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Robert Lautman’s Photography Collection: Highlights & Discoveries
Background Robert C. Lautman (1923-2009) was a renowned architectural photographer born in Montana. He discovered his passion for photography in high school while working on the yearbook staff. During World…
Art Deco at 100: The Enduring Influence of Design
As the world marks 100 years since the 1925 Paris Exposition that gave rise to Art Deco, the National Building Museum spoke with Steve Knight from the Art Deco Society…
Adopt an Artifact: Pension Building Hand Fan
Today, visitors to the National Building Museum admire the Pension Building’s grand arches and light-filled halls. But when the building first opened in 1887, it fulfilled a unique and urgent mission. Although the United States had been…
The Call is Coming from Inside the Storage Room: Artifacts in the Collection that Could Kill You
Many peculiar artifacts lurk in the National Building Museum’s permanent collection, from unidentifiable tools to photographs of buildings on fire and drawings of imagined cities. While they all reveal how buildings and cities were historically constructed, some oddities prove particularly interesting. These are the dangerous ones, the ones…
Curating the Code: The Secrets Behind Accession Numbers
When most people think of curatorial work, they imagine someone installing public, visitor-facing exhibits and displays. But curating can also happen behind the scenes, in storage spaces and database systems…
New Acquisitions: 2025
As part of its mission to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build, the National Building Museum actively collects objects, photographs, and paper materials that document the building…
Everyday Preservation Activities in Collections Storage
The Collections Department at the National Building Museum preserves our artifacts so they can be researched, exhibited, and appreciated for generations to come. Most of our preservation work involves storing…
