Clark Celebrates Opening of the International Spy Museum

WASHINGTON - The International Spy Museum – a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to highlighting the tradecraft, history, and contemporary role of espionage – opened its doors to the public on May 12. Clark Construction led construction efforts on the 140,000-square-foot facility which replaces the International Spy Museum’s previous facility in Northwest DC.

Clark, who broke ground on the project in May 2016, retrofitted L’Enfant Plaza ­– an existing, active parking garage and retail center located in one of the busiest public transportation thoroughfares in the nation’s capital to construct this steel structure. The project doubles the museum’s footprint and reaches the city’s height limit of 130 feet from grade in just eight stories. Above the ground-level lobby are the museum’s three exhibit floors, topped by offices and event spaces, including a rooftop terrace.

Designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and Hickok Cole, the new International Spy Museum stands apart from Washington DC’s concrete landscape. One of the building’s most prominent features are the angled façades of the exhibit floors on the south and west sides of the site. A metal staircase connecting the exhibit floors is suspended along the edge of the metal-paneled west façade and enclosed in a suspended glass feature called the veil. The glass veil curtain wall is suspended in front of an enclosed exhibition space known as the “black box.” The black box is comprised of a complex system of perforated louvered metal panels which encase three sides of the building.

The International Spy Museum is the latest addition to Clark’s portfolio of museum and monument work in the United States. Since first leading excavation operations on the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art in 1916, the company has successfully delivered over 20 cultural attractions of various scope and scale across the county. Clark currently has several active monumental projects under construction, including the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial and the National Air & Space Museum Revitalization. Earlier this year, Clark delivered Pacific Visions at the Aquarium of the Pacific, National Museum of the Army, and National Law Enforcement Museum.

For more information about the International Spy Museum, visit https://www.spymuseum.org/