District of Columbia Things to Do

The Freer Gallery of Art was the first museum of the Smithsonian Institution to be dedicated to the fine arts. The Freer and the neighboring Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the national museum of Asian art for the United States. Besides Asian art, the Freer houses a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American art, including the world's largest number of works by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).

Art in the Freer Gallery spans 6,000 years and many different... More

The Freer Gallery of Art was the first museum of the Smithsonian Institution to be dedicated to the fine arts. The Freer and the neighboring Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the national museum of Asian art for the United States. Besides Asian art, the Freer houses a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American art, including the world's largest number of works by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).

Art in the Freer Gallery spans 6,000 years and many different cultures, reflecting the taste of its founder, Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), a Detroit businessman. In his collecting, Freer followed the principles of English Aestheticism or "art for art's sake" as it is more commonly known. Freer believed in the universality of beauty and he delighted in finding aesthetic affinities among the art of such divergent cultures as Neolithic China and the 19th-century United States.

Since his death, Freer's legacy of approximately 7,500 works of Asian art has grown to 22,369 objects and the collection includes art from China, Japan, Korea, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Central Asia. There are also small but important groups of Early Christian art and art from Egypt. Freer considered his American holdings of 1,708 works by Whistler, Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1850-1938), Dwight William Tryon (1849-1925), Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) and others to be complete, and so there have been no additions to the American works he collected.

Only a small percentage of the gallery holdings are on view at any one time, changing regularly. The single permanent exhibition is "Harmony in Blue and Gold, The Peacock Room," an opulent interior made by Whistler for a London town house in 1876-1877 and brought to the United States by Freer.

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The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is one of the world's leading museums of international modern and contemporary art. The facility welcomes visitors at all levels of understanding to experience the transformative power of contemporary art.

The museum collects, preserves and presents international modern and contemporary art in all media, distinguished by in-depth holdings of major artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. The permanent collection has more than 11,500 works... More

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is one of the world's leading museums of international modern and contemporary art. The facility welcomes visitors at all levels of understanding to experience the transformative power of contemporary art.

The museum collects, preserves and presents international modern and contemporary art in all media, distinguished by in-depth holdings of major artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. The permanent collection has more than 11,500 works of art includes pieces by leading artists from the late 19th century to the present day and includes paintings, sculpture, mixed media pieces, photography, works on paper, video and film.

The Hirshhorn has one of the most comprehensive collections of modern sculpture in the world, with many examples on view indoors and in the sculpture garden. In-depth holdings include work by Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Clyfford Still, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ana Mendieta and Arshile Gorky.

An active acquisitions program ensures that current and future generations will experience this vital social force that enhances and illuminates contemporary life. Mid-career surveys and comprehensive retrospectives of living and historical artists and group exhibitions are organized and presented continually, clarifying current artistic trends, as well as movements in the history of art.

The museum opened in fall 1974, as a result of the efforts and generosity of American entrepreneur and philanthropist Joseph H. Hirshhorn (1899-1981), who donated his collection to the Smithsonian Institution in 1966. Designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft, the museum's elevated drum-shaped building has 60,000-square feet of exhibition space inside and nearly four acres outside in its two-level sculpture garden and plaza.

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The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum maintains the world's largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft among some 50,000 artifacts that range in size from Saturn V rockets to jetliners to gliders to space helmets to microchips. Exhibits showcase the history of aviation and the space age, presenting the history of flight from the earliest yearning and attempts to fly to World War II rockets to modern space probes. The politics, physics, and art linked to man's dream of flying are explored within its galleries.... More

The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum maintains the world's largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft among some 50,000 artifacts that range in size from Saturn V rockets to jetliners to gliders to space helmets to microchips. Exhibits showcase the history of aviation and the space age, presenting the history of flight from the earliest yearning and attempts to fly to World War II rockets to modern space probes. The politics, physics, and art linked to man's dream of flying are explored within its galleries.

The museum is a vital center for historical research on aviation and spaceflight and related science and technology. It is also home to the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, which performs original research and outreach activities on topics covering planetary science, terrestrial geophysics and the remote sensing of environmental change.

For a cosmic experience visit the Albert Einstein's Planetarium. The five-story IMAX® screen the Langley Theater features films on air and space travel.

The museum has two public display facilities; one on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center* in Chantilly, Va., allowing it to display most of its collection.

Since opening, the building on the Mall in July 1976, it has been the most visited museum facility in the world. It houses many of the icons of flight including the original 1903 Wright Flyer, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1, John Glenn's Friendship 7 spacecraft, the Apollo 11 command module and a lunar rock sample that visitors can touch. (*see separate listing)

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The National Gallery of Art, one of the world's preeminent museums, showcases its collections in two separate buildings. It is comprised of some 116,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture and decorative arts that trace the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present.

