Washington Monument Visitor's Center
Washington Monument Visitor’s Center
Washington, DC
Responding to an invited competition soon after 9/11, Tsao & McKown with Arnold Associates, landscape architects, proposed simple solutions to secure the monument against the threat of speeding vehicles laden with explosives, and individual visitors to the monument intending harm. The primary vehicular barrier would be a low retaining wall discreetly carved into the terrain (akin to an English landscape device known as a “ha-ha”). Visitors would be screened as part of a new subterranean entry sequence.
The call for a new visitors’ center presented the opportunity to provide an enriched entry experience. In Tsao & McKown’s proposal, the existing Marble Lodge provides a focal portal through which visitors pass and then ease themselves down a grand external stair to an entry courtyard before the underground visitors’ center (and passage to the monument). One may also enter the visitors’ center directly from a drop-off point just to the south of the Marble Lodge via a path that follows the terrain gently sloping down to the entry courtyard. All enter from the sunken courtyard into an area with high, vaulted ceilings; the information counter/rangers’ desk is to the right, and a gift shopping area is to the left. The ticketing area lies straight ahead.
A direct path to the monument is defined by an uninterrupted wall along the axis between the Marble Lodge and the monument. This wall is continuously washed by natural light from skylights above. The skylight path leads to the security portal. Having passed through security, one arrives at a domed rotunda, topped by an elongated oculus that frames a dramatic view of the monument (as well as allowing in abundant natural light). From there, one proceeds through a vaulted tunnel to the lower level elevator vestibule, from which one ascends to the top of the monument.
After visiting the monument, one may U-turn to the museum shop, but most visitors will likely wish to leave at the ground level. The elevator attendant will release those people into an empty and secured vestibule. The elevator will not open if anyone is present or if the doors to the exterior are not secured.
The materials on the exterior are primarily composed of the same gray/green granite as the low barrier wall of the ha-ha, as the entry facade of the center is actually an extension of that low wall that encircles the base of the monument mound. Granite paving (appropriately smoothed for interior use) will continue into the entry hall of the visitors’ center from the courtyard.
