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

The Other White House

I recently took a trip south of Washington to visit the other Capital with the other White House. Strange to think the Confederates chose their capital to be only 98 miles from Washington, but early in the Civil War the iron mills and factories of Richmond, Virginia were of tremendous strategic importance to the South. So it came to be that the Confederate capital was situated on a bluff overlooking the James River, and the executive mansion on 12th and Clay Streets became known as the White House of the Confederacy. Not to be picky, but the Confederate White House is actually pale grey (pictured at left as seen now and below right during the Civil War).

Originally constructed in 1818 for a prominent physician, the third story of the federal period house was added when it was purchased by the Crenshaw family in 1857. When the war commenced the Confederate government purchased the home and furnishings for $42,000, and CSA President Jefferson Davis and family moved in shortly thereafter.

Davis’s wife and first lady Varina became the official hostess of Richmond society, and the home was used for entertainment. At first the levees and balls were lavish, as the Southerners had many early victories to cheer on. Nonetheless, Varina Davis preferred to keep a “Quiet Set” and tended to keep gatherings small and intimate. She feared Richmond to be full of dreadful gossip.

As the war progressed, Richmond began to feel the strain of tough economic times. The price of a gallon of eggnog was over $100 at Christmas in 1863. “Starvation Parties” soon became the talk of the town, where the only expense was hiring the band and attendees refreshed themselves with a glass of water from the James River. Despite this privation, Mary Chesnut—the wife of General James Chesnut—noted that she attended one of Varina’s “Luncheons for Ladies Only” where they were served “gumbo, ducks and olives, lettuce salad, chocolate cream and jelly cake, claret cup, champagne, etc.” But on the whole, social gatherings at the Confederate White House became fewer and far between.

By 1864 the Confederate First Lady confessed to Mrs. Chesnut that the Davises could no longer live on the income provided by the Confederate government, and had begun selling off the horses and carriages kept in the carriage house at their White House.

Most of us know how the Civil War ended. The Union Army seized Richmond burning about 10% of it. Jeff Davis and Varina fled for their lives. The southern White House became the headquarters for the occupying army, with Lincoln personally visiting the mansion on April 4, 1865. He sat in Davis’s chair and helped himself to some of the wine left by the Rebel First Family.

It’s interesting to consider the lives of these two presidents living in their own “White Houses.” Aside from the struggles of the War, both as heads of state used their homes to entertain. Both had wives who presided over the local society and were frequently the subject of gossip. My image of Jefferson Davis has always been that of a slave holding villain. I had not considered him to be a family man, so visiting the house he briefly resided in humanized him. Like Lincoln, Davis suffered tragedy in his White House as well. In Washington, Lincoln’s son Willie died in 1862 of disease at age 12. Perhaps more horrifying was the death of five year old Joseph Davis, who fell from the East Portico of the Davis's White House.

2 Presidents. 2 First Ladies. 2 Capitals. 2 White Houses. The Confederate house is currently in the care of the Museum of the Confederacy; an interesting place where you can learn about the “Second American Revolution,” States Rights, the valor of the Confederate troops, and the vast superiority of their cavalry. I guess there are 2 ways of looking at things.

Sources: Mary Chesnut, Diary from Dixie.

Nelson Lankford, Richmond Burning.

Museum of the Confederacy.

Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate State of Richmond.

Fight for Ol' DC!

The beloved Redskins currently stand at 1-2 after a defeat to the abysmal Lions…. Oh the Humanity! How can it be that a once dominant team has fallen so far? For me there is just one team and that is the Chicago Bears because they are the greatest and T formation and 1985 and Ditka and Monsters of the Midway. I need no elaboration. With that caveat, if there is one thing a Bears fan respects it is tradition—something that struggling Skins have aplenty.



