National Museum of American History, District of Columbia

In 1964, the Smithsonian’s 750,000 square foot National Museum of History and Technology opened next to the Natural History Museum. This museum building is a modernist monolith that was among the last structures designed by McKim, Mead and White. It broke with the neoclassical and Victorian fashion favored by the builders of Important Buildings in Washington. Though its name has changed to the National Museum of American History, exhibits on technology dominate the basement level of the museum, covering the early railways, civil engineering, the Bomb, the SAGE system, computers, the internet, and even Fresh Kills Landfill, as interpreted by garbologist Bill Rathje, in an entertaining touchscreen display.