ABSTRACT
The rise of the magnificent National Museum of the American Indian on the Washington cityscape, with curving walls resonating with Gaudi’s Barcelona, is long overdue. Its occupancy of the trapezoidal space twins it with the thrilling I. M. Pei East Building of the National Gallery of Art just across the Mall. It’s a pity that Dillon Ripley did not live long enough to cherish what is happening on the site for which he had other plans. Much influenced by French universalism, Ripley aspired to create a Museum of Man on the last empty place on the Mall. He was already feeling the demands for separate ethnic museums, and he knew, realistically, that no more space would be available with everybody wanting a piece of that finite, prime real estate. “Man” as a generic reference to all humankind was still acceptable in the 1960s and early ’70s. The taboo on politically incorrect “man” came later. The Musée de l’Homme in Paris served as an inspiring precedent; a more modest one is in London.