Owner George Preston Marshall moved the team to Washington in 1937 after failing to draw fans in Boston. Head coach Ray Flaherty set out for Texas to recruit a young rookie quarterback out of TCU, Sammy Baugh for $8,000. In a time when the forward pass was used infrequently, Baugh was an odd choice for a quarterback, but his arm would change the way football was played, and he became known as Slingin’ Sammy. When the Redskins attended their first practice in Fairlawn Park in Anacostia, over a 1,000 fans showed up to cheer on their powerful linesmen. By August of 1937, the Redskins had their own volunteer marching band and even a fight song, “Hail to the Redskins” written by Marshall’s second wife and silent film star Corinne Griffith. Yet, Flaherty knew that the Redskin’s welcome would soon ware thin if they could not deliver out on the gridiron. Before the first game he told his team that if they wanted to keep their jobs they had to go out there and win.

And win they did, earning their first championship that season defeating the Bears at Wrigley Field 28-21. George “Papa Bear” Halas’s team did not take well to losing at home, and before long one the first NFL rivalries ignited. For the Redskins the success ’37 meant that Flaherty and his team had found a home.

As for the rivalry, payback came the following year later, when the Bears smashed the Redskins 31-7. After the game Halas commented to the Redskins, “That’s too bad, girlies…What say we all go down to the corner for a double banana split and a fistful of chocolate éclairs?” Ouch. That’s harsh, Papa Bear.

The Redskins let their hatred simmer until they teams met again in 1940. Both teams struggled back and forth, when finally the Redskins claimed a 7-3 victory, won by an ankle tackle by running back Dick Todd, stopping the Bears at the one yard line. It was three weeks until the Championship game. Marshall predicted that should the Bears play the Redskins for the championship, they’d have to win big or not win at all. As if fated, the teams would indeed meet for the championship at Griffith Stadium (at Georgia Ave and W Street, NW). Taking Marshall’s words to heart the Bears unleashed a fury, ending the game with a 73-0 victory over the Redskins (who unlike the current Lions, were playing in the championship—the Redskins were no shabby team). The score still stands as the largest margin of victory in NFL history.

Admittedly, this has turned out to be biased posting on the prowess of the Chicago Bears, but I find myself incapable of singing the praises of another team. But cheer up Redskins fans you still have: 5 championships, 3 Superbowl titles, the NFL first marching band, and the first NFL fight song. So when times get tough, think about Slingin’ Sammy and the championship in 1937, and the later days with Coach Gibbs. You have tradition! Now get out there and beat your current rival the Cowboys, whom you play in seven weeks!

Sources: Redskins: A History of Washington’s Team.

Redskin’s Homepage.

Sports Encyclopedia.

Alcott's Brief, but Impressionistic Stay in Georgetown

"Beds to the front of them,

Beds to the right of them,
Beds to the left of them,

Nobody blundered.

Beamed at by hungry souls,

Screamed at with brimming bowls,

Steamed at by army rolls,

Buttered and sundered.

With coffee not cannon plied,

Each must be satisfied,

Whether they lived or died;

All the men wondered."

It was to this song that matrons and nurses at the Union Hospital in Georgetown (at right) marched to. Among them was Louisa May Alcott, authoress of Little Women. When the hackney coach carrying Alcott to the northeast corner of M and 30th, NW arrived, the driver announced it as the “Hurley-Burley House.” The Union Hospital was a converted hotel, built originally in 1796. A three story building, with two parallel wings running in to the block, with a slave quarter and stable in the rear, the Hotel was one of the larger establishments in Georgetown. The building functioned as a hotel briefly in the Civil War, when nearby battles in Virginia created an influx of wounded soldiers in to Washington.

