Susan Piedmont-Palladino
Curator
Phone: 202.272.2448, ext. 3412
Email: SPiedmont-palladino@nbm.org
Will accept inquiries about:
Sustainability and the built environment, including materials, practices, and examples
Exhibitions

U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 Finalists: A Special Presentation
May 1, 2010 - July 25, 2010

Green Community
October 23, 2008 - November 29, 2009

Tools of the Imagination
March 5, 2005 - October 10, 2005

Masonry Variations
October 18, 2003 - April 4, 2004

Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century
January 17, 2003 - June 22, 2003
Exhibitions
|
U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 Finalists: A Special Presentation | |
|
Green Community | |
|
Tools of the Imagination | |
|
Masonry Variations | |
|
Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century |
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
Olso Architecture Triennale - Part 2
September 20, 2013
Food and Architecture—linked in so many ways
Read Article
Oslo Architecture Triennale - Part 1
September 19, 2013
National Building Museum executive director Chase W. Rynd, Hon. ASLA, visits the Oslo Architecture Triennale.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
Adopt a School
February 5, 2013
The National Building Museum's national curricula coordinator discusses the Museum's "Adopt a School" education programming.
Read Article
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.
Read Article
Education
Master of Architecture, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
B.A. Fine Arts, College of William and Mary
Research Interests
American urbanism, sustainable design, political space
Fostering a public discourse about the value of the built environment
Selected Publications
Green Community, American Planning Association, 2009
Tools of the Imagination, Princeton Architectural Press, 2006
Contributor, Design Professions and the Built Environment, John Wiley and Sons, 2000, ed. Peter Ozolins and Paul Knox
Devil's Workshop: 25 Years of Jersey Devil Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, 1997
Overview
Susan Piedmont-Palladino is an architect, a professor of architecture at Virginia Tech’s Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, and a curator at the National Building Museum. Exhibitions she has curated include Tools of the Imagination: Drawing tools and Technologies from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Additionally she was a consulting curator and writer for Big and Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century and Masonry Variations. She is the author of several books including the exhibition companion books Green Community, with Tim Mennell, and Tools of the Imagination: Drawing tools and Technologies from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. She also wrote Devil’s Workshop: 25 Years of Jersey Devil Architecture, with Mark Alden Branch and was a contributor to Design Professions and the Built Environment.
A graduate of Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies and the College of William and Mary, Ms. Piedmont-Palladino writes and lectures regularly on sustainability, design education, and urbanism. A former president of Architect/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, she currently serves on advisory boards for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the Green Hive Foundation, and the National Academy of Environmental Design. She was a consultant on the rules and regulations for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. Her current project with the National Building Museum is the Intelligent Cities initiative, a multi-phase exploration of the intersection of information and communication technologies on the feel, form, and function of cities. Her most recent book, Intelligent Cities, was published in December 2011.

