National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery in Washington belongs to the Smithsonian Institution and shares the former U.S. Patent Office with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a Greek Revival building from the 1840s that was once the third-largest structure in the capital and served as a Civil War hospital. Congress chartered the gallery in 1962 and it opened in 1968 with the brief to collect portraits of people who have shaped American history and culture. Its most famous room is America's Presidents, where every president from George Washington forward is on view, including Kehinde Wiley's 2018 portrait of Barack Obama against a wall of leaves and Amy Sherald's Michelle Obama. The enclosed Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, given a wavy glass roof by Foster + Partners in 2007, has become one of the city's favourite meeting spots.