The new building is an asymmetrical composition of rectangular glass blocks that immediately attracts attention in the city center, built up, along with historical buildings, almost exclusively "traditional" architecture. The museum is located on one of the main streets of the US capital, Pennsylvania Avenue, between the Capitol and the White House. In the center of its main facade there is a huge niche that allows you to look inside the structure, into its huge atrium. This rather straightforward metaphor for media transparency is complemented by an even more unambiguous gesture: next to this niche, which makes the building look like a TV or a compact camera, is a 20-meter marble panel with the words of the First Amendment to the US Constitution carved into it, which guarantees citizens freedom of conscience. words, press and gatherings.
Such a postmodern component does not seem to be a very successful addition to the image of the building, turning it from a self-sufficient building into nothing more than a conductor of ideas - in this case, the international foundation Freedom Forum, which defends freedom of the press.
A similar situation can be seen in the interior, but there it is explained by technical requirements. The central place in the interior space of the museum is occupied by a glazed atrium that unites all six tiers of exhibition halls. But since most of the exhibits are digital projections, old newspapers that are sensitive to light, etc., they could not be displayed in the brightly lit atrium. Therefore, this hall plays the role of a kind of abstract public space, animated by a large screen and a real helicopter for the television crew. From it, huge elevators, bridges and ramps lead to the museum's small darkened galleries, fifteen different sized cinemas, two television studios, and other spaces, including the must-have café and gift shop.
In general, the clearly expressed task of the new museum is to advertise the American media, the most influential of which sponsored its construction. Most likely, this was the reason for the "secondary" architectural design of the building in comparison with its functional, utilitarian side. On the other hand, this situation is not always so unfortunate for an architect: an example of a much more successful outcome is another Polish building, the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock in Arkansas. It remains to be assumed that the project was influenced by its "opportunistic" location in the center of Washington, DC.
