Smithsonian Institution Building

The Smithsonian Institution ( smith-SOH-nee-ən), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967.Called "the nation's attic" for its eclectic holdings of 154 million items, the institution's 19 museums, 21 libraries, nine research centers, and zoo include historical and architectural landmarks, mostly located in the District of Columbia. Additional facilities are located in Maryland, New York, and Virginia. More than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The institution's 30 million annual visitors are admitted without charge. Its annual budget is around $1.25 billion, with two-thirds coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the institution's endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, and licensing revenue. As of 2021, the institution's endowment had a total value of about $5.4 billion.

Professor Joseph Henry is an outdoor bronze sculpture by William Wetmore Story, depicting Joseph Henry, located in front of Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution Building, in the United States. The sculpture is nine feet tall, with a base made from Maine red granite and Quincy gray granite. It was modeled in 1881, cast the following year, and dedicated on April 19, 1883.

The Andrew Jackson Downing Urn, also known as the Downing Urn, is a memorial and public artwork located in the Enid A. Haupt Garden of the Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.The outdoor sculpture of a garden vase−urn commemorates Andrew Jackson Downing (1815–1852), an American landscape designer and horticulturalist, and considered to be one of the founders of American landscape architecture. Shortly before dying at the age of 37, Downing developed a landscape plan for the National Mall that the United States government partially implemented until replacing it with the McMillan Plan of 1902 (see History of the National Mall).

The Enid A. Haupt Garden is a 4.2 acre public garden in the Smithsonian complex, adjacent to the Smithsonian Institution Building (the "Castle") on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It was designed to be a modern representation of American Victorian gardens as they appeared in the mid to late 19th century. It replaced an existing Victorian Garden which had been built to celebrate the nation's Bicentennial in 1976.

The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country. Founded in 1982, the Gallery is named after Arthur M. Sackler, who donated approximately 1,000 objects and $4 million to the building of the museum. Located on the south side of the National Mall, and being physically connected to the Freer Gallery of Art, 96% of the museum is located underground below the Enid A. Haupt Garden. Their donations and contributions have been protested by people who accuse them of being a key contributor to the opioid epidemic in the United States.

The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African art from both Sub-Saharan and North Africa, 300,000 photographs, and 50,000 library volumes. It was the first institution dedicated to African art in the United States and remains the largest collection. The Washington Post called the museum a mainstay in the international art world and the main venue for contemporary African art in the United States. The museum was founded in 1964 by a Foreign Service in Capitol Hill. The collection focused on traditional African art and an educational mission to teach black cultural heritage. To ensure the museum's longevity, the founder lobbied the national legislature to adopt the museum under the Smithsonian's auspices. It joined the Smithsonian in 1979 and became the National Museum of African Art two years later. A new, primarily underground museum building was completed in 1987, just off the National Mall and adjacent to other Smithsonian museums. It is among the Smithsonian's smallest museums. The African art museum took a scholarly direction over the next twenty years, with less social programming. It collected traditional and contemporary works of historical importance. Exhibitions include both internal and borrowed works and have ranged from solo artists to broad survey shows. The museum hosts two to three temporary exhibitions and ten special events annually. The preferred abbreviation for its name is NMAfA.

The S. Dillon Ripley Center, better known simply as the Ripley Center, is one of the buildings of the Smithsonian Institution series of museums located in the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The above-ground portion is only a small pagoda, and it descends into a larger underground portion. The Ripley Center houses the International Gallery, The Smithsonian Associates, and the offices of the Smithsonian Contributing Membership. It contains a conference center, an art gallery, and meeting/class rooms as well as exhibition space. It connects underground to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, and the Freer Gallery of Art. The Smithsonian Associates was formed in 1992 from combining the Resident Associates Program with the Smithsonian National Associate Program. The Smithsonian Associates was established as the cultural, educational, and membership division of the Smithsonian Institution. These membership and educational programs include the Young Benefactors, Smithsonian Sleepovers, Resident Associates Program, Discovery Theatre, Regional Events, and the Art Collectors Program.The Art Collectors Program is devoted to the creation and appreciation of contemporary American limited-edition art and to creating a context for collecting and a forum for artists to discuss their work. The Program sells Smithsonian-commissioned contemporary fine art prints and posters by acclaimed American artists like Sam Gilliam and April Gornik. Its limited-edition prints are numbered and signed and come with a Certificate of Authenticity from the Smithsonian.

