The Blueprint

Welcome to the National Building Museum’s blog—your inside look at the world we design and build. Discover stories that celebrate our Museum and beyond, highlighting the people, places, and ideas shaping the built environment.

Collage of items from the Museum's Collections

New Acquisitions: 2024, Part 2

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…

Drawing of a west-facing view of Washington, DC, circa 1852.

D.C.’s Grand Streets, Past and Present

When Pierre L’Enfant laid out his grand plan for the nation’s capital in 1791, he imagined a new kind of American city: an orderly grid punctuated by broad avenues that…

Architectural drawing of a terra cotta design element.

Adopt an Artifact: Northwestern Terra Cotta Collection

The National Building Museum’s Northwestern Terra Cotta collection is one of the largest and most sophisticated of its kind in the United States, comprised of more than 64,000 architectural drawings…

Plaster cast of a dog head.

A Tail Through Time: Dogs in the Museum’s Collection

Each year, the unique bond between human and dog is celebrated by observing National Dog Day on August 26. Though the official holiday was founded in 2004 by animal behaviorist…

Black and white photograph of a brick house.

Behind the Photographs: The Wurts Brothers Collection

The National Building Museum’s collections are estimated at more than half a million items. The largest material type (by quantity, not by size!) are photographic materials: prints, negatives, transparencies, slides,…

Storage and shelving of the Architectural Toy Collection

Adopt an Artifact: Architectural Toy Collection

George Wetzel began collecting building toys in the early 1980s after noticing that the toys he was buying for his children were strikingly different in both material and style from…

Paint tiles; architectural drawing; box with hinge; side chairs

New Acquisitions: 2024, Part 1

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…

New items in the collection. Plaster molds, window, miniature building.

New Acquisitions: 2023

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…

Harrison Apartments, 1903 (left) and 2025 (right).

The Harrison Apartments and Adaptive Reuse in DC

Washington, DC’s architectural story is one of evolution and adaptation, and few buildings illustrate that better than the Harrison Apartments. Tucked into the Judiciary Square neighborhood, this landmark structure has…