Washington Post

The Smithsonian Institution is "forever indebted to Douglas Cardinal for his work of genius." So said National Museum of the American Indian Director W. Richard "Rick" West in response to a question at a news conference last summer. That single sentence ought to become the definitive, closing statement in the unhappy, convoluted tale of Cardinal, the Smithsonian and the design of the striking new museum on the Mall. Selected as the lead design architect in 1993, the prestigious Canadian architect was fired in 1998 along with GBQC, the Philadelphia firm he was working with. Another team of architects, including several of the Native American participants in the Cardinal group, took over. It was an extraordinary turn of events. Cardinal is an architect of extraordinary originality, perhaps the best-known Native American architect in North America. In the early 1990s his design for the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, just across the river from Canada's Parliament Hill, opened to acclaim.