The National Gallery of Art on the National Mall has two main buildings. The West Building, designed by John Russell Pope in 1937, is Neoclassical, faced in pink Tennessee marble, with an elongated H plan around a rotunda modeled on the Pantheon. Andrew W. Mellon funded it, and it was accepted on March 17, 1941.
I. M. Pei designed the Modernist East Building, funded by Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce and opened on June 1, 1978. It divides a trapezoidal site into two triangles, and its atrium spans 16,000 square feet (1,500 m²). Pink marble panels cover the facade.
Facade problems found in 2005 led to a restoration completed in 2016. The East Building closed for three years from 2013 for a $68.4 million renovation. Both buildings are free and open daily, linked by an underground concourse.
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