House Republicans Demand Smithsonian Records Over ‘Domicide’ Installation

Two House Republicans have demanded Smithsonian curatorial-review records after challenging how Cooper Hewitt approved Patterns of Life, a former installation by Mona Chalabi and SITU Research about homes destroyed by U.S.-made weapons. The request escalates a dispute over one artwork into a test of how the Smithsonian reviews politically sensitive exhibitions.

 
 

What the October 28 Records Demand Covers

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, and Rep. Brian Jack of Georgia sent Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III a three-page letter dated October 28. They requested the material by November 11, 2026.

The numbered demands seek all Smithsonian directives, a completion timeline for planned revisions to Directive 603, communications about those revisions, and access to six groups of records at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Directive 603 is the institution-wide policy for reviewing exhibitions and programs, including content likely to attract unusual public interest.

The archives request reaches back into the history of that policy. One named group, Accession 20-019, consists of 2017 reports, policies, interviews, and research files about updating Directive 603. The archive record says it is restricted until January 1, 2033, which helps explain why the lawmakers asked Bunch to facilitate access rather than simply directing staff to download it.

The letter says its requests cover January 1, 2025, onward unless otherwise stated, while Patterns of Life opened on November 2, 2024 after development during the preceding year. As written, the list does not expressly request the 2023–24 proposal drafts or Cooper Hewitt correspondence.

Date	Established event
2023–24	The project was developed; public pages do not date its Directive 603 review.
Nov. 2, 2024	Making Home opened with Patterns of Life among 25 commissions.
Aug. 10, 2025	The triennial closed.
June 30, 2026	The Smithsonian inspector general released its content-review case study.
July 21, 2026	A House hearing questioned Smithsonian review practices.
Oct. 28, 2026	Burchett and Jack sent the records demand.
Nov. 11, 2026	The requested response is due.

Infographic by Art in Context, based on U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

 
 

The Installation Was a Visual Investigation of Three Homes

Patterns of Life was not a military-history gallery. It was one of 25 site-specific commissions in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, a design exhibition organized around physical and emotional experiences of home.

The museum’s published installation record describes three architectural models made with affected residents: the homes of Basim’s family in Mosul, Iraq; Osman and his wife in Manbij, Syria; and a mother identified as X and her son in Gaza. Cooper Hewitt said the homes were destroyed in 2015, 2016, and 2023 airstrikes involving weapons manufactured in the United States.

Cutaway facades exposed the rooms. Chalabi’s drawings of heirlooms, books, toys, and furniture were printed on translucent silk and suspended inside, while panoramic illustrations placed the models within damaged cities. Hyperallergic later reported that the team combined survivor interviews with family images, videos, and satellite imagery. Chalabi also acknowledged artistic choices within the reconstructions, making the result an artwork grounded in evidence rather than a literal forensic replica.

That distinction is central to the controversy. The installation used architectural modeling and data illustration to return domestic specificity to homes usually encountered as rubble statistics. Its evidence and its visual rhetoric were inseparable: scale, transparency, and remembered objects carried the argument.

Mona Chalabi, co-creator of Patterns of Life. Photograph by AvaWrights via Wikimedia Commons, Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International; cropped.

 
 

The House Description Is Not the Museum Label

The lawmakers wrote that organizers wanted to portray U.S. military doctrine and even the nation’s founding as intertwined with domicide, which the letter defined as massive and deliberate destruction of homes intended to cause suffering. They called the result partisan and inaccurate. Those are the lawmakers’ claims, based on the inspector general’s report and cited program material.

The text published by Cooper Hewitt is materially different. It does not mention America’s founding, does not identify the U.S. military as the operator of all three airstrikes, and does not say every home was deliberately targeted to cause civilian suffering. It connects the United States to the work through the manufacture of the weapons, the country’s role as an arms producer, and the risk that remote surveillance can mistake ordinary civilian routines for threats.

The public label therefore cannot be substituted for the congressional paraphrase. The visitors’ text and the lawmakers’ characterization are not the same document and do not make the same claims.

 

The Andrew Carnegie Mansion, home of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photograph by Ajay Suresh via Wikimedia Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic; cropped.

 
 

Domicide Is Proposed, Not a Stand-Alone Crime

Cooper Hewitt’s label says domicide is “under review” by the United Nations for possible recognition as an international crime. The institutional record is more precise. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, urged states in 2022 to consider establishing it as a distinct crime.

A February 2026 follow-up report again said the special rapporteur had called on states to consider recognition. That is an expert proposal, not the adoption of a new named offense by treaty or court. The report also explains that conduct described as domicide may already fall within war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide when the legal elements of those offenses are met.

The vocabulary differs here too. Cooper Hewitt used a broad definition that included housing destruction caused by military conflict, urban development, or social upheaval. The special rapporteur’s proposal focuses on deliberate, widespread, or systematic destruction. The House letter used the narrower intentional formulation. Treating all three definitions as interchangeable obscures the actual disagreement.

The Andrew Carnegie Mansion, home of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photograph by Epicgenius via Wikimedia Commons, Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International; cropped.

 
 

Why Directive 603 Is the Real Fight

The October demand grew from a July hearing about the National Museum of American History, not Cooper Hewitt. In the official hearing transcript, museum director Anthea Hartig described Directive 603 as a rigorous risk assessment involving peer review and a higher committee of Smithsonian undersecretaries.

Jack asked whether she would submit review processes and related content. Hartig answered that she would check with the Smithsonian’s general counsel and get back to him. The October letter says the committee received no follow-up. The exchange established only a promise to consult counsel and respond, not an unconditional commitment to deliver every record.

The letter also relays a more complicated institutional position. It says the inspector general found that Directive 603 did not adequately set out the purpose or procedures of review, while Smithsonian management said some policy changes had been made and others were underway. Management’s quoted response framed the task as maintaining accuracy and relevance without suppressing scholarly inquiry and creativity.

That balance will outlast this single installation. Bunch is due to leave at the end of 2026, and the demand now lands inside the Smithsonian’s leadership transition. The unresolved museum question is not whether sensitive art should be reviewed, but who records the review, what standards are applied, and whether political overseers can turn process rules into control over interpretation.

 
 

What the Record Now Shows

• Cooper Hewitt’s permanent exhibition record establishes that Patterns of Life used three resident-informed architectural models to address homes destroyed in airstrikes involving U.S.-made weapons.
• The final museum text did not mention America’s founding and made a narrower claim about U.S. involvement than the October 28 letter attributes to the project’s organizers.
• The 2022 and 2026 UN reports establish that recognizing domicide as a distinct international crime remains a special rapporteur’s proposal; they do not record adoption of a stand-alone offense.
• The House letter establishes a November 11 deadline but does not expressly demand the early commission drafts.
• The full timeline, underlying records, reasons for the project’s change in direction, and the Smithsonian’s response remain unpublished, although the inspector general disclosed findings about Cooper Hewitt’s Directive 603 review.