National Geographic Society Headquarters, District of Columbia

The National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 in the nation’s capital to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge.” Its founding president was Gardiner Green Hubbard, the president of Bell Telephone. The second president of the society was Alexander Graham Bell himself, who was married to Hubbard’s daughter. The famous and influential National Geographic Magazine was edited by Bell’s son-in-law Gilbert Grosvenor. The ground floors of the two office buildings now occupied by the Society are open to the public, and contain lecture halls, where several times a month, the Society’s roster of modern-day explorers and adventurers return from the field to present their findings and relate their experiences. There are also numerous display areas, as is befitting the "world’s largest non-profit educational organization." The Explorers Hall, the "window into the adventurous world of National Geographic," is the principal display area, and is a highly designed, immersive exhibit space, with some of the most state-of-the-art interactive museum displays to be found anywhere. The colorful, wide-angle photography that is the hallmark of the organization’s magazine, is splashed all over the place, as floor-to-ceiling wall prints, formal, framed pictures, and everything in between. Display cases show artifacts and specimens from the field, such as the backpack, shorts, and broken sandals worn by Michael Fay, on his 2,000 mile walk across Africa. Also on the ground floor of the Society is a television studio, with windows overlooking the street. It is used to record host segments, anchor commentary, and interviews for the National Geographic television channel, which broadcasts nationwide via cable, and locally by playing on plasma screens and loudspeakers facing the sidewalk.