsylvania Avenue facade is inscribed with the entire First Amendment to the Constitution.

It is a pompous touch but one that prevents all the glass from looking too slick and corporate by anchoring the exterior with the same Tennessee marble as applied to the National Gallery of Art across the street.

This billboard and a limestone-faced wing for the museum’s administrative offices, set next to the Canadian Embassy to the east, are the few places where the new building acquiesces to its neighbors.

They form sidebars to the centerpiece of the facade, a 78-foot-long expanse of clear glass meant to symbolize the press as a “window on the world,” according to the architects.

This transparent front page exposes the atrium inside the building, tantalizing passersby with its big media screen and electronic news tickers. Unfortunately, this powerfully simple element is surrounded by a jarring patchwork of metal panels, gridded glass and louvers that detracts from its clarity.

In many places, the architecture appears uncomfortable in its skin. It is refreshing to see such a prominent building clad in glass, but the architects have filled it with too many different patterns and types of the material — clear, reflective, translucent — as if they were trying to represent every possible advancement in modern curtain-wall technology.

Particularly disjointed is the 6th Street Northwest side of the building, where jostling angles evidence the architects’ attempt to encapsulate Washington’s city plan of diagonal avenues and orthogonal streets within the Newseum’s urban block. The front of the museum follows the angle of Pennsylvania Avenue, while the 135-unit apartment building at the back is placed parallel to C Street Northwest. It’s a clever way of animating the 643,000-square-foot complex that could have resulted in dynamic junctures.

However, instead of accentuating the shifting geometries in contrasting materials, the architects have downplayed them in a monochromatic palette of glass and metal with an awkward transition between the apartment balconies and museum.

Most visitors will enter the Newseum from the Pennsylvania Avenue side, where 64 front pages are arrayed in lighted cases to provide them with daily news updates from their hometowns.

Just inside, the building immediately delivers its best space, the 90-foot-high atrium with its huge, movable screen. This glass-faced, skylighted hall opens the museum to daylight and views while providing a much needed orientation space off the seven levels crowded with exhibits, theaters and television studios.

Activating the lofty room are crisscrossing staircases, bridges and room-sized glass elevators that clearly mark the way to reach the attractions.

They add to the industrial feeling throughout the space, which is lined in perforated acoustical panels and terrazzo floors. The aesthetic is not so much high-tech as middle tech with the huge steel trusses supporting the atrium mostly hidden from view.

Polshek and Partners collaborated with New York-based Ralph Appelbaum Associates on the design of the 14 galleries, 15 theaters and other attractions spread throughout the 250,000-square-foot museum. Their shared modernist aesthetic makes for a seamless relationship between the architecture and exhibits.

Mr. Appelbaum had the benefit of designing the first Newseum in Arlington, and his familiarity with the institution shows in improvements on displays from the previous location, including a significantly expanded news history gallery.

Mixed in with the exhibits are two working television studios, including one facing the Capitol where ABC’s George Stephanopoulos will broadcast his Sunday talk show.

Dispersed throughout are the interactive and video displays expected of museums these days and small theaters featuring short films related to the subjects covered by the exhibitry.

Taking a page from the Spy Museum, galleries related to investigative and wartime reporting feature wrecked vehicles, body armor and destroyed press paraphernalia to impress upon the visitor that news gathering can be dangerous.

A news helicopter and a replica of a NASA satellite hanging from the atrium ceiling impart a technological bravado similar to that of the Air and Space Museum. Visitors may come away with the mistaken impression that journalism is one long action adventure; the messy cubicles typical of newsrooms are nowhere to be seen.

The Newseum hopes to attract visitors from the Mall and extends that experience by including a memorial “wall.” It commemorates the 1,843 journalists who died while reporting the news from 1837 to 2007. Their names are etched onto the glass panels of a curved screen rising two stories through one of the more contemplative spaces in the museum.

In addition to all the activities, the building offers some of the best views in town. On the sixth level, an outdoor terrace provides spectacular panoramas across the National Gallery to the Mall and a direct sightline to the Capitol.

Arranged along its perimeter is yet another exhibit, this one on the history of Pennsylvania Avenue. It includes a section devoted to Mr. Moynihan’s efforts, now completed with this restless, glassy addition to his beloved boulevard.

WHAT: The Newseum

WHERE: 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

WHEN: Opens April 11; daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

ADMISSION: Free on April 11; $20 adults; $18 seniors; $13 children; free for children 6 years old and younger

PHONE: 888-NEWSEUM (639-7386)

WEB SITE: www.newseum.org

Not to be Missed

With 15 theaters, 14 major galleries, 130 interactive displays and two television studios, the Newseum is jam-packed with media-centered attractions at every turn. Be sure to check out these top attractions while wandering through its seven levels.

“Eye-Witness,” 4-D movie: This 13-minute film, shown in the museum’s 535-seat theater, tells the story of three intrepid American journalists: Revolutionary War newspaper publisher Isaiah Thomas; investigative reporter Nellie Bly, who went undercover to write an expose of a mental institution; and CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow, who provided live radio broadcasts while London was bombed during World War II. More thrilling than the movie’s fast-paced action are its special effects, including the feeling of a rat scurrying across your feet and a bullet seemingly headed straight toward the audience. “News gathering can be jarring,” the film narrator says.

Be a TV reporter:Grab a mike for a stand-up shot in front of the Capitol or Supreme Court. This interactive exhibit offers eight booths, complete with location backdrops, where children and parents are televised while reading a script off a teleprompter. In the same gallery, 40 kiosks offer the chance to try reporting and photographing news as it happens on a computer screen.

Berlin Wall: Rising in the southeast corner of the museum is a 40-foot-tall concrete guard tower from Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie. It forms the centerpiece of a gallery devoted to the role of media during the Cold War and the fall of communism. Next to the tower are eight sections of the original wall, one of the largest groupings outside of Germany.

Historic front pages: From a 16th-century report of an earthquake in Guatemala to the 2007 coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, the best archival display traces major international events through 367 newspapers culled from the museum’s collection of 35,000 publications. It allows visitors to pull out drawers to view historic headlines, including the Chicago Daily Tribune’s 1948 presidential election blooper, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

9/11 tribute: A mangled section of the antenna from the World Trade Center’s north tower anchors this fourth-level exhibit devoted to the coverage of Sept. 11, 2001. Among the artifacts are a piece of the Pentagon and the soot-covered cameras belonging to photojournalist Bill Biggart, who was killed in the disaster.

Test your ethics: Would you reveal the name of a confidential source or keep secret the wishes of a public official? This tabletop game, played on a large oval touch screen, challenges your assumptions about reporting. It asks pointed questions of two teams of players who race to fill in the front pages of competing newspapers and win the game. If only real journalism were such a snap.