Smithsonian Institution Building

Smithsonian Institution Building

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, and licensing activities.

The Smithsonian Institution was founded for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge" from a bequest to the United States by the British scientist James Smithson (c. 1765–1829), who never visited the new nation. In Smithson's will, he stated that should his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, die without heir, the Smithson estate would go to the United States to create an "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men". After the nephew died without issue in 1835, President Andrew Jackson informed Congress of the bequest. Richard Rush was appointed as agent of the government to go to England and pursue the bequest, which was tied up in the Court of Chancery. It took some two years for Rush to obtain the estate, which amounted to 104,960 gold sovereigns, or US$500,000.[via wikipedia]

Smithsonian Institution Building by Ness Flores is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The photo was taken back in 2009 using a Canon Rebel XS and the Kit lens EF-S 18-55mm IS. Recently processed in the digital darkroom using  Topaz Adjust and Lightroom 4 to extract more detail .