 Katherine Gustafson of <unk> thought the building " succeeds as a monumental edifice befitting its place in the urban frame of the National Mall " while Nathan Guttman of The Jewish Daily Forward described the headquarters as an " architectural gem . " Architect Roger K. Lewis , professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland , had mixed feelings about the building . He said it was " most visible and aesthetically enticing after dark " , while its " unique , idiosyncratic form appears somewhat less enticing " during the day . During the NCPC meeting in 2007 giving final approval to the building , a National Park Service representative said " This building will be a foreign object in the landscape of classical architecture of this city " , criticizing the design compared to the neoclassical and Beaux @-@ Arts buildings along Constitution Avenue . The building is highly visible to commuters on Interstate 66 as they enter the city , a fact lamented by Philip Kennicott , Pulitzer Prize @-@ winning critic for The Washington Post . In two scathing reviews of the headquarters , Kennicott said " If it were not for the roof , the building would be unexceptional , just another exercise in boxy architecture pierced by deadening rows of identical rectangular windows " and " The institute ’ s design marks yet another low point in Safdie ’ s long descent into repetitive corporate architecture . " 
