October 2013
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Sarah Leavitt

Curator

Phone: 202.272.2448, ext. 3455
Email: sleavitt@nbm.org

Will accept inquiries about:

Parking garages
History of housing & home life

Exhibitions




House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage
October 17, 2009 - July 11, 2010




House & Home
April 28, 2012 - May 1, 2017




Green Schools
March 3, 2013 - January 5, 2014


Articles

The National Building Museum meets the National Park Service


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Bricklayers at the Big Build

On September 21, 2013, the National Building Museum hosts its annual free festival, the Big Build: A Hands-On Family Festival of Tools, Trucks and Construction. To learn more about the building professionals who present their work at the festival, we talked to Robert Arnold from the International Masonry Institute, the team behind the festival’s extremely popular brick laying display. Bring your family to the Big Build to meet Robert and other building professionals in person.
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The Charles Goodman Project

In an effort to document the work and legacy of architect Charles M. Goodman, FAIA (1906-1992), the Washington area’s preeminent mid-century modernist, the National Building Museum conducted a series of interviews with architects and historians who either worked with him or studied his work.
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Olso Architecture Triennale - Part 5

Astrup Fearley Museum
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Harnessing Friction on the High Line

The National Building Museum awards the fifteenth Vincent Scully Prize to Friends of the High Line co-founders, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, for their work in creating one of the most successful urban revitalization projects to date.
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Los Angeles Constructs the Future

October 3, 2013

Christopher Alexander, assistant curator of architecture and design at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and co-curator of Overdrive, talked with the National Building Museum about the exhibition Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990.
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Thom Mayne: Inquiry is Everything

September 25, 2013

National Building Museum and Metropolis Magazine Contributor Andrew Caruso recently sat down with AIA Gold Medalist and "bad boy" of architecture Thom Mayne.
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Oslo Architecture Triennale - Part 4

September 24, 2013

Amazing Exhibition
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Oslo Architecture Triennale - Part 3

September 21, 2013

Overwhelming Response
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Olso Architecture Triennale - Part 2

September 20, 2013

Food and Architecture—linked in so many ways
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Oslo Architecture Triennale - Part 1

September 19, 2013

National Building Museum executive director Chase W. Rynd, Hon. ASLA, visits the Oslo Architecture Triennale.
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Rearranged, Floral Arrangements Get Repurposed

June 28, 2013

The floral arrangements at this year's Honor Award qala blossomed a second time at the USO Wounded Warrior and Family Center at Ft. Belvoir.
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More Than Just a Pretty Space

June 4, 2013

Sprout Space, designed by architecture firm Perkins+Will, is not only part of the National Building Museum's exhibition Green Schools, but also a working classroom for the Museum's school programs.
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Find Building, Get Lunch

April 17, 2013

John Ochsendorf, the MacArthur Fellow who organized our exhibition on Rafael Guastavino, is offering lunch to anyone who identifies an undocumented Gaustavino building.
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Women of Architecture: Andrea Leers, FAIA and Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA

April 1, 2013

Andrea Leers, FAIA and Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA discuss their firm Leers Weinzapfel with the National Building Museum as part of the Women of Architecture lecture series.
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What exactly does a landscape architect do?

April 1, 2013

During National Landscape Architecture Month, celebrated during the month of April, there are plenty of opportunities to learn more about the profession and what exactly landscape architects do. It goes far beyond planting trees, shrubs, and flowers.
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Cleaning Up the Cleaning Industry

March 1, 2013

Jeff Hawkins, director of custodial services for the Provo City School District in Provo, Utah, spoke with National Building Museum co-curator Sarah Leavitt about his award-winning work at Dixon Middle School for which he and his team recently received the Best Cleaning Industry Environmental Program Award.
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Cultural Driver: Mary Margaret Jones

February 5, 2013

The National Building Museum interviews Mary Margaret Jones, FASLA, FAAR, president and senior principal of Hargreaves Associates, about the role of landscape architects and planners in cultural infrastructure.
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Adopt a School

February 5, 2013

The National Building Museum's national curricula coordinator discusses the Museum's "Adopt a School" education programming.
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Yang Yongliang: Piecing Together the City

January 14, 2013

National Building Museum Online contributor Andrew Caruso speaks with Chinese born graphic designer-turned digital artist Yang Yongliang.
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Education

Brown University, MA, Museum Studies, 1994; PhD, American Civilization, 1999
Wesleyan University, BA, American Studies, 1992

Research Interests

Parking garages
History of housing and home decoration in 19th & 20th century America
Online communities

Selected Publications

"Who's Your Daddy: Fatherhood on Veronica Mars," (with Lewis A. Leavitt) in Veronica Mars Collection, Rhonda V. Wilcox and Sue Turnbull, eds., (Forthcoming 2010 from McFarland & Company, Inc.).
"A Private Little Revolution: The Home Pregnancy Test Kit in American Culture," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80:2 (Summer 2006): 317-345.
From Catharine Beecher to Martha Stewart: A Cultural History of Domestic Advice.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
"It Was Always a Good Thing: Historical Precedents for Martha Stewart," American Studies 42:2 (Summer 2001): 125-131.

Professional Background

Adjunct Assistant Professor (2007), American University, Washington, DC
Associate Historian (2002-2006), Office of NIH History & Stetten Museum, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Historian II (2000-2002), History Associates Incorporated, Rockville, Maryland
Manager of Historical Resources (1998-1999), Women of the West Museum, Boulder, Colorado