Federal agency approves disputed redesign of Hirshhorn Museum’s Modernist sculpture garden

But Charles A. Birnbaum, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation, a leading critic of the stacked stone walls and the proposed change to the reflecting pool, suggested that Modernist preservation concerns had been given short shrift in the approval process. “The outcome today concerning the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden redesign demonstrates that nationally significant works of landscape architecture, especially important Modernist designs in the nation’s capital, continue to be held to a different standard than building architecture by their stewards and regulatory agencies,” he said in a statement.