National Building Museum

Housed in the vast red-brick former Pension Bureau Building, this museum celebrates architecture, engineering, and design. Its centerpiece is a soaring Great Hall lined with some of the tallest interior Corinthian columns in the world, while a lengthy terracotta frieze of Civil War soldiers wraps the exterior. Completed in 1887, the building has hosted many presidential inaugural balls. Exhibitions explore city planning and construction, and the atrium hosts large summer installations.