Alexandra Lange
Architecture & design critic

Portfolio | Kreeger Museum

The Kreeger Museum, located in NW Washington, DC, was designed by Philip Johnson in 1963 as a private home for art collectors David and Carmen Kreeger. After the Kreegers’ deaths, the house became a public museum, showcasing the couple’s collection of postwar art and sculpture. As a building it reads somewhere between a public and a private space. The scale is grand and many details are reminiscent of Lincoln Center, designed at the same time. The beautiful cast bronze railings in the stair hall were designed by Edward Meshekoff, similar (if not identical) to his railings at Johnson’s New York State Theater. On the other hand, the intimate, jungly courtyard and the pink-carpeted art walls recall domestic spaces Johnson designed for the Menils in Houston and he and David Whitney in New Canaan. The most surprising moments are found around the back, where the pool and patio suddenly take on the grand, ancient scale of the Fascist architecture of EUR. I visited on a weekday (when you have to make an appointment) and the experience felt — pleasantly — like snooping on the lives of rich art collectors.