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 Libraries Smithsonian Libraries Smithsonian Libraries (SIL), formerly known as Smithsonian Institution Libraries, is a library system comprising 20 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers, as well as central support services which include a Book Conservation Laboratory and an Imaging Center. The Libraries serve Smithsonian Institution staff as well as the scholarly community and general public with information and reference support. Its collections number over 1.5 million volumes including 40,000 rare books and 2,000 manuscripts. The Libraries also holds the United States' largest trade literature collection, which includes over 300,000 commercial catalogs dating from the early nineteenth