It's cold outside

Central dome of the old main conservatory in the late 19th or early 20th century

As Washington sets into it's annual deep freeze, it seems like as good a time as any to start highlighting some beautiful building interiors. If you are looking for a place to visit in the cold, the United States Botanic Garden has the added benefit of high tech temperature controls to make every visit a trip to the equator. The building itself, located at the east end of the National Mall near the Capitol Building, was built in 1933 with a nod to the palm house conservatory architecture made famous in Victorian England. The soaring glass structure of the palm house - now referred to as the Jungle - was one of the first large buildings in the country to use aluminum for its structural supports.

The garden's collections date back as far as 1816, when the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences in Washington DC proposed the creation of a botanic garden, "to collect, grow, and distribute plants of this and other countries that might contribute to the welfare of the American people." In 1820 Congress passed legislation allowing for the Institute's garden to be planted to the west of the Capitol Grounds, approximately where the Capitol reflecting pool is located today. This garden existed until 1837 when the Columbian Institute disbanded. In 1838, American naval officer and explorer Charles Wilkes was commissioned by Congress to circumnavigate the globe and explore the Pacific as part of the United States Exploring Expedition. While abroad Wilkes carefully amassed live and dried plant specimens, returning in 1842 with an impressive collection of plants previously unknown in the US. News of his findings reestablished interest in a national botanic garden, and his collections were displayed in a specially constructed greenhouse behind the Old Patent Office Building. A new structure was built in place of the Columbian Institute's garden in front of the Capitol in 1850, and the collections were developed and maintained there until moving to their present location in 1933.

The 1933 building was designed by Architect of the Capitol David Lynn. The 56,000 ft conservatory was originally conceived of as as a complex of glass greenhouses connected by brick galleries. The austere limestone facade was typical of government building during the New Deal, but the airy glass greenhouses were a novelty and a delight. By 1997 the collections had outgrown the aging structure, and the building underwent a four year multi-million dollar restoration. While the glass greenhouses were modernized to accept state of the art climate control systems, many of the building's details (including the exterior limestone, fountains, and exterior windows and doors) were restored or recreated to match the original designs.

Sources:
http://www.usbg.gov/
http://www.hort.wisc.edu/mastergardener/Features/botgardens/USBG/USBG.htm

Photo source:
http://www.usbg.gov/

Teens Crash White House Dinner

The gossip blogs are afire this week with posts about the White House Crashers. More relevant to TMS rather than TMZ, Henry Morgenthau III (son of FDR's Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau) contributed an Op-Ed to today's International Herald Tribune found here. In it he recalls a time in 1938 when two teens crashed a White House party on a dare to get President Roosevelt's autograph.

Morgenthau concludes with the point, "In this time for change, some things have not changed very much." The Op-Ed has a nice link to an online collection of Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day column, which is hosted by George Washington University--some good reading to do in your free time.

Better Homes and Gardens

She may not be the first of the First Ladies to start a garden or open the White House up to the public, but I have learned that I owe gratitude to Pat Nixon. It was she who first opened the White House to the public twice a year for the Spring and Fall Garden Tours; it is because of her (and a friend who had tickets) that the Secret Service opened their wrought iron gates and let me in to see the garden a few weekends ago.

As Richard Nixon noted in his memoirs when Pat Nixon entered the White House she did so without “breaking stride.” Mrs. Nixon committed herself immediately to the building and its grounds, adding more antique American furnishings than any other First Lady—it was she who had the Gilbert Stuart copy of John Quincy Adams replaced by the real McCoy.

Mrs. Nixon first opened the White House up for the garden tours in 1972. Over 10,000 people attended, the event was a success. Despite the initial confusion over why there was a Rose Garden that in fact had no roses, over the years the popularity of the garden tour expanded. This autumn, attendance peaked at 25,000. However, attendance was particularly high this year due to Michelle Obama’s “Victory Garden” aka the White House Kitchen Garden. Though she never had the appeal of a Kennedy (Jacqueline Kennedy garden above left), Mrs. Nixon preferred to work quietly behind the scenes. She added the exterior lights to the White House, so it could be seen glowing at night on Pennsylvania Avenue. She changed the White House Tours, adding speakers while people stood in line so that visitors might learn the history of the house while waiting.

