The National Building Museum’s permanent collection illuminates the building process and documents changing architectural styles and construction techniques. The current collections contain approximately 100,000 photographic images and negatives, 130,000 architectural prints and drawings, 100 linear feet of documents, and over 20,000 objects, including material samples, building fragments, and architectural toys.
Thanks to the generous support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, some of our permanent collection can be viewed through our Online Collections Database. We will be updating the database on an ongoing basis. Collections are also available through research request below.