Bees. Spies. A morgue. National Geographic’s headquarters has a surprising history.
As National Geographic reimagines its iconic headquarters for the 21st century, here’s a look back at its history as a base for both Cold War spies and the Society’s own Explorers.
Every explorer needs a base camp, and the National Geographic Society’s headquarters have served as one for over a century. Starting in 2026, those headquarters will be home to a newly reimagined National Geographic Museum of Exploration when it opens in Washington, D.C.
Renovations are currently underway for the redesigned building to provide visitors with expanded museum space, immersive experiences, and a new education center. These changes are only the latest chapter in headquarters’ transformation over 120 years. As it expanded from a single structure to an entire campus, these buildings tell the story of both the Society and the city.
Here are five things that might surprise you about National Geographic’s historic headquarters—from a luxe fallout shelter and morgue to the colonies of bees that call it home.
1. It was designed by the world’s leading architects
The Society didn’t initially have a building of its own. Instead, members met at places like Washington, D.C.’s Cosmos Club, where the organization was founded in 1888.
The Society opened its own building in Washington in 1904. Named for the Society’s first president Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Hubbard Memorial Hall was only the first in what would become a complex in the heart of the city. The Society’s membership ballooned from 2,700 to 150,000 in just eight years, prompting them to erect a new building in 1912. More additions came in the 1960s and 1980s.
Each expansion was overseen by renowned architects, most of whom designed other landmark buildings in Washington. Hornblower & Marshall, who designed Hubbard Memorial Hall, also designed the National Museum of Natural History. The architect behind the 1912 structure—Arthur B. Heaton—built over a thousand buildings in and around the city, including the Washington National Cathedral. Finally, the Society’s 1960s expansion was designed by Edward Durrel Stone, who would go on to design the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
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Together, these architects helped define the look of Washington in the 20th century and stitched headquarters into the architectural fabric of the city.
2. The FBI used it to spy on the Soviets during the Cold War
Headquarters’ proximity to the Soviet embassy—which was just down 16th Street—made it an unlikely front line during the Cold War. From the middle of the 1960s to the early 1970s, FBI agents maintained a clandestine surveillance office inside the Society’s headquarters to spy on the nearby embassy. The FBI attempted to cover its tracks by calling its operations the “Mid-Atlantic Research Committee.”
(What was the Cold War—and are we headed to another one?)
3. The building once even had its own fallout shelter and morgue
Another relic of the Cold War was a fallout shelter with a morgue that was constructed in the 17th Street building in the 1960s. The city was littered with such shelters, so it’s likely that this one catered primarily to Society staff, according to Society senior archivist Cathy Hunter.
Unlike most of the spartan shelters in Washington at the time, the Society’s fallout shelter had relatively plush amenities, including cots, showers, medical supplies, and toothpaste. “This is a five-star fallout shelter which, compared to others, could make nuclear war about as unpleasant as a stay at the Ritz,” opined a 1982 feature in The Washington Post.
4. It’s been a literal home to Explorers
Headquarters has served as a home base for the Society’s Explorers since the earliest days of the organization, when it supported the work of adventurers such as Hiram Bingham, who explored Machu Picchu in the early 20th century. Society’s buildings have been the setting for lectures and receptions as Explorers bring back tales of their adventures.
Some Explorers have taken the concept of home base more literally. In the 2000s, conservationist J. Michael Fay sometimes slept over in a Society building while in Washington. Known for his Megatransect across the Congo Basin and his Megaflyover project to raise awareness about elephant poaching, Fay’s work aims to protect land and wildlife by highlighting the impact humans have had on the environment.
5. Headquarters is home to bees that visit the White House
One balcony on the 16th Street building has been home to bee colonies since 2011. The number of colonies varies every year, though each has around 50,000 bees.
Honeybees support biodiversity in urban spaces like Washington. They pollinate flowers and trees throughout the city, ensuring that iconic sites. One destination for them: the White House, which is less than a mile away and has 18 acres of flowering trees.
(Inside the 18th-century contest to build the White House.)
“We’re trying to make sure people recognize the importance of the world around us and how interconnected we all are,” says Susan Kolodziejczyk, the Society’s sustainability director. “Humans, animals, plants—without all those things, there’s a lot we would be missing.”
National Geographic staff photographer Mark Thiessen acts as a volunteer beekeeper. Among his duties are feeding the bees sugar water and treating them for mites.
The amount of honey that the Society can harvest changes annually. “One year, it was 540 pounds of honey,” recalls Thiessen. What happens to it? Staff volunteers bottle it, and the Society uses it as gifts, prizes, and in menus—including ice cream and cocktails—for special events.
(Move over, honeybees—America's 4,000 native bees need a day in the sun.)
Indeed, the opening of the reimagined National Geographic Museum of Exploration in 2026 promises to be one such special event, when headquarters will begin a new chapter in its remarkable history.