Arriving December 12, 1863 Louisa saw action a just three days later, when the first casualties from the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia arrived by ambulance. Over 40 ambulances arrived and, the Union Hotel had 80 beds made up for the wounded. The worst cases were treated in the hotel ballroom. By Christmas there were over 1,000 wounded Union troops convalescing in Georgetown. Alcott noted that it was not uncommon to see them hobbling on the muddy streets on crutches and peg-legs. At the makeshift hospital Alcott worked as a night nurse, where she cleaned wounds, administered medicine, changed beds, and fed soldiers. The saddest sight she saw “was the spectacle of a grey-haired father, sitting hour after hour by his son, dying from the poison of his wound. The old father, hale and hearty; the young son, past all help…I saw the son's eyes fix upon his face, with a look of mingled resignation and regret, as if endeavoring to teach himself to say cheerfully the long good bye.”

Working as a nurse in the Civil War was arduous work. Apart from long hours, in poorly ventilated conditions, nurses ate the same rations as the soldiers. Alcott dryly noted that the beef at dinner was, “evidently put down for the men of ’76.” When food was scarce, nurses at the Union Hospital often passed their rations on to the wounded men. Louisa May Alcott lasted just six weeks that winter before succumbing to typhoid fever. When she was well enough, he father collected her and brought her back to Massachusetts, her nursing days at an end.

For more on Louisa May Alcott: http://civilwarwomen.blogspot.com/2008/01/louisa-may-alcott.html.

Sources: Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches (1869).

Mary Mitchell, Divided Town: A Study of Georgetown, DC During the Civil War, Massachusetts: Barre Publishers, 1968.

Picture Source: The Whitman Archive.

You too can sleep like a President, at the Hay Adams hotel

Looking for a place to stay in DC? The Hay Adams hotel, directly across Lafayette Square from the White House, is one of the premier addresses in the Nation’s Capitol. The hotel is used today as a swanky site for weddings, a nice place to put up visiting diplomats, and was briefly the residence of the Obama's before the inauguration. Built in 1927 by famed DC developer Harry Wardman and his architect Mihran Mesrobian, the hotel actually sits on the site of two neighboring houses owned by statesmen John Hay and Henry Adams. (Hence – The Hay Adams hotel.)

The original Hay and Adam’s houses were commissioned by the two long time friends from famous American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, a former Harvard classmate of Adams. John Hay and Henry Adams had become close friends in 1880, and together with their wives, Marion ‘Clover’ Adams and Clara Hay, as well as their friend and director of the US Geological Survey, Clarence King, the group formed the so called ‘Five of Hearts’ club. The ‘Hearts’ were a literary society of sorts, and even went so far as to create and correspond on stationery with five playing card hearts across the top. The five were always involved in the political circle, writing anonymous political histories and satires, and in 1883 Adams convinced Hay that they should buy adjoining lots at 16th and H Streets facing Lafayette square.

Henry Hobson Richardson, who became famous for the “Richardson Romanesque” style of architecture he created, was well known for his heavy use of masonry, deep arches, steep pitched roofs, and turreted towers. In order to ensure that their homes took on characteristics of Richardson’s style without being too elaborate for a downtown DC neighborhood (Lafayette Square was entirely residential at the time) Adams, who was a good friend of Richardson’s asked that while the houses be unique, they should still remain generally within the confines of a plain square box with a flat roof. The final house cost $60,000 dollars to complete, and was, in form, a square brick building on the side of the lot at the center of H Street. The uniqueness came from some typically Richardsonian elements on the facade, including heavy arched entranceways, a beautiful arched central window at the third floor, and a series of nine small finial type windows at the fourth floor. So that the two facades would match along H Street, the houses were constructed with the same materials; red brick accented with Ohio buff sandstone around the doors and first floor windows.

