National Building Museum

Adopt an Artifact: West Rose Window Watercolor from Washington National Cathedral

The National Building Museum is home to the nation’s foremost archive of American architectural and design heritage. The Adopt an Artifact program allows you to directly support the proper care and preservation of objects with critical conservation needs, helping the Museum continue its mission to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build. To support this initiative, click here.

Please choose your donation amount below.

Donation Selection

$25.00

$50.00

$100.00

$250.00

$500.00

$1,000.00

$2,500.00

Program Details

In 2025, the Museum acquired beautiful, full-size drawings of stained-glass windows designed by Rowan LeCompte for the Washington National Cathedral. LeCompte, who designed stained glass panels as a child and received his first church commission by age sixteen, was appointed to design the West Rose Window in 1973. A meditation on the theme of Creation, the window contains no human figures; rather, it is an abstraction unfolding from its center, where sparks gleam amid darkness to symbolize the lines of St. John’s Gospel. 