National Building Museum

The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., is the national architecture museum of the United States and occupies the former Pension Building, erected in 1887 by Montgomery C. Meigs as a red brick hall modelled on an Italian palazzo. Meigs designed the building to disburse Civil War pensions; its Great Hall, with eight Corinthian columns among the largest in the world, has hosted sixteen presidential inaugural balls. Operating as a museum since 1980, it presents permanent and rotating exhibitions on urban planning, civil engineering and housing, from American suburban history to sustainable building. Families come especially for the annual summer installation in the hall, which has been turned into a walk-in mini-golf course, a beach labyrinth and a lazy river over the years. Children under three enter free; the historic main building has a quiet cafeteria on the ground floor.