National Air and Space Museum

The National Air Museum (NAM) was created as a separate bureau of the Smithsonian Institution by an Act of Congress on 12 August 1946. Twenty years later, its name was changed to the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) as part of a congressional act authorizing a separate building to house its collections, which construction began on October 16, 1973 and opened to the public on July 1, 1976.

The National Air and Space Museum is widely considered one of Washington's most significant works of modern architecture. Because of the museum site's close proximity to the United States Capitol, the Smithsonian Institution wanted a building that would be architecturally impressive but would not stand out too boldly against the Capitol Building. St. Louis-based architect Gyo Obata of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum accepted the challenge and designed the museum as four simple travertine-encased cubes containing the smaller and more theatrical exhibits, connected by three spacious steel-and-glass atriums which house the larger exhibits such as missiles, airplanes and spacecraft. The museum, built by Gilbane Building Company, was finished in 1976. The west glass wall of the building is used for the installation of airplanes, functioning as a giant door.

HOK (formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum) is a global architecture, interiors, engineering, planning and consulting firm. HOK is the largest U.S.-based architecture-engineering firm. It also is the country's leading design firm in terms of non-U.S. fee growth. As of 2008, the firm maintains more than 2,500 professional staff across seven countries on four continents and is active in all major architectural specialties.