The National Museum of Asian Art consists of the Smithsonian Institution’s two Asian art galleries, the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which are situated in connecting buildings on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The galleries are operated by the same board of trustees and share a budget. Both institutions are run by the same management, curatorial and other staff. The two galleries feature 45,000 works of Asian art.The Freer Gallery of Art opened in 1923 to display the nineteenth century American painting and Asian art collection of American industrialist Charles Lang Freer. Freer provided an initial endowment used to construct the gallery building. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery was built next door to the Freer in 1987, after Arthur M. Sackler donated 1,000 objects of ancient Chinese art and $4 million for a museum to house them. The museums have separate collections. Based on Charles Freer's will, the Freer gallery can exhibit only works in its collection, and those works are not allowed to travel. The Sackler gallery can accept loaned objects and can also loan pieces from its collection.The museum is working to strengthen its connections with Korea and art institutions there.The museum ended cooperation with the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in 2022.In February, 2023, the museum entered into an agreement with the government of Yemen to hold and preserve 77 works of art that had been looted from that country. The items will be returned to Yemen when the civil war there ends. Among the works are 65 carved stone funerary stelae, which are approximately 2,500 years old.

The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sackler galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the country and contain art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of American art. The gallery is located on the south side of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., contiguous with the Sackler Gallery. The museum is open 364 days a year (being closed on Christmas), and is administered by a single staff with the Sackler Gallery. The galleries were among the most visited art museums in the world. The Freer houses over 26,000 objects spanning 6,000 years of history from the Neolithic to modern eras. The collections include ancient Egyptian stone sculpture and wooden objects, ancient Near Eastern ceramics and metalware, Chinese paintings and ceramics, Korean pottery and porcelain, Japanese folding screens, Persian manuscripts, and Buddhist sculpture. In addition to Asian art, the Freer also contains the famous Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room (better known as The Peacock Room) by American artist James McNeill Whistler which serves as the centerpiece to the Freer's American art collection. The museum offers free tours to the public and presents a full schedule events for the public including films, lectures, symposia, concerts, performances, and discussions. Over 11,000 objects from the Freer|Sackler collections are fully searchable and available online. The Freer was also featured in the Google Art Project, which offers online viewers close-up views of selected items from the Freer.

The Arts and Industries Building is the second oldest (after The Castle) of the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Initially named the National Museum, it was built to provide the Smithsonian with its first proper facility for public display of its growing collections. The building, designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, opened in 1881, hosting an inaugural ball for President James A. Garfield. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971. After being closed since 2004, the building reopened in 2021 with a special exhibition, Futures, scheduled to run through July 2022.

The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) is an international initiative to advance carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The Forum is a Ministerial-level organization that includes 23 member countries and the European Commission. Membership is open to national governmental entities that are significant producers or users of fossil fuel and that have a commitment to invest resources in research, development and demonstration activities in carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies. CSLF also recognizes that stakeholders, those organizations that are affected by and can affect the goals of CSLF, form an essential component of CSLF activities.The CSLF Charter, signed in June 2003, organized the CSLF by creating a Policy Group, which governs the overall framework and policies of the CSLF, a Technical Group, which reviews the progress of collaborative projects and makes recommendations to the Policy Group on any needed actions, and an administrative Secretariat, which organizes CSLF meetings, coordinates communications among CSLF Members, and acts as a clearinghouse of information. In July 2005, the G8 Summit endorsed the CSLF in its Plan of Action on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development, and identified it as a medium of cooperation and collaboration with key developing countries in dealing with greenhouse gases.Similar designations were also made in bilateral activities that include: the joint statement of the U.S.-European Union Summit on Energy Security, Energy Efficiency, Renewables and Economic Development, and the Mainz Declaration of Germany and the United States on Cleaner and More Efficient Energy, Development and Climate Change.In 2006 and 2007, the International Energy Agency and the CSLF held a series of three workshops for invited experts from around the world on the topic of near-term opportunities for carbon capture and storage. Resulting recommendations from these workshops were formally adopted by the CSLF and were sent forward to G8 leaders. The CSLF has recognized 30 carbon capture and storage projects worldwide that demonstrate a wide range of CO2 capture, transport and storage research and activities.

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. The DOE oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy-related research, and domestic energy production and energy conservation. The DOE was created in 1977 in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. It sponsors more physical science research than any other U.S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories. The DOE also directs research in genomics, with the Human Genome Project originating from a DOE initiative.The department is headed by the Secretary of Energy, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the Cabinet. The current Secretary of Energy is Jennifer Granholm, who has served in the position since February 2021. The department's headquarters are in southwestern Washington, D.C., in the James V. Forrestal Building, with additional offices in Germantown, Maryland.