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
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House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage |
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House & Home |
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Green Schools |
Articles
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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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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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
