Today we visit the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. We recommend you take Metro to Smithsonian Station on the Orange or Blue Line or the Archives Navy Memorial Station on the Green or Yellow Line. Judiciary Square and Union Station are the closest Red Line Stations.

Julie starts off talking about the archeology (maybe that is architecture) and the history of the Building. We visit a half dozen artworks along the north side of the building. (3:33)

We enter the building and visit Andy Goldsworthy's Roof, and then Julie talks about the building from the inside, focusing on the Calder mobile, and then about the roof and the Concrete that Pei used for the museum. The Pei discussion of the concrete is available at the East Building Architecture Tour on the Gallery's excellent web site. (15:39)

We continue around the atrium area of the ground floor, discovering the variety of art there. Julie sits on one of the pieces. (22:18)

We play the song Let Freedom Swing performed by the U.S. Air Force Band Diplomats.(24:45)

We explore the ground floor galleries, starting with American Paintings from the early 20th Century which include paintings moved from the main building for the renovation. We talk about one of these in our National Gallery of Art West Building tour. There's a small balcony looking down into the Calder Room from this exhibition. We also visit the Small French Paintings. (26:55)

We go into the basement, and we discover a lot of modern art, including Mark Rothko's Mural Projects (a favorite of Mark's) point out a few notable pieces, and find the Calder Room from the bottom floor. (30:30)

We take a gelato break and play Drive by the DC Band Rotoscope. This came to us courtesy of the The Podsafe Music Network. (37:49)

We skip the Mezzanine and the tower - the Mezzanine since it is usually temporary exhibitions, not part of the permanent collection, and the tower because it was closed when we got to it. We visit some of the modern masters - particularly noting the Picassos, and Brancusis. We take a minute to look out over the balcony. (42:02)

We leave the building, and check out the sculpture along the south end of the building to finish our tour. (46:13)

Our Theme Music is Garden Walk by Kim Evans.

Incidental music during the walk is from find me by H.

Photo Album for the National Gallery of Art East Building.