Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Open to the public since 1974, this distinctive round building on the National Mall is dedicated to contemporary and modern art in the United States. From the outside, the museum appears to be a solid, windowless concrete cylinder perched on four squat blocks; the interior, though, features a hollow cylinder lined with windows which look onto a central courtyard and allow in natural light.

Designed by an art collector for an art collector, the Hirshhorn was originally conceived by architect Gordon Bunshaft to house a bequest of 6,000 artworks by financier Joseph Hirshhorn. Hirshhorn’s art collection is composed of work by the greatest living artists of his 20th century life: Picasso, Matisse, Willem de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Jackson Pollock and many more. The museum is surrounded by a four-acre, two-level sculpture garden highlighting works by Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and more recently, Jeff Koons.

The museum today features rotating exhibits by the world’s most accomplished and controversial artists, like Chinese dissident Ai Wei Wei. One of the most popular outdoor attractions here is a Wishing Tree by Yoko Ono, a live tree to which you’re invited to pin a piece of paper with your fondest wish.