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.

Items on display in Visible Vault.

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…

Untitled Design (13)

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…

AAA Daniel Feil (4)

Adopt an Artifact: Daniel Feil Drafting Tools

If you’ve flown through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport or attended an event at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, you’ve experienced the work of renowned architect…

Architectural drawing of John Blatteau's Les Halles proposal.

Les Halles Reimagined: An Unbuilt Proposal

The Proposal for Les Halles The National Building Museum Collections team recently catalogued and digitized a 1970s collection of architectural sketches and drawings by architect John Blatteau for a proposed…

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…