Hirshhorn Museum is under pressure to reconsider redesign of its sculpture garden

The original pool “is a powerful and unifying gesture”, sharing a minimalist vocabulary with the rest of the garden and the museum, says Charles A. Birnbaum, president, chief executive and founder of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy and education group that seeks to valourise landscape heritage. “And you don't read that in any of the variations of the [Sugimoto] schemes that we have seen over time. They all have new geometries.”