Diller Scofidio & Renfro, A plan for the Hirshhorn calls for an inflatable structure that pokes through the building's top and side, on the National Mall. via NYT

via NYT via Archinect.

While I’m quite fond of the Hirshhorn building, there is a great line in Nicolai Ourossoff’s NYT article, writing that Diller Scofidio & Renfro‘s addition “would transform one of the most somber buildings on the mall into a luminous pop landmark.”

Apparently,

“The architects imagine the installation process as a performance piece in itself, something like watching event organizers blow up the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Two refrigerator-size air pumps would be used to inflate the baby-blue structure, which would fill the entire four-story courtyard and bulge out of the top. A smaller, globulelike form would swell out of the bottom of the building to create a public lounge overlooking the mall.”

Now that I can no longer legitimately take my son to the nearby merry go round, I would definitely substitute the Hirshhorn inflation on the itinerary.

Keel, merry go round on the Mall

And then, of course, I’d have to visit the “new” courtyard at my old stomping grounds, the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Foster & Partners courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.