Fifteen years in the making, the American Indian Museum on the National Mall opened in September 2004. It is the first national museum in the country dedicated exclusively to Native Americans. The gorgeous five-story building is clad in a golden-colored Kasota limestone designed to evoke natural rock formations shaped by wind and water over thousands of years. The museums over 4 acres site is surrounded by simulated wetlands. A range of exhibitions, film and video screenings, school group programs, public programs and living culture presentations are available throughout the year and is similar to the Heye Center in Lower Manhattan.
The National Museum of the American Indian, commonly called the American Indian Museum, is home to the collection of the former Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. The collection includes more than 800,000 peices, as well as a archive of 125,000 images. Beginning in 1903 and assembled by George Gustav Heye during a 54-year period, the collection became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990. He traveled throughout North and South America collecting Native objects. Heye used his collection to found New York’s Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation and directed it until his death in 1957. The Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian opened to the public in New York City in 1922.
American Indians have filled the leadership roles in the operation and design of the museum. They have aimed at creating a different atmosphere and experience from museums of European and Euro-American culture. Donna E. House, the Navajo and Oneida botanist who supervised the landscaping, has said, “The landscape flows into the building, and the environment is who we are. We are the trees, we are the rocks, we are the water. And that had to be part of the museum.”
Hours of Operations: 10 AM–5:30 PM daily; closed December 25. Admission is free.
