Award of Merit Cultural/Worship: The George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum
The four-story, 46,000-sq-ft limestone- and curtain-wall-clad Textile Museum triples gallery space for the 19,000-piece collection. The museum is located between historic Corcoran Hall and Woodhull House—an 18th-century townhouse once occupied by William Seward, secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. It features a monumental staircase, learning center, program room, the Arthur D. Jenkins Library for Textile Arts, staff offices and exhibit preparation areas.
Before construction could begin, Corcoran Hall’s laboratories and research areas were restacked and a new cooling tower erected. The museum site’s limited 14,000-sq-ft floor plate required multiple excavation techniques for the foundation and two-level, cast-in-place basement, including soldier piles, lagging and tie-backs, 25-ft-deep hand-dug underpinning pits and a secant wall along the adjacent shallow foundations.