What to see near Henley Park Hotel

Just a short walk from your door, the Kogod Courtyard offers one of the most quietly extraordinary interior spaces in the city. Norman Foster's undulating glass canopy floats above the courtyard of the American Art Museum like something between a cloud and a wave, filling the space with diffused, ambient light that feels almost liquid. Stand at the center and look up. The geometry shifts depending on where you place yourself. Nearby, the National Building Museum's Great Hall rewards anyone willing to simply stop moving and look upward at columns so massive they seem to belong to a different scale of human ambition. Between these two interiors alone, you'll understand something about Washington that the monuments outside rarely tell you.