{"id":769,"date":"2026-07-31T20:12:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T20:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=769"},"modified":"2026-07-31T20:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T20:12:25","slug":"it-could-be-a-very-cloudy-month-in-the-hart-atrium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=769","title":{"rendered":"It could be a very cloudy month in the Hart atrium"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. Chris Murphynever thought he\u2019d see the day when Alexander Calder\u2019s \u201cMountains and Clouds\u201d sculpture in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building would be complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Trump defends \u2018weaponization\u2019 fund amid Blanche confirmation drama<\/a><\/p>\n

But when the Senate returns from August recess, he said Calder\u2019s \u201cclouds\u201d will be there to greet him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was going to retire from Congress, and this project would not be done. I\u2019ve spent 12 years working on this, so it\u2019s pretty thrilling,\u201d the Connecticut Democrat said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After being removed in 2014 for a safety study, Calder\u2019s \u201cclouds\u201d were never replaced. Come August, a set of new, structurally sound clouds will be hung up, according to Murphy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat statue is like if the \u2018Mona Lisa\u2019 was ripped in half, and you kept it up in the Louvre. That wouldn\u2019t be the \u2018Mona Lisa\u2019 anymore,\u201d said Murphy, who expects to see some kind of \u201cgrand unveiling\u201d ceremony with Calder family and donors in the fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murphy is one of several senators who have been pushing for the comeback. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the new clouds were loaded onto a truck earlier this week and are making their way to D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re headed this way, and in August they will be installed to finally complete Alexander Calder\u2019s vision,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

The Calder Foundation said in February that restoration of the clouds would be completed later this year and that private funding had been secured for the project. Reached on Friday, a spokesperson for the foundation said the restoration was on track. The Architect of the Capitol did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Calder\u2019s original design featured \u201cmountains\u201d rising 51 feet tall with \u201cclouds\u201d rotating in the air above with a motor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Senate Democrats continue staff diversity survey, despite Trump\u2019s anti-DEI trend<\/a><\/p>\n

But the artist never saw his full vision come to life \u2014 he died the day after presenting his model to the Architect of the Capitol on Nov. 10, 1976. Public funds were cut for the project in 1979, and hope started fading until a fundraising campaign, led by former New Jersey Sen. Nicholas F. Brady, allowed the full-size sculpture to be assembled in the mid-1980s. According to the AOC, it cost $650,000 and is an outlier for Calder because the artist didn\u2019t oversee its final stages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really had to go back to the drawing board to try to figure out what Calder designed,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of thought that Calder would not have made the clouds as heavy as they ended up being made because Calder died before it went up, so normally he would be on site supervising an installation like that, but he was not. Clearly, there were probably mistakes made.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murphy has pressed the issue for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there any chance that before I leave the Senate, or at least before I die, we can get the clouds back up there?\u201d he asked then-acting Architect of the Capitol Joseph DiPietro in 2024 at a Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations hearing.<\/p>\n

The restoration will bring hanging scaffolding to the atrium in August as workers assemble pieces of the mobile and work on the ceiling.<\/p>\n

The Hart building is also set for broader renovations this year to harden security, which had drawn pushback from senators worried they\u2019d be displaced from their offices for long periods of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of it\u2019s already started, but it\u2019s going to be in phases, and those phases are designed to be less disruptive,\u201d Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations ranking member Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said last month in response to concerns about the larger renovation.<\/p>\n

The Hart clouds stopped turning in the 1990s, according to The Washington Post, and Murphy said he is unsure if the new clouds will be spinning by September. Nonetheless, he said he\u2019s excited for it to be a \u201ctrue Calder\u201d again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Cornyn won\u2019t \u2018cave\u2019 on Blanche, he says<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Mountains and Clouds\u2019 is not a Calder sculpture without the clouds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Chris Murphy never thought he\u2019d see the day when Alexander Calder\u2019s \u201cMountains and Clouds\u201d sculpture in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building would be complete.  But when the Senate returns from August recess, he said Calder\u2019s \u201cclouds\u201d will be there to greet him. \u201cI felt like I was going to retire from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heard-on-the-hill"],"yoast_head":"\nIt could be a very cloudy month in the Hart atrium - American Industry Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=769\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It could be a very cloudy month in the Hart atrium - American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sen. Chris Murphy never thought he\u2019d see the day when Alexander Calder\u2019s \u201cMountains and Clouds\u201d sculpture in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building would be complete.  But when the Senate returns from August recess, he said Calder\u2019s \u201cclouds\u201d will be there to greet him. \u201cI felt like I was going to retire from […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=769\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T20:12:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f31b66192ea99275704b1c4c1195d2bd\"},\"headline\":\"It could be a very cloudy month in the Hart atrium\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T20:12:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769\"},\"wordCount\":691,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/12288438ddbf952b3cb3e2acd5e5ba09.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Heard on the Hill\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769\",\"name\":\"It could be a very cloudy month in the Hart atrium - American Industry Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/12288438ddbf952b3cb3e2acd5e5ba09.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T20:12:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f31b66192ea99275704b1c4c1195d2bd\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/?p=769#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/12288438ddbf952b3cb3e2acd5e5ba09.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanindustryreview.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/12288438ddbf952b3cb3e2acd5e5ba09.jpg\",\"width\":1538,\"height\":1080,\"caption\":\"UNITED STATES - JANUARY 6: A work crew vacuums the peak of Calder\u0092s Mountains and Clouds intsallation in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building on Monday, Jan. 6, 2020. 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