WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden reopens its revitalized 1.3-acre Sculpture Garden to the public on Saturday, 31 October 2026, after a four-year transformation, bringing nearly 60 sculptures back to the National Mall in a landscape redesigned by artist-architect Hiroshi Sugimoto. The reopening, marked by a free opening celebration from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., is the largest renovation of the Hirshhorn campus since the museum opened in 1974, according to the Smithsonian. The garden, which closed for renovation in 2023, returns with five entrances instead of two, a restored underground passageway, almost 30,000 new trees and plants, and an inaugural outdoor exhibition by Yoshitomo Nara.
Illustration: Visitors walking among large sculptures in a sunken garden on the National Mall, with stone walls and new trees around a modern museum building. AI illustration, not a real photograph.
What Happened
The Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden opens to the public on Saturday, 31 October 2026, following a four-year transformation of its 1.3-acre landscape, the Smithsonian announced on 29 October 2026. The garden's opening celebration runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is free and open to all ages, with artist pop-up talks, art-making activities and a Smithsonian Gardens activity in which visitors can make mini sculpture gardens.
The revitalized garden presents nearly 60 sculptures, up from 35 artworks previously on view across the campus, the Smithsonian said. The increase of about 50 percent, in the Hirshhorn's own description, means visitors will encounter far more of the national collection of modern and contemporary art outdoors, from historic bronze sculpture to time-based work and performance art.
Sugimoto's design restores the long-closed underground passageway that once connected the museum building to the garden, reimagining it as Passage of Reflectance (2026), a highly reflective stainless-steel sculpture that, in the Hirshhorn's words, "adds light and invites playfulness" while creating a seamless route between plaza and garden. The redesign also introduces dry-stacked stone walls, hand-cut from 950 tons of stone, to emphasize the importance of stone in the original design and in the history of sculpture itself.
Access has been widened in a deliberate way. Entrances have grown from two to five, including an expanded entrance on the National Mall side and ramps to the north and south, so that more visitors can enter directly from the Mall. The Smithsonian said the changes were designed to improve accessibility and to create new opportunities for art, performance and public programs.
Illustration: Visitors walking through a reflective stainless-steel passageway in a museum sculpture garden, with light playing across polished panels. AI illustration, not a real photograph.
Background
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opened in 1974, designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to display the gift to the nation from collector Joseph H. Hirshhorn. Its sunken sculpture garden, set into the National Mall, has long been one of Washington's most distinctive outdoor galleries: a quiet, tree-framed counterpoint to the monumental museums around it, where visitors could walk among bronzes by some of the most important sculptors of the past 150 years.
Sugimoto was first invited to reimagine the garden in 2019, according to the Smithsonian. His relationship with the museum goes back further, to a solo exhibition there in 2006 as an artist, and he had previously designed the museum's lobby. After a public consultation process, his proposal was approved in 2022 by the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, and the garden closed for renovation in 2023.
The project was therefore not a simple refurbishment. Sugimoto's plan, in the Smithsonian's account, adds his own layer to what the museum calls a palimpsest: it preserves defining elements of Bunshaft's original vision while preparing the garden to hold more artworks, more visitors and more kinds of programming for decades to come. Aaron Seeto, the Hirshhorn's acting director, said: "Hiroshi Sugimoto's thoughtful design honors our mission while creating opportunities for visitors to encounter art in new ways."
The reopening installation spans works from the 1880s to the present day. Among the historic highlights are Auguste Rodin's The Burghers of Calais and Monument to Balzac, Henri Matisse's The Backs I–IV, and sculptures by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Hans (Jean) Arp, Joan Miró, Aristide Maillol and Pablo Picasso. Contemporary works include KAWS's SHELTER and Yoko Ono's Wish Tree for Washington, D.C., in which visitors are invited to write wishes and tie them to the tree.
Two new commissions anchor the reopened garden. The first is Sugimoto's own Passage of Reflectance. The second is Eight, a towering vertical swimming-pool sculpture by the Berlin-based artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, weighing 55,000 pounds and standing 28 feet tall, which serves as a beacon welcoming visitors from the National Mall. The garden's inaugural West Lawn exhibition, Yoshitomo Nara: Sentinels of Stillness, presents three monumental white heads by the Japanese artist and runs from 31 October 2026 to 7 November 2027.
