Arts and Industries Building

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 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).

Post-Balzac is a bronze sculpture by Judith Shea created in 1991 in an edition of three copies. It was exhibited at the White House, and the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.The Hirshhorn is situated halfway between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol, anchoring the southernmost end of the so-called L'Enfant axis (perpendicular to the Mall's green carpet). The National Archives/National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden across the Mall, and the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art building several blocks to the north, also mark this pivotal axis, a key element of both the 1791 city plan by Pierre L'Enfant and the 1901 MacMillan Plan.The building itself is an attraction, an open cylinder elevated on four massive "legs," with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard.

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 Smithsonian Institution Building, located near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. behind the National Museum of African Art and the Sackler Gallery, houses the Smithsonian Institution's administrative offices and information center. The building is constructed of Seneca red sandstone in the Norman Revival style (a 12th-century combination of late Romanesque and early Gothic motifs; built in the Gothic and Romanesque revival styles) and is nicknamed the Castle. It was completed in 1855 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

Kiepenkerl was originally a sandstone statue of a travelling merchant created by August Schmiemann in Münster, Germany in 1896. Destroyed in World War II, it was re-created in cast metal by Albert Mazzotti Jr in 1953. The statue now stands in a small square in the Old Quarter of Münster. In 1987 American sculptor Jeff Koons created a replica of the design in polished cast stainless steel.

Sky Hooks is a painted sheet steel sculpture by Alexander Calder, constructed in 1962. It is located at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

The Army Medical Museum and Library (AMML) of the U.S. Army was a large brick building constructed in 1887 at South B Street (now Independence Avenue) and 7th Street, SW, Washington, D.C., which is directly on the National Mall. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The building was demolished in 1969, and the collections at the focus of the landmark designation were dispersed.

Clamdigger is a bronze sculpture by Willem de Kooning. It may have been inspired by "the men who dug for clams along the beaches" near his home in East Hampton, New York. It has been described as one of his "extraordinarily tactile figurative sculptures" that "seemed pulled from the primordial ooze," and "as part man, part creature of the mud and the shallows."The sculpture was modeled in clay in 1972, and cast in bronze in 1976. It was his "first large-scale bronze work."As of 2014, Clamdigger is on display in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.De Kooning, known for his abstract expressionist paintings, took up sculpture later in his career, after a 1969 visit with a friend in Italy "who had a small foundry."

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.

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.