• Click here to view photographs from the Tuskegee Airmen exhibit which was on display at Reagan National in 2008.

In 1997, a major transformation was completed of Washington National Airport (later renamed, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport). Part of that modernization program was the construction of Terminal B/C which now houses the majority of the airline operations at the Airport. In designing the building a decision was made to make an architectural and artistic statement. As Architect Cesar Pelli put it, “When the new Terminal opens, it will be a rich sequence of visual experiences.”

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The Architectural Enhancement Program (AEP) integrates commissioned artworks in the architecture of the Terminal. Each piece is integral to the building. The 30 individual works have been executed in a great variety of materials: stained glass, marble and glass mosaics, terrazzo, cast bronze, hammered aluminum and copper, painted steel, porcelain enamel and traditional paint on board and canvas. Numerous local and national organizations were contacted to reach out to the widest possible variety of artists for the program.

The sites for the artwork include 10 floor medallions on the Concourse; 11 balustrades that overlook the Concourse; 5 murals; 1 bridge sculpture; 1 sunscreen panel on the south wall of the ticket level lobby; and 2 stained glass friezes on the concourse-airside curtainwall.

On Collaboration:

"The collaboration between architects and other visual artists is as old as architecture, but almost lost in recent years. The ideology of modernism made this collaboration difficult, if not impossible. The Architectural Enhancement Program at National Airport is a serious effort to reconnect the arts, in contemporary terms. Thirty pieces have been incorporated in the New Terminal building with the participation of painters, sculptors, public artists, and mosaic and stained-glass craftsmen. Each one of these thirty pieces is an individual piece of art and, at the same time, it is an integral part of the New Terminal building. Artists were selected to represent a cross section of American art today, with a focus on the Washington, DC area. Different schools of art are represented; so are artists at different stages in their career. The selection was made keeping in mind that this is not an exhibition in a museum, but art in a public building…..We hope that every person visiting the building will be able to enjoy at least some of the pieces there. The work produced has surpassed my expectations. I have no doubts that the artists working in this program have done their very best.”

-- Architect Cesar Pelli

Group Tours Available

Tours of the AEP are conducted by seasoned art docents from local Washington museums such as the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and others. Tours will be conducted Monday through Friday between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Two weeks advance notice is requested to set up a tour. For information and reservations, please call (703) 417-0895.

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