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Spies may be famously inscrutable, but the 141,000-sq.-ft D.C. museum dedicated to espionage keeps its striking architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) frame hidden in plain sight.

The building’s inverted pyramid shape is cloaked in glass, but its beautifully finished yellow monumental staircases and red sloping columns are the defining architectural elements for both museum visitors and pedestrians on the street--and they’re a creative answer to an engineering challenge.

The whole museum’s superstructure sits atop an existing, four-story, below-grade, 1960s-era concrete structure that was not designed to support the addition of a whole building. Steel’s high strength-to-weight ratio provided a perfect solution as well as the long, open spaces that the museum wanted for exhibits--no secret decoder ring necessary!