Sir Norman Foster

Photo: David Y Lee/NYTimes
Washington, DC
Nicolai Ourousoff
The glass-and-steel roof over the Kogod Courtyard appears to undulate as it connects sections of two Smithsonian museums: the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. The museums reside in the venerable Patent Office Building, one of this country’s finest examples of 19th-century Greek Revival architecture. When the British architect Norman Foster was hired to renovate the museums’ courtyard and enclose it under a glass roof, he essentially was told: Don’t dare disturb the old building.

Such strictures might have handcuffed a less nimble architect. But Mr. Foster seems to have relished the challenge. Rather than lock horns with preservationists, he embraced his task with fetishistic glee. Capped by an undulating glass-and-steel roof, the courtyard is inserted into the existing building with striking delicacy. The project shows how an architect can respect the past without dressing it up in historicist frippery.