Why It Matters
The reopening matters for three reasons. First, it restores a major piece of free public culture to the National Mall. The Hirshhorn is the national museum of modern and contemporary art, and its sculpture garden is one of the few places in Washington where visitors can encounter museum-quality sculpture outdoors, without a ticket, in the middle of the city's civic landscape. Four years of closure removed that space from daily life in the capital; its return reopens it to residents, school groups and tourists alike.
Second, the redesign changes how the museum works, not just how it looks. By raising the number of artworks on view from 35 to nearly 60, adding entrances and restoring the underground passage, the garden can now function as a genuine extension of the museum rather than a separate annex. The Hirshhorn said the revitalized garden has "the flexibility to connect more artworks from the national collection," including time-based work and performance art, which the old layout could not easily accommodate.
Third, the project is a statement about how historic modernist landscapes should be treated. Rather than replacing Bunshaft's 1974 design, Sugimoto worked within it, keeping its sunken form and its relationship to the Mall while adding stone walls, planting and a reflective passage that belong unmistakably to the present. For other museums wrestling with ageing modernist buildings, the Hirshhorn offers a worked example: preservation through careful addition, not imitation or demolition.
There is also a cultural timing to the reopening. Falling on Halloween, the opening weekend invites families already out in the city to discover the garden through free talks and hands-on activities, rather than through a formal ceremony alone. The museum's opening program, with artist talks and art-making across 31 October and 1 November, is designed to make a first visit feel welcoming rather than intimidating — an important gesture for a museum of modern and contemporary art, whose work can sometimes feel remote to new audiences.
Illustration: A tall vertical swimming-pool sculpture towering over a museum plaza, with visitors looking up at the artwork beneath an autumn sky. AI illustration, not a real photograph.
What Happens Next
The opening celebration continues across the weekend of 31 October to 1 November 2026, with free public programs including pop-up talks by artists with work on view and art-making activities throughout the opening weekend. Visitors planning a trip should note the museum's regular hours: the Hirshhorn Museum is open Mondays from noon to 5:30 p.m. and Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and is closed on 25 December.
Yoshitomo Nara: Sentinels of Stillness remains on view on the West Lawn until 7 November 2027, giving the garden a long-running contemporary anchor alongside its historic bronzes. The Hirshhorn has also positioned the garden as a venue for performance and time-based work, so visitors should expect the outdoor program to evolve beyond static sculpture in the months ahead.
For Washington, the garden's return completes a long gap in the Mall's cultural offer. Whether it becomes the lively, well-used public space its designers intend will depend on how it is programmed and maintained — but on its opening day, at least, the garden is once again what it was designed to be: a place where art, landscape and the city meet in the open air.
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FAQ
When does the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden reopen?
The garden reopens to the public on Saturday, 31 October 2026, with a free opening celebration from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free programs continue across the opening weekend of 31 October to 1 November 2026.
How many artworks are on view in the reopened garden?
Nearly 60 sculptures are installed in the Sculpture Garden and on the Plaza, up from 35 artworks previously on view across the campus — an increase of about 50 percent, according to the Hirshhorn and the Smithsonian.
Who redesigned the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden?
Artist-architect Hiroshi Sugimoto, who was invited to reimagine the garden in 2019. His proposal was approved in 2022 by the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, and the garden closed for renovation in 2023.
What is Passage of Reflectance?
Passage of Reflectance (2026) is Sugimoto's highly reflective stainless-steel sculpture that restores the garden's long-closed underground passageway, reconnecting the museum building and plaza to the garden and adding light and playfulness to the route.
Is entry to the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden free?
Yes. The opening celebration is free and open to all ages, and the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is a free museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Sources
Smithsonian Institution, "Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden Reopens on the National Mall," 29 October 2026 — https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/hirshhorn-sculpture-garden-reopens-national-mall
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, "Sculpture Garden and Plaza" and "Opening Celebration: Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden," October 2026 — https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/sculpture-garden-plaza/
Smithsonian Magazine, "For Over Four Years, the Hirshhorn Worked to Revitalize Its Sculpture Garden," 30 October 2026 — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/for-over-four-years-the-hirshhorn-worked-to-revitalize-its-sculpture-garden-today-its-home-to-a-king-and-queen-a-wish-tree-and-a-55000-pound-vertical-swimming-pool-artwork-180989784/
Washingtonian, "First Look: Some of the New Work at the Revamped Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden," 30 October 2026 — https://washingtonian.com/2026/10/30/first-look-some-of-the-new-work-at-the-revamped-hirshhorn-sculpture-garden/
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