National Museum of the American Indian: Where Culture, History, and Issues Come Alive

The first new museum on the National Mall in seventeen years opened its doors in September 2004 with rather unusual fanfare involving some five thousand members of the various folk the museum is honoring. Arriving from all over the Western Hemisphere, these people took part in multiple activities--dances, storytelling, musical performances--at the First American Festival held in conjunction with the inauguration of the National Museum of the American Indian. The last of the sixteen building sites on the Mall, it is a striking if somewhat curious piece of architecture in the otherwise harmonious, architecturally conservative setting of the nation's capital.