ART

Architect Pegged: Plans are moving forward at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution for the National Museum of the American Indian, scheduled to open in 2001 on the last available plot on the Mall. The Philadelphia architecture firm of Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham has been chosen to design the museum in association with Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal of the Blackfoot tribe and Johnpaul Jones, an Indian from Oklahoma. “The process from the very beginning has been very inclusive of Native Americans,” said museum director W. Richard West Jr. “It can’t be just a gallery for artifacts; it’s obvious that we’ll need ample performance space to show how the culture is unfolding right now.” Construction is expected to begin in 1996.