Houses of John Hay and Henry Adams, circa 1884

After Adams death in 1918, his house was bought by Senator James Wadsworth and his wife Alice, who had acquired the Hay house after Clara Hay died in 1914. The Wadsworth’s leased the building to the Brazilian embassy, and in 1927 it was sold to DC developer Harry Wardman. Wardman was widely considered the most important real estate developer of the twenties, and he bought the property with intentions to raze the Richardson buildings and replace them with a Beaux Arts style apartment hotel. The city of Washington was going through an apartment house boom during the period of “Coolidge Prosperity” and the expansion of the federal government during preparations for World War I. Harry Wardman was at the forefront of this building craze, and during the 1910s and 20s he was responsible for building 4,000 houses, 12 office buildings, two clubs, two hospital annexes, two embassies, one parking garage, 400 apartment buildings, and eight hotels.

Wardman’s primary architect Mihran Mesrobian was a Turkish born architect who emigrated to American in 1921. Mesrobian had been trained in Turkey at the Academie des Beaux Arts in Istanbul, and he brought this classical building mentality to his work in Washington. Although apartment hotels at the time were favoring Tudor and Second Empire styles, as found with Washington’s famous Willard Hotel, Mesrobian felt that the Beaux Arts principles were well suited to D.C.’s tight lot sizes and height restrictions. Mesrobian also believed that the Beaux Arts association with the Italian Palazzo styles gave the residents a feeling of, “presiding in an elegant and stately building.”

Architect H.H. Richardson was himself trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and because Richardson employed Beaux Arts methods in his design, there were aspects of the original Hay and Adams façades and interiors that Mesrobian was able to emulate in his own work. Some of the artistic iron grilles Richardson had used in the original exteriors were saved and then added to replicas used in flanking the hotel’s entrance. The entrance and curved driveway off of 16th street were built in imitation of Richardson’s original plans. The homes were also designed to have a heavily rusticated base on the façade, a technique typical of Beaux Arts design done in an imitation of Italian renaissance palazzos, and Mesrobian followed suit by rusticating the hotel façade at the street level. This method of deeply cutting and distressing the stone helped Mesrobian to give the illusion of walking alongside a renaissance palace, and also helped to bring back some of the memory of the original homes.

Photo source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

Sources: O’Toole, Patricia, “What they had in common was wit and friendship” Smithsonian, 21(June 1990 pg. 132-138)

Mesrobian, Caroline Isabelle, A selection of the architectural oeuvre of Mihran Mesrobian, beaux arts architect Washington DC (New Orleans, Louisiana: Tulane University, 1978, 47-58

Goode, James M, Best Addresses: a century of Washington’s distinguished apartment houses(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, c1988)

Speaking of Georgetown...

Potomac River and C&O canal in Georgetown circa 1862

Now that DC tourist season is in full swing, one of the places in the city most certain to be teeming with visitors is chic, glamorous Georgetown. Home now to elite DC residents, charming old houses, expensive restaurants, and of course – Banana Republic, the Georgetown of today is a symbol of Washington old money and power. It is however, amusing, to imagine the thoughts of the port city’s original inhabitants if they knew that their modest dwellings and butcher shops were now home to upscale boutiques and outrageously priced frozen yogurt shops. I am of course embellishing, to a point. There always were large houses on the hillside that led up from the Potomac river basin into Maryland, but the areas closest to the river – today’s K and M streets – were originally filled with the simple structures of a working port city and Washington’s only claim at a manufacturing history.

British settlers arrived in the area in 1696 and immediately drove away all of the Nacotchanke Indians who maintained a small village in the area. Perfectly situated on the river to receive and send off the shipments of Maryland and Virginia tobacco headed for the homeland (Europe), Georgetown eventually became one of the largest tobacco ports in the colonies. The town was incorporated in 1751 as part of the British colony of Maryland, and contrary to popular belief, named not for soon to be first president George Washington, but for King George II of Great Britain. (Although there is some speculation that it was possibly named for land-owners George Gordon and George Beall). The Old Stone House, the oldest house in the District of Columbia, was built during this period of Georgetown’s history, and is maintained today by the National Park Service as a rare survivor of colonial Washington.

After the American Revolution, the city was incorporated into the District of Columbia in 1791 in a deal reached at the well-known Suter’s Tavern, