In the 18th century, the Menokin was the home of Francis Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The Georgian mansion, built for Lee and his wife in 1769, has been vacant and deteriorating since 1960, with over 80% of its original material in a state of collapse at the project’s inception. The Menokin Foundation wanted to stabilize and exhibit the remaining historic fabric while giving the public a unique understanding of the irreplaceable portions of the structure by representing them with a completely different material—glass. The Foundation selected an interdisciplinary group of professionals, led by Machado Silvetti, to address this challenge. 

Described by Wall Street Journal architectural critic Michael Lewis as “the most fiercely ambitious historic restoration project in America today,” the project concept stabilizes, preserves, and interprets the Menokin House (a National Historic Landmark) and its ancillary buildings and landscape. Its approach and use of transparency maintains the distinct characters of “old” and “new” and establishes a necessary relationship between the formal, environmental, and structural interdependence between the two.