Hiroshi Sugimoto redesigns the Hirshhorn Museum's sculpture garden in Washington, D.C

Eight years after reworking the lobby of Gordon Bunshaft's circular Brutalist museum on the National Mall, Japanese artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto has returned to the Hirshhorn for something bolder. Working through his office, New Material Research Laboratory, with New York's YUN Architecture, he has remade the sunken 1.3-acre sculpture garden. Acting director Aaron Seeto calls it 'a complete rethink', not a renovation.

The garden sits up to 14 feet below the Mall and had long felt hidden. Sugimoto reopened a passage under Jefferson Drive, shut since 1981, and widened the northern entrance. Two central pools and a performance platform inspired by Noh theatre nod to Bunshaft's original ideas, framed by walls of Gloucester, Massachusetts stone hand-stacked by Japanese masons. Some 57 new trees and more than 40,000 plants add shade and greenery, though preservationists have objected to the loss of a 1981 redesign by Lester Collins.

The sculptures on show have risen from 35 to 60, including a gallery for Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, new commissions from KAWS and Izumi Kato, Sugimoto's own steel piece under the bridge, Yoko Ono's returning Wish Tree, and Elmgren and Dragset's sideways swimming pool.

Worth a slow wander on a Mall visit, with more seating and shade than before for Washington's summers.

Our summary of a story from Wallpaper*, published 2 November 2026. Read the original