New Monument

With its oppressive scale and formal axial planning, Washington, B.C., has long been an architectural disaster area studded by a few fine buildings. Any architect tackling a new public structure there faces problems should he wish to produce a design that is both imaginative and in coherent harmony with what already exists. Thus when Architect I.M. Pei was asked to design a new extension to the neoclassical National Gallery of Art, he had to overcome difficulties that seemed insuperable. As the building on the Mall nearest the Capitol, it needed to be monumental. But the site is an awkward trapezoid of land at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and the Mall, facing the Capitol. It was, said Pei, "probably the most difficult site I've ever worked with."

For the Ages. Last week Pei's model for the $45 million gallery and study center was unveiled in Washington. It proved to be not merely satisfactory but brilliant: two serene, triangular prisms, one containing the study center and library, the other a group of three skylighted exhibition galleries. The two triangular buildings are united by an intricately trussed skylight covering a central court, which should provide both a sense of welcome to pedestrians and a handsome setting for sculpture. The new building is connected to the old by a wide plaza centering on a glass-bottomed fountain. Beneath it runs an underground esplanade, which includes a 700-seat cafe whose patrons can look up through the glass at the splashing waters.

"It will transcend its period," says the gallery's director, J. Carter Brown. "It's not just a jazzy building, it is for the ages." This phrase is ritually used at the dedication of nearly all public buildings. But when Pei's building is completed (in 1975), the phrase may well turn out for once to be true.

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