Smithsonian American Art Museum Landmark located in Washington, D.C.'s downtown cultural district. It is considered an example of Greek Revival architecture in the United States. It was designed by architects Robert Mills, and Thomas U. Walter. During the 1990s, the Smithsonian Institution worked on restoring the building. The Smithsonian completed another renovation of the building in July 1, 2006. The 2000-2006 renovation restored many of the building’s exceptional architectural features: restoring the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, colonnades, vaulted galleries, large windows, and skylights as long as a city block. During the renovation, the Lunder Conservation Center, the
Smithsonian American Art Museum Avenue across the street from the White House. The building originally housed the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In addition to displaying a large collection of American contemporary craft, several hundred paintings from the museum’s permanent collection — hung salon style: one-atop-another and side-by-side — are featured in special installations in the Grand Salon. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art, with more than 7,000 artists represented, that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States. SAAM contains the world's largest collection of New Deal art; a collection