For the past 21?2 years, Jefferson Millwork & Design of Sterling, VA, has been hard at work fabricating a new part of American history - high-end architectural millwork for the National Mall's newest museum. The National Museum of the American Indian, which opened Sept. 21, 2004 is a "living memorial" dedicated to honoring 1,000 native cultures, both modern and past, of the north, south and central Americas.

Negotiations for the project took about a year after Jefferson Millwork & Design's owners Michael Corrigan and Mark Howe were asked to bid on the project. "Jefferson Millwork is known throughout the Capital for its complex millwork capabilities," Corrigan says, adding, "Our forte is designing and building radius and unusually shaped pieces. This talent was a nice fit for a building that required natural shapes in its design."

Its design inside and out emulates shapes found in nature and utilizes a natural color pallette. The $199 million, five-story museum features a curvaceous, stratified kasota limestone facade that emulates the undulating cliffs of the Southwest "that have been carved over time by wind and water," says the museum's Office of Public Affairs.

L: The museum's circular Main Theater seats 322 people. Radiused beech and maple veneer vertical wall panels encompass the area. R: This "canyon" wall on the main floor is comprised of 3,500 maple slats.>

Bringing a natural environment indoors

Some of the natural features found inside the museum's interior include gray granite flooring, bronze and copper architectural accents, shell inlays, adzed alder and cedar panels, beech veneers, and maple and beech flooring.

The essence of the Native American people's ideals can be seen in every detail. For instance, in the Main Theater, Project Engineer Clyde Kellogg produced and engineered more than 50 drawings in addition to a considerable amount of programming just for this one main feature of the museum. The engineering, fabrication and installation in this area included patterned vertical maple and beech wood slats on the encompassing radiused wall. Also in the Main Theater are radiused movable stage panels that are fabric-wrapped with applied maple and beech hardwood slats on a radius steel frame; an I-beam track and trolley system; two sloping main entrance portals, which are 5 feet 6 inches wide by 3 feet deep by 10 feet high, fabricated with adzed alder facing; and radius stage stairs with a removable stage plug.

All of the wood throughout the project had to be treated with a fire-retardant solution and then topcoated with M.L. Campbell's Krystall, a conversion varnish that is a chemical-resistant, non-yellowing coating. To retain the natural look of the wood, which was required by the architectural teams, the coating was flattened to a 10-degree sheen.

Found in the museum's ground-level foyer are "canyon" walls that frame the upper part of the corridor leading into the Mitsitam Cafe. There are 3,500 maple slats making up the walls. Inside the cafe are radiused, burnished brass serving stations, cashier stands and islands. The serving stations were fabricated by Architectural Wood of Roanoke,VA.

Jefferson fabricated and installed millwork in the museum's two retail stores, The Chesapeake Store on the ground level and The Roanoke Store on the second floor. The Chesapeake Store millwork consists mainly of beech veneer radiused back counters, segmented beech veneer jewelry counters, display benches and a wood kiosk. The tops for the back counters, kiosk and display benches are fabricated from adzed alder with alder hardwood edging and "wampum" (shell) inlay recessed in the display bench edging.

The Roanoke Store contains more of the same radiused millwork and alder material, but it also includes approximately 1,100 square feet of adzed red cedar wall panels along a 145-foot-long convex and concave wall. This wall also includes two Native American symbol hand carvings in the corners. The cedar is old growth, and the ring count indicated that these trees were more than 600 years old. Some of the store's cabinetry also is accentuated with shell inlay. "We routed out the channels for the inlay," notes Jefferson Millwork & Design's project manager, Michael Almond.

In addition, Jefferson Millwork & Design also engineered, laid out, fabricated and installed the millwork for the Lelawi Theater. Robert Burdette, project engineer, not only engineered the conical radius beech wall panel that encompasses this circular room, radius seat risers and built-in wall display cases, but also directed the coordination and layout for other subcontractors so fabrication of the millwork could begin prior to obtaining actual field dimensions or templates for this room. According to Almond, Burdette continually provided templates and layout throughout the entire project for the coordination and accuracy of all millwork installation in conjunction with the other trades.

Setting a tone for the natural look of the museum's interior, the exterior is clad in Kasota dolomitic limestone. >