Renwick Gallery | travels with toby

Continuing in my series of our trip to Washington, D.C. last month, day two was my birthday. Here’s a link to our first day in case you missed it. I wanted to try and do a few new things this trip and found this museum all about language, Planet Word, right up my alley! I decided my birthday was the perfect day to visit.

It’s relatively new as it opened in October 2020. I knew when I read about it, I had to go and see!

Rather than paraphrase, here is the brief story of how Planet Word came to be:

Planet Word’s home is in the Franklin School in our nation’s capital. Originally opened in 1869 and completely rehabilitated between 2018 and 2020, the 50,000-square-foot, five-story historic icon is located on Franklin Square at 13th & K streets in Northwest Washington, D.C.

Renowned architect Adolf Cluss designed the Franklin School as the flagship of eight modern urban public school buildings in Washington, D.C. The building served as a model for the modern public school system and offered free education to as many as 900 White boys and girls per year (D.C. schools were segregated at this time).

The Franklin School was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996. International architectural firm Beyer Blinder Belle was hired by the museum’s founder, Ann B. Friedman, to rehabilitate and restore the building to its original “Modern Renaissance” glory.

As you arrive, you are greeted by the Speaking Willow. As you pass under it you hear people speaking in all sorts of languages. The piece is designed to activate when people pass by. This is the first of many interactive exhibits in this unique museum. Very cool!! Here’s a bit more information about the Speaking Willow:

https://planetwordmuseum.org/speakingwillow/

We had a lot of fun and learned many things about languages, like where words come from in the English language and I now know what a portmanteau is. We also learned how language is used in advertising. There were some quiz sections that I didn’t do very well with but they were fun to try nonetheless. There was a room with a display of books. When you place a book in a specific spot, a recording tells you all about that book. It was really fun to try all the interactive exhibits. Do go if you’re in the D.C. area. A bonus for us was that it was a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Here’s a link to their website in case anyone would like to visit. Following is a gallery of photos I took in the museum.

We also lunched at Immigrant Food which is located on the lower level of the museum but it also has an outside door so you could eat there without going to the museum. It had an interesting mix of food options and I thought it sounded good. And it was!

My sister and her husband happened to be in town at the same time so we arranged to spend some time together in the afternoon and then celebrate at dinner, the four of us. We met at the White House Visitor Center and then walked around the White House to the Renwick Gallery. There was a Dale Chihuly chandelier that I wanted to see and they were game for both. Both were interesting and we all enjoyed the outing. Some photos of those sites are in the next gallery.

I chose Clyde’s of Gallery Place for dinner and it was so good! I based my choice on the large and varied menu and the great reviews that I read. I was 100% satisfied and we all enjoyed our meals. The server, whose name I don’t recall but she was from Morocco, was just great!! Friendly and informative. The food was fabulous and our server came by with a piece of chocolate cake and everyone sang to me. It exceeded my expectations and if I’m in the D.C. area again I will be sure to stop by.