The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art.
The building itself is an attraction, likened by some to a large spacecraft parked on the National Mall. The building is an open cylinder elevated on four massive "legs," with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard. If it did not provide a striking contrast to everything else in the city, then it would be unfit for housing a modern art collection.
Thus, the logo and system is made to pay tribute to the Gordon Bunshaft's classical building that stressed function over fashion.
