By Christina Barron
By Christina Barron
The Washington Post
Miniature golf is one of the great summertime traditions. Head to the closest regional park or perhaps a fancy themed course, bring friends and family, and play a round while enjoying the sunshine. Unless it’s 100 degrees … in the shade. That’s when you’re ready to melt by the third hole and you wonder why you didn’t choose to go swimming.
The National Building Museum has devised a cool solution. It opened an indoor mini-golf course this month that allows players to beat the heat and learn what the museum is about: building, architecture and how both relate to Washington. Twelve local companies were invited to design and build a hole for the course, and the creations are as much fun as the game.
One hole that has gotten attention for its style and playability is “Piranesi’s Half Pipe.” The putting surface of the structure is lined with what looked like an old map. Players stand at the bottom of the half-circle and try to get their ball into one of three holes. If they miss, the ball eventually rolls back to the starting point. Many kids and adults give up after several tries.
“It looked so easy at first, but I couldn’t get the ball in,” said Patrick McKain, 10, of Gainesville, Va.
Carmel Greer of District Design said her team knew the hole would be challenging.
“We thought it would be hard, but people say it’s really hard,” Greer said with a laugh. “But every course needs a really challenging hole, right?”
The old map that’s part of the design comes from an 18th-century etching of Rome, by Giambattista Piranesi, someone well-known to architects, Greer said. The idea was to expose other people to Piranesi’s work.
Another hole, “Confluence,” highlights Washington’s two rivers, the Potomac and the Anacostia, but in an unexpected way.
Designers at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill took Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for Washington and matched it with a recent satellite image of the city. They stacked small wooden blocks to show the rivers and what has been built around them. Then they lit the blocks from below to show the water’s paths.