John Russell Pope designed the West Building, which opened to the public in 1941. Collections include European (13th-early 20th century) and American (18th-early 20th century) works; an... More

The National Gallery of Art, one of the world's preeminent museums, showcases its collections in two separate buildings. It is comprised of some 116,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture and decorative arts that trace the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present.

John Russell Pope designed the West Building, which opened to the public in 1941. Collections include European (13th-early 20th century) and American (18th-early 20th century) works; an extensive survey of Italian painting and sculpture including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Western Hemisphere; and superb surveys of American, British, Flemish, Spanish, and 15th- and 16th-century German art with emphasis on Dutch masters and French impressionists.

Designed by I.M. Pei, the East Building opened to the public in 1978. Its galleries and exhibition spaces are especially suited for displaying contemporary art. Major 20th-century artists such as Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko are represented.

The 6.1-acre National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden opened to the public in 1999. The dynamic and richly landscaped setting includes 17 major works including important acquisitions of post-World War II sculpture by such internationally renowned artists as Louise Bourgeois, Mark di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, and Tony Smith. Visitors are able to enjoy the reflecting pool and fountain in summer and an ice-skating rink in winter. In the garden also find ample seating and walking areas with native American canopy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, ground covers and perennials.

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art fosters the discovery and appreciation of the visual arts of Africa, the cradle of humanity through exhibits, lectures, films and workshops.

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art fosters the discovery and appreciation of the visual arts of Africa, the cradle of humanity through exhibits, lectures, films and workshops.

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is responsible for the collection, care and preservation of more than three million objects. The collections represent the nation's heritage in the areas of science, technology, sociology and culture from colonial times to the present. The collections include first ladies gowns, a Samuel Morse telegraph, locomotives, tools, an Alexander Graham Bell telephone, flags, American-made quilts, Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves, Duke Ellington's sheet music and TV puppet star Howdy Doody.... More

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is responsible for the collection, care and preservation of more than three million objects. The collections represent the nation's heritage in the areas of science, technology, sociology and culture from colonial times to the present. The collections include first ladies gowns, a Samuel Morse telegraph, locomotives, tools, an Alexander Graham Bell telephone, flags, American-made quilts, Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves, Duke Ellington's sheet music and TV puppet star Howdy Doody.

Visitors enter the museum to see the atrium with a grand staircase that connects the first and second floors. Extensive 10-foot-high "artifact walls" on both the first and second floors showcase the breadth of the museum's three million objects. A welcome center on the second floor assists orienting visitors to the museum.

On the first floor, find the exhibition gallery for Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.

An abstract flag, approximately 40-feet long and up to 19-feet high soars above the entrance to the Star-Spangled Banner gallery, the central focal point of the second floor. Visitors can experience the 30-by-34-foot wool and cotton flag through floor-to-ceiling glass windows designed to evoke the "dawn's early light" in which Francis Scott Key saw the flag, still flying above Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor in 1814, inspiring him to write the national anthem.

The Hands on History Room allows children to touch, examine and use objects historic reproductions.

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Reputed to be the most-visited natural history museum, it strives to inspire curiosity, discovery and learning about nature and culture through exceptional collections, exhibitions, education and research.

With more than 125 million specimens and artifacts, the museum's collections are the largest in the world, evolving around the areas of anthropology (human studies); biology, including botany (plants), entomology (insects) and zoology (other animals);... More

Reputed to be the most-visited natural history museum, it strives to inspire curiosity, discovery and learning about nature and culture through exceptional collections, exhibitions, education and research.

With more than 125 million specimens and artifacts, the museum's collections are the largest in the world, evolving around the areas of anthropology (human studies); biology, including botany (plants), entomology (insects) and zoology (other animals); mineral sciences (minerals, gems, rocks and meteorites); and paleobiology (fossils). Exhibits of particular interest are dinosaurs, butterflies, a mummy and the Hope Diamond. The Samuel C. Johnson IMAX® Theater (fee) offers presentations throughout the day.

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Established in 1989, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of the life, languages, literature, history and arts of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

Opened in 2004, this is the first national museum in the country dedicated exclusively to Native Americans, the first to present all exhibitions from a Native viewpoint. The five-story, distinctive curvilinear building... More

Established in 1989, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of the life, languages, literature, history and arts of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

Opened in 2004, this is the first national museum in the country dedicated exclusively to Native Americans, the first to present all exhibitions from a Native viewpoint. The five-story, distinctive curvilinear building features a welcome wall that greets visitors in 150 Native languages, conveying the significant presence and diversity of Native peoples throughout the Americas. This message is again reinforced in the Lelawi (leh-LAH-wee) Theater, a 120-seat circular theater located on the fourth floor which presents a 13-minute multimedia experience titled "Who We Are" to prepare museum-goers for their visit. The museum's signature 43-minute film, "A Thousand Roads," has daily screenings in the Rasmuson Theater and follows the lives of four contemporary Native Americans as they confront the crises that arise in a single day. With epic-sized settings that include the crest of the Andes, the ice floes of Alaska, the mesas of New Mexico and the concrete canyons of Manhattan.

