Two significant memorial and cultural projects on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., are poised to open this fall, reflecting ongoing debates about public memory, design, and national identity.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, an iconic modern art institution managed by the Smithsonian, will unveil a $68 million redesign on October 31. The renovation, led by Japanese artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto, aims to transform the museum’s outdoor space and improve visitor access. Central to the redesign is the expansion of the garden’s connection to the Mall, growing from 20 to 60 feet, and the reopening of an underground passageway closed since the 1980s, which links the museum to the sculpture garden beneath Jefferson Drive.
The project has generated controversy, particularly regarding Sugimoto’s replacement of original concrete walls with dry-stacked stone, a move that raised concerns among preservation groups eager to maintain the 1981 landscape architect Lester Collins’s contributions. Sugimoto’s design also introduces new overlooks, shade trees, a flexible water feature intended for outdoor performances, and sculptures by artists including Izumi Kato, Pedro Reyes, and Chatchai Puipia. This update seeks to soften the stark Late Modernist geometry of the site, addressing longstanding criticism of the garden’s severity.
Less than two miles west, near the Lincoln Memorial, the Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial is scheduled to open on October 24. This two-acre site honors the 1990 military buildup known as Operation Desert Shield and the subsequent 1991 combat phase, Operation Desert Storm, during which a coalition led by the United States liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.
Designed by the landscape architecture firm Olin based on initial concepts from CSO Architects, the memorial features minimalistic, angled stone walls that evoke desert dunes while serving as backdrops for a series of bas-relief panels depicting combat scenes. The design includes a spiraling path guiding visitors through the space. While some critics question commemorating a relatively brief military campaign or argue that it highlights the contrast with the prolonged 2003 conflict in Iraq, veterans emphasize Desert Storm’s role in restoring public confidence in the U.S. military following the Vietnam War era. This memorial is one of the last to occupy a prime location on the Mall, with future monuments expected to be located farther away.
Beyond the National Mall, this fall also signals a notable moment in collegiate architecture, as several institutions prepare to open innovative campus buildings that reflect shifting attitudes toward campus design and sustainability.
At Amherst College in Massachusetts, the newly completed Ford Student Center designed by Herzog & de Meuron alongside Sasaki Associates will open. Situated on the southeastern corner of Amherst’s traditional quadrangle with views of the Holyoke Range, the center reconnects the heart of campus with adjacent athletic and residential areas. Rather than demolish the 1968 Merrill Science Center, the architects retained its concrete framework and incorporated a mass-timber superstructure, marrying old and new elements while reinterpreting the college’s signature “mammoth purple” in a deeper aubergine hue.
On the West Coast, the University of California, Berkeley has introduced the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Gateway building on its northern edge. Occupying 367,000 square feet, this structure replaces the 1963 Tolman Hall, a Corbusian and quasi-Brutalist building by Gardner Dailey. Designed by Weiss/Manfredi, the new facility houses Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science and Society. The building features a modern exterior of glass and metal panels paired with light-filled interior spaces, reflecting current trends in campus architecture that favor transparency and sustainability.
Together, these projects underscore a broader architectural moment that revisits and reinterprets the legacies of modernist design while embracing new priorities in memorialization, sustainability, and functional campus planning.