page_title: Old Patent Office Building
section_title: 2000-2007 renovation
hierarchical_section_title: Old Patent Office Building / History / 2000-2007 renovation
caption_attribution_description: Once the largest room in America, the Great Hall was originally conceived to display miniature models required of inventors when the building housed the United States Patent Office. The space also served as the first national museum, and it was here that the Declaration of Independence was publically displayed between 1841 and 1871. The guests of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball passed thru this room to join the receiving line in what is now called the Lincoln Gallery. Following a disastrous fire in 1877, which severely damaged other portions of the third floor of the building, this area was redone in the American Victorian Renaissance style to which it has now been restored.
context_page_description: The historic Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C. covers an entire city block defined by F and G Streets and 7th and 9th Streets NW in Chinatown. It served as one of the earliest United States Patent Office buildings.
  After undergoing extensive renovations, the building reopened on July 1, 2006 and was renamed The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture in honor of a gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The building houses two Smithsonian Institution museums: the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
context_section_description: In 1995, the Smithsonian revealed the Old Patent Office Building was in serious disrepair. The roof leaked, netting had to be placed in some galleries to catch falling ceiling plaster, window frames were rotting, the floor tiles in the Great Hall were crumbling, and the exterior facade was so degraded it was shedding fist-sized pieces of rock. The Smithsonian announced the building would close in January 2000 for a two-year, $42 million renovation. Hartman-Cox Architects was hired to oversee the conservation and repair. The cost of the renovation was pegged at $110 million to $120 million.
  The 2000-2006 renovation included restoring the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, colonnades, vaulted galleries, large windows, and skylights as long as a city block. According to the Smithsonian Institution, "Extraordinary effort was made to use new preservation technologies to restore the historic fabric of the building and re-use historic materials."
  Prior to the building's closure in January 2000, a decision was reached to allot about one-third of the building's total space to the National Portrait Gallery while simultaneously eliminating the informal north-south division between the NPG and American Art Museum. This led to acrimony between the two museums, and a public debate about which collection deserved more space. The Smithsonian resolved the dispute practically: Art that best fit an exhibition space got it. (For example, since modern art often tends toward large canvases, this art is on the high-ceilinged third floor.)
  By March 2001, the cost of the Old Patent Office renovation rose to $180 million. That month, Nan Tucker McEvoy (a California newspaper heiress and arts patron) donated $10 million for the renovation. The Henry Luce Foundation gave another $10 million later that year. Costs continued to rise, however. Although Congress appropriated $33.5 million for the renovation, the reconstruction costs were estimated at $214 million in June 2001 and the museum not scheduled to reopen until 2005. Just a month later, the reopening was pushed back even further to July 2006.
  In 2003, the government's contribution to the renovation rose to $166 million, and more than $40 million in private funds had been raised. Smithsonian officials subsequently began discussing a major change to the renovation design:  Adding a glass roof to the open courtyard in the center of the Old Patent Office Building. Congress approved the change in August 2003. In March 2004, the Smithsonian announced that Foster and Partners, would design the glass canopy. In November, Robert Kogod (a real estate development executive) and his wife, Arlene (heir to Charles E. Smith Construction fortune) donated $25 million to complete the canopy. By then, costs had risen to $298 million with $60 million in private funds still to be raised.
  In early November 2004, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC; which has statutory authority to approve all buildings and renovations in the D.C. metropolitan area) approved the preliminary design for the glass canopy. The United States Commission of Fine Arts, an advisory commission on design, approved the canopy in January 2005. Delays in obtaining final NCPC approval and construction materials for the canopy led to a major delay in the roof's installation. The Smithsonian said in April 2005 that the canopy would not be ready by the time the museum reopened in July 2006, and would be installed in 2007. But opposition to the canopy was rising. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), a federal agency, opposed enclosing the courtyard; the height of the canopy above the cornice line; the bright lighting of the canopy; and the destruction of the landscaping, fountains, and trees in the courtyard. Opposition was also expressed by the United States Department of the Interior, the D.C. State Preservation Office, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Foster and Partners reduced the height of the canopy and altered the way it would be lit in response to these comp
caption: Patent Office model room in 2011, now National Portrait Gallery's Great Hall
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