Hiroshi Sugimoto’s redesign of the Hirshhorn Museum’s sculpture garden was a heavy lift that will finally see the light.
For over three years, the garden at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has been closed for renovation. The redesigned garden, set to open on Oct. 31, is not a preservation project. But it is not a demolition either.
It is instead a delicate endeavor by the Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto to weave together the 1974 concrete vision of the Hirshhorn’s original architect, Gordon Bunshaft, and the softer 1981 intervention of the landscape architect Lester Collins, into a clearer, contemporary whole.
Sugimoto, renowned for his powerful photography — from abstract seascapes and Modernist architecture to playful portraits — moved later in his career into architectural spaces and landscapes, partnering with the architect Sakakida Tomoyuki to found the design firm New Material Research Laboratory in 2008.
Sugimoto’s broad perspective offered a unique opportunity for the museum, noted the Hirshhorn’s former director Melissa Chiu, who left the institution on Aug. 31 to become director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. (The Hirshhorn had hosted Sugimoto’s first career survey in 2006, so there was already a connection.)
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