Approximately 8,000 objects from the museum's permanent collection are on display in the exhibitions:
• "Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World" focuses on Native cosmologies and the spiritual relationship between mankind and the natural world. It explores annual ceremonies of Native peoples as windows into ancestral Native teachings, featuring the celebrations that unite different Native peoples.
• "Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories" highlights historical events told from a Native point of view
• "Native Americans" struggles to maintain traditions in the face of adversity. It includes a spectacular "wall of gold" featuring more than 400 figurines and gold objects dating back before 1491, European swords, coins and crosses made from melted gold and a central area called "The Storm" with glass walls that change with shifting colors and screens that present a narration of a vastly changed Native world.
• "Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identities" examines the identities of Native peoples in the 21st century and how those identities, both individual and communal, are shaped by deliberate choices made in challenging circumstances. The exhibition also deals with the turbulent times of the 1960s and 1970s when the "Red Power" movement was born.
• The "Window on the Collections: Many Hands, Many Voices" exhibition offers a view into the vast collections of the museum by showcasing 3,500 objects arranged in seven categories. Objects include animal-themed figurines and objects, beadwork, containers, dolls, peace medals, projectile points and qeros (cups for ritual drinking).
• "Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake" educates visitors on the Native peoples of the Chesapeake Bay region - what is now Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. This provides an overview of the history and events from the 1600s to the present, which have had an impact on the lives of the Nanticoke, Powhatan and Piscataway tribes.

Throughout the museum, the works of Native artists are on display as "landmark objects" in the public areas, including a 20-foot totem pole by carver Nathan Jackson (Tlingit) and a bronze sculpture by Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo), as well as a carving of a Kwakiutl speaker and Navajo weavings from the museum's collection.

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The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum is dedicated to the preservation, study and presentation of postal history and philately - the collection and study of postage stamps, postmarks and stamped envelopes.

The museum with six million items houses one of the largest and most significant collection of stamps and philatelic material in the world - including postal stationery, vehicles used to transport the mail, mailboxes, meters, cards and letters and postal materials that... More

The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum is dedicated to the preservation, study and presentation of postal history and philately - the collection and study of postage stamps, postmarks and stamped envelopes.

The museum with six million items houses one of the largest and most significant collection of stamps and philatelic material in the world - including postal stationery, vehicles used to transport the mail, mailboxes, meters, cards and letters and postal materials that predate the use of stamps. The museum occupies the historic City Post Office Building and features a U.S. Post Office stamp store, a museum store and five exhibition galleries presenting America's postal history from colonial times to the present. Its collections contain prestigious U.S. and international postal issues and specialized collections, archival postal documents and 3-D objects.

View vintage airmail planes, a reconstructed railway mail car, an 1851 stagecoach, a 1931 Ford Model A postal truck and a contemporary Long Life Vehicle postal truck. Among its permanent exhibits are the following: "Binding the Nation," "Moving the Mail," "Customers and Communities" and "The Art of Cards and Letters."

Visitors can create and send a postcard and browse through a small town post office from the 1920s. Museum presentations bring to life the story of "Owney," the mascot dog of the Railway Mail Service and tell the history of U.S. mail trains.

The Smithsonian's National Zoo was established on March 2, 1889, for the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people. Today, the zoo exhibits living animal and plant collections and conducts research in conservation biology and reproductive science. Its mission is to provide leadership in animal care, science, education and sustainability.

Approximately 2,000 animals, representing nearly 400 species, call the 163-acre park their home. Almost a... More

The Smithsonian's National Zoo was established on March 2, 1889, for the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people. Today, the zoo exhibits living animal and plant collections and conducts research in conservation biology and reproductive science. Its mission is to provide leadership in animal care, science, education and sustainability.

Approximately 2,000 animals, representing nearly 400 species, call the 163-acre park their home. Almost a quarter of the animals at the National Zoo are endangered species, and include giant pandas, Asian elephants, white-naped cranes and western lowland gorillas.

The National Zoo's giant panda family live at the Giant Panda Habitat. Tai Shan was born on July 9, 2005. The giant panda adults are on a $10 million, ten-year loan from China as part of a research, conservation and breeding program. The cub will be moved to China to participate in a breeding program there.

The National Zoo's young male Asian elephant, Kandula, is the fifth elephant calf in the world conceived through artificial insemination. Currently, there are three Asian elephants, five Sumatran and four African lions that call the National Zoo home. Five cheetahs are part of the Zoo's Cheetah Conservation Station. Bald eagles injured in the wild and unable to fly, can be viewed from a close-up observation blind. Created through a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they are part of an exhibit that includes an interactive display on the nation's wildlife refuges.

The National Zoo has 180 species of trees, 850 species of woody shrubs and herbaceous plants, and 40 species of grasses, including dozens of species of bamboo.