Icebergs Exhibit Recreates an Enchanting Seascape Indoors

Not even Rose and Jack would object to the spectacle of icebergs invading the National Building Museum in Washington, DC this summer. They're not actual icebergs, of course, but artistic representations of the glacial castoffs that museum visitors can safely enjoy and explore.

The temporary exhibit is the latest in the museum's annual Summer Block Party series. Last year, the museum's "Beach" attraction featured a million plastic balls filling the floor of the atrium, an event that proved extremely popular.

The National Building Museum is an institution dedicated to the building arts, including architecture, design and engineering. Summer Block Party events tend to be unconventional affairs, however. The "Icebergs" exhibit does display spatial and geometric design aesthetics, while being playful and buzzworthy.

The show" uniquely combines modernist structures with the period interior of the 19th-century museum building, while getting people to think about environmental concerns such as climate change and melting glaciers.

"We thought it would be instructive to have an installation that spoke to issues of global warming, to ice-melt, to what icebergs actually are, and to create a narrative around that," said landscape architect James Corner in USA Today. Corner is the founder of James Corner Field Operations, the firm that developed the exhibit.

Corner called attention to sheets of sheer blue mesh that surround the iceberg exhibit. He said that this is meant to convey an otherworldly feeling to visitors experiencing the space.

The blue netting creates a representational sea that bisects some of the icebergs. People can explore the "underwater" area of the mesh and then climb upward past the "surface." They can go as high as a viewing platform positioned on the tallest of the iceberg structures, which stands 56 feet in height. The view from up there is worth the climb - and the wait, says the Washington Post.

"Icebergs" is open at the museum now through Sept. 5, 2016. For visitor information and ticket prices, check out the official site of the National Building Museum.