Having never attended a tour of the White House, this is the closest I’ve been to the Oval Office. I was surprised to see how high the land sits. From the backyard you can see the Jefferson Monument clearly, something you can’t do from Constitution Avenue, which sits below the South lawn and the Ellipse (see below center). Also, the Andrew Jackson Magnolia!!!!! Planted in 1830 and dedicated to his deceased wife Rachel!!!! It’s still there (see above right to the left of the portico)! Amazing! Yes, I did have thoughts of taking a leaf from it. No, I did not take a leaf because I feared crossing the Secret Service and National Park Service. I made the right choice.

Sources: Bonnie Angelo, Time Magazine, “Pat Nixon: The Woman in the Cloth Coat,” July 5 , 1993.

Jonathan Movroydis, Pat Nixon and America’s White House, 2009.

White House Historical Association. “The White House Gardens and Grounds” (Fall 2009).

Under the city

Talk about creepy. Just in time for Halloween, the Washington Post Answer Man reported recently on rumors of buildings in DC that had underground doors leading into the dark and swirling remains of Washington's old Tiber Creek. Naturally, many of these are unfounded claims, but it prompted me to do a little investigating of my own.

The creek was originally known as Goose Creek before it became part of the territory of Washington DC and was renamed in honor of Rome's Tiber River. Early maps show that its course ran south from around the intersection of today's 1st St NE and North Capitol Street down towards the Capitol building before turning west and following today's Constitution Avenue and meeting the Potomac near the Washington Monument.

Historic image of the city showing Tiber Creek, and present day Washington

In his master plan for the city L'Enfant actually proposed using the Tiber as a canal to the Potomac, and in 1815 the part of the creek that ran along Constitution Avenue was added to the Washington City Canal system. Unfortunately, without sufficient infrastructure, by the 1870s the Washington Canal had become little other than a giant sewer and was eventually paved over as part of a city improvement project. Board of Public Works lead architect Adolf Cluss was responsible for the construction of the giant brick tunnel which housed the river and allowed for the construction of the roadway above it. Parts of the tunnel still exist in deteriorated form today, and the Old Post Offce building does indeed have a manhole cover in the basement which reveals the much diminished creek trickling by when opened. There are also the remains of an historic C&O canal lock keeper's house at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 17th Street, which is where the mouth of the Tiber Creek once opened into the Tidal Basin.

Because of the instability of the old creek bed, many of the buildings on or near Constitution avenue, including the IRS building, The National Archives, and the Warner Theater had to be built with deep pier like foundations. The Warner Theater was actually supposed to be named the "Cosmopolitan Theater", but after its owners spent so much money on the construction of the foundation, they ended up having to seek investors and named it the Earle Theater after one of their investors instead. It was later renamed the Warner after being bought by Harry Warner. Engineers working on the construction of the massive Ronald Reagan Building in the 1990s appeared to have finally found a way to successfully divert the water, but their methods actually reduced the water level so significantly that the IRS building's foundation lost stability and began to sink.

Today the creek is mostly a silent, hidden piece of Washington's past, but every now and again it rears its head. Before being diverted underground, in 1804 the creek caused one of the most significant floods in Washington's history, sending sewage, livestock, and people racing down Pennsylvania Avenue. More recently, the remains of the riverbed became saturated during heavy rains in June of 2006, and caused terrible flooding in the downtown area, threatening among other things, the copy of the Constitution kept at the National Archives. Thankfully, nothing major was lost.

Sources:
Kelly, John. Answer Man, Washington Post.Sunday, November 1, 2009. http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2009/ 10/31/AR20091031 01607_2.html
Tiber Creek, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiber_Creek

Image Source: Tiber Creek, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiber_Creek

Evidence of the Capital's Pernicious Past

It’s often difficult to find evidence of slavery in a modern urban landscape. After the 14th Amendment which abolished slavery, the need for slave quarters and shanties in the back allies of streets disappeared. Often lacking architectural flourish, slave quarters were the first buildings torn down to make way for the new architecture. As Washington shifted from a rural town to a bustling metropolis, evidence of slavery within the District all but disappeared. Yet, in 1860 there were 3,185 slaves (4.2% of the total population of the city) living in the Capital. You could be walking by an old slave quarters on your way to work every day and not even recognize it. Fortunately, there are some telltale signs in recognizing an old slave quarter --and what follows is a guide to help you.

Location relative to the master’s house: Unlike plantations, where slave quarters were set apart from the Big House, lack of space in urban areas meant that slaves were located closer to their masters. A typical urban slave quarter could often be found in back of the master’s house or at a right angle to the house. For quarters that were perpendicular and attached to the main house, the idea was to create a confining space for slaves, essentially keeping their view of the outside world limited.

Construction: Architectural design and layout was more crucial in urban areas than on the plantations—a slave quarter could not be an eyesore that could be hid from the Big House as on plantations. In the city the quarters would be seen, and were therefore constructed out of brick and stucco rather than the mud and logs found in the Deep South. Quarters in the City came with glass windows and shutters.

Size: The quarters typically housed no more than 15 slaves at a time. The structures were usually one to two stories and often long and narrow. On a two-story structure the idea was to create a sense of a compound around the slaves who worked in the backyard. The height of the quarters made it difficult for slaves to see the outside world, a further means of control for the slave owner.

Doors: In order to keep slaves confined there were no doors leading to the street. If the quarters were attached to the master’s house, a slave would have to walk through the Master’s house before leaving for the market or entering the outside world. This was done to give slaves the feeling that their actions were constantly under the surveillance of their masters and mistresses.

Interior: In a two story building, the ground floor held the kitchen and household laundry. The top floor contained the living space which could be one large open room, or small bedrooms meant to provide family space.

The overall theme to take away from the design of an urban slave quarter is that of control. The quarters were meant to be confining, meant to limit contact with others outside of the master’s household, and intended to emphasize the degree to which a master was in control of his slave. The urban slave quarter to some extent reveals the fear felt by a white slave-holding society as well. The masters' need for control came from an ever-increasing sense of fear that their slaves would seak freedom, or worse, revolt. Unlike on an isolated plantation, the city provided a chance for free and enslaved blacks to mix and mingle at markets and at church; white owners did not want their slaves to take to the notion that freedom was possible.

Before you go looking around DC for these slave quarters, I’ll point out that there is only one remaining in the District. It’s located at 1610 H Street, NW and is a part of the Decatur House Museum (seen at left now standing admidst cars rathers than carriages). As far as slave quarters go it is a perfect example of what I have just described—right angle from the main house, two stories, stucco, no door to the street (one has been added in modern times due to fire codes), long and narrow.

The slave quarter at the Decatur House is believed to date back to the 1820s, where it started as a single story structure. The second story was added in the 1830s by house owner John Gadsby. The kitchen was located on the first floor, with slave families living above it. In 1844, there were 17 people living on the top floor, which is about 900 square feet, about the size of a single apartment. The preservation of this structure-- one of only a scant handful left in American cities-- serves as a reminder that slavery did exist in Washington and it existed within sight of one of our greatest symbols of democracy, the White House.

Sources: The Decatur House Museum.
Peter Kolchin, American Slavery.
Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities.

Going Green!

Last week the Annual Solar Decathlon on the National Mall came to a close, with the innovative entry from Team Germany taking the top prize. I had a chance to pass through the competition and was very impressed with the line up of well designed "green homes." It also got me thinking about one of Washington's first "green" buildings (and my favorite place in the city, hands down) the Old US Pension Building, better known today as the National Building Museum.

Built between 1882 and 1887, the structure was designed by US Army Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, who was commissioned by the government to create a fireproof structure to hold the US Pension Bureau's offices and important records. Following several major city fires (The 1871 Great Chicago Fire being perhaps the most memorable), fireproofing was of utmost concern to architects and engineers in the 1880s. The use of terracotta, brick, and steel rather than wood became prevalent during the time period. At the same time, following the Industrial Revolution, many citizens and politicians became concerned about the quality of health and living in cities, and the first US "green" movement was started.

Despite it's relatively small budget, the Pension Bureau was also designed to serve as a grand space for Washington's social and political events. To achieve this Meigs modeled his building after two Roman palaces, Michaelangelo's Palazzo Farnese and Palazzo della Cancelleria, but used brick as his primary building material. To keep up the building's status Meigs used only expert brick layers and a high quality pressed red brick. The exterior frieze, which depicts Civil war soldiers, is made of inexpensive terra cotta, and other decorative elements use painted plaster on brick surfaces rather than stone or marble.

The impressive Great Hall, which has seen many a Presidential inauguration gala, mimics the courtyard of Palazzo della Cancelleria. The enormous interior space is 316 feet by 116 feet, and is 159 feet at the peak of the roof. Four colossal Corinthian columns divide the space, and are modeled after columns in Michelangelo's church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The central fountain is 28 feet across and still has its original terracotta trim.

The Great Hall served it's purpose well as a grand entertainment venue, but many of it's decorative elements also served to provide the large space with natural light and air. After connections were established between disease rates and the crowded and squalid living conditions that industry and immigration the had brought to US cities, new efforts were made to make buildings more open. The roof's system of windows, vents and open archways allowed for natural ventilation through the space and the water in the fountain kept cool air on the lower levels. Since the Great Hall is open from floor to ceiling, all offices were pushed to the perimeter and therefore had air flow from both the Hall and the exterior. The building was a model of clean, natural, healthy engineering - very "green" for it's day!

The Pension Building was used as office space by various government offices until the 1960s when it became apparent that the building was badly in need of repairs. The space was not ideal for government offices, the Great Hall was no longer needed as a natural ventilating system with the advent of central air, and this "wasted space" was filled in with drop ceilings and standard office cubicles. (The horror!) In 1969, the Pension Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and under pressure from the preservation community who saw the beauty and ingenuity of the aging structure, the government commissioned architect Chloethiel Woodard Smith to rethink it's use. It was under her suggestion that the structure was converted into a museum for the building arts, and a 1980 Act of Congress mandated the creation of the National Building Museum as a private, non profit educational institution. The building was officially renamed in 1997, and is today a fantastic addition to the DC cultural landscape.

Source: National Building Museum Web site: http://www.nbm.org/about-us/historic-building/

Photos taken by the author

Jury Duty Week

United States Tax Court

So I've been stuck in Jury Duty all week in the oh so typical DC Superior Courthouse. I've decided there are only two good things about Jury Duty - being close enough to the National Mall to eat lunch there and having random spots of down time to write blog entries. Perhaps it’s just the boredom, but we’re going to shake things up here by going modern - mid century modern! A neighboring building to the DC Courthouse, the U.S. Tax Court Building was built by architect Victor Lundy in 1965 (dead smack Mad Men era). Government construction in the 1960s was heavily influenced by the 1962 "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture"; created for President Kennedy by the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space in an attempt to improve the quality of federal buildings. This was a significant step for the government to take as the committee correctly assessed that citizens would take more pride in their government and employees would take more pride in their jobs if their buildings were attractive.

The original Tax Court was located in the Internal Revenue Service Building that was built in the 1930s. By 1962 the need for the Court to have it’s own space was great, and the U.S. General Services Administration allocated $450,000 for the design of a new building. Architect Victor Lundy was so well respected in the field for his modernist sensibilities and inventive engineering that he was awarded the contract without competition. Lundy’s Modern design is best expressed in the striking cantilevered courtroom, which made use of technological advances in construction to achieve its dramatic appearance. The 4,000-ton courtroom block, which projects over the entrance, is supported by compression and post-tensioned bridges and steel cables located within the building’s walls. This innovative engineering is conveyed on the building’s interior as the compression and tension bridges are also used as interior circulation bridges.

In 1967, New York Times architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable described the plans for the U.S. Tax Court Building as "a progressive, sensitive, contemporary solution fully responsive to Washington's classical tradition and yet fully part of the mid-20th century--a period of exceptional vigor and beauty in the history of structure and design." Today the Tax Court is still regarded as one of the most sophisticated examples of Modernism in Washington.

Photo by Carol Highsmith for GSA

Sources:

GSA Building Overview, U.S. Tax Court http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/buildingView.do?pageTypeId=17109&bid=1264&channelPage=%2Fep%2Fchannel%2FgsaOverview.jsp&channelId=-25241&reason=bldgNameNos