Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

One morning we decided to take an early bike ride with the kids and check out the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, which opens at 7:30.  The  Hirshhorn Museum building is a sculpture itself.  It is a open cylinder elevated by four massive "legs", with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard (and looks like a large spacecraft parked on the National Mall.)  

Maliah enjoyed sitting next to the white flowers... just long enough to snap a photo. 

Then, like always, the kids gravitated to the water.  Things start off with gentle splashing, but I know where this is going!  They end up drenched but they don't care!

Catch me if you can!

The outdoor work displayed on the ground floor of the museum was titled Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads.  There are 12 bronze animal heads representing the signs of the Chinese zodiac, each of which stand approximately ten feet high, and are displayed around the perimeter of the fountain in the Museum’s central plaza. (These sculptures are re-envisioned and enlarged versions of the original eighteenth-century heads that were designed during the Qing dynasty for the fountain-clock of the Yuanming Yuan [Garden of Perfect Brightness], an imperial retreat outside Beijing, and which were pillaged in 1860 by invading Europeans.)



It looks better from this angle

The kids enjoyed finding/seeing each new animal (despite the fact they weren't so cuddling looking).  However, they were upset the center fountain pool wasn't on!









 Magnus enjoys a moment of contemplation, as he holds his brown leaf while surrounded by green foliage!