The East Building of the National Gallery of Art stands on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. I. M. Pei designed it, with funding from Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce. Built in the 1970s, it opened on June 1, 1978, opened by President Jimmy Carter. The article calls the style modernist and geometric.
The trapezoidal site is divided into two triangles. One holds public galleries and the other holds a library, offices and the study center CASVA. A high central atrium sits on the same axis as the West Building's circulation spine. Pink marble panels, 3 inches thick, clad it, and the atrium uses Tennessee marble.
It won the AIA National Honor Award in 1981. An underground walkway called the Concourse connects it to the West Building.
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