“The Beach,” the ultra-popular ball pit that turned a D.C. museum into an attraction for kids of all ages, is coming back to the National Building Museum this summer, albeit in a smaller and slightly different fashion.
The museum's annual Summer Block Party installation, which has brought a maze, enormous icebergs and towering hive structures to the Great Hall in recent years, will be “Fun House,” an exhibition looking back at 10 years of art created by the New York-based design studio Snarkitecture.
“Fun House” features a full-sized house in the Great Hall, with rooms referencing previous Snarkitecture installations, such as the ice cavelike “Dig.” A kidney-shaped pool behind the house, filled with “hundreds of thousands of recyclable plastic balls,” evokes “The Beach.”
In the District, Snarkitecture is best known for “The Beach,” which included nearly a million plastic balls and was created for the National Building Museum in 2015. D.C. hipsters treated it like a cool, modernist Chuck E. Cheese — one that swallowed hundreds of phones, wallets and even an engagement ring.
As in previous years, the exhibit opens July 4 and includes late-night events for adults every Wednesday from July 11 through Aug. 29. It will also offer Sunday morning yoga classes in July and August. Timed tickets, which include one hour in “Fun House” and general admission to the museum, cost between $10 and $16, and go on sale June 20.
Outside of “Fun House,” the National Building Museum also announced that Hill Country Backyard Barbecue, which served barbecue, beer and margaritas on the museum's west lawn in recent years, will return on May 16. It will be open Wednesday through Sunday until mid-September.
“Fun House” at the National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW. Open daily from July 4 to Sept. 3. $10-$16.
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