A panel of 14 top architects, historians, planners and sculptors from across the nation has been chosen to meet in Washington next week to help determine the permanent design for the closed section of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

National Park Service Director Roger Kennedy said the panel will develop a list of proposals for a permanent design for the two-block area between 15th and 17th streets NW. President Clinton ordered that section closed to vehicles in May because of concerns that the White House could be vulnerable to a car bomb.

"The group will explore and develop various design ideas for Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House and the perimeter of Lafayette Park," Kennedy said in a statement.

Leading the panel is Harry G. Robinson III, an architect and senior administrator at Howard University. The other panel member from the Washington region is Daniel Bluestone, director of historic preservation at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Twelve of the 14 panelists are from the Northeast, including New York, Philadelphia and the Boston area.

The panel's recommendations will be evaluated next year as part of an environmental impact assessment. A final design is scheduled to be selected in January 1997.

Panel members are being asked to consider about 100 ideas for a street design submitted by the public this fall.

Until the permanent plan is in place, a $1 million interim plan will be in effect. That plan involves replacing sections of asphalt in front of the White House and Blair House with grass. More attractive concrete planters and guard stations will replace the crude planters and parked police cruisers now in use.