This is one of the newest of the Smithsonians, and it shows.
They avoid the problem of an overwhelming display case of contextless stuff by designing the artifact displays almost like a web page. The main display cases are pretty compact, with plenty of “related links” are laid out in a drawer underneath. The drawers are easy to miss though—the only reason I realized they could be opened was that some of them said “drawer locked do not open”, so I opened another one.

The “Our Lives” was a very high tech exhibit about modern native americans. It goes beyond and fleshes out the white-man-messed-this-place-up storyline (but of course there is quite a bit of white-man-messing-up) by exploring the modern life of several different tribes and their answers and responses of assimilation/separatism/etc. It’s designed as a series of half-open rooms, so each of the different tribes has a separate area, but you can hear and catch sight of the neighboring ones, which seems to me to be adapted to a very modern way of focusing attention.

Oh, and the food is great too, and the cafeteria is on the first floor. I think that’s highly appropriate, since in US urban areas, food is often the easiest way to learn about different cultures.