The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden occupies 6.1 acres between the West Building and the Mall, opened in 1999. The garden holds 17 large-scale sculptures by 20th-century artists — Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Typewriter Eraser, Louise Bourgeois's Spider, Roy Lichtenstein's House I — arranged around a central fountain that becomes an ice-skating rink in winter.
The setting is informal and genuinely pleasant: lawns, specimen trees, and benches where people eat lunch and sit in the sun. The Pavilion Café in the centre serves sandwiches, coffee, and drinks. In summer, a free jazz concert series on Friday evenings draws neighbourhood residents and tourists together in a way that most of the Mall's more formal spaces don't achieve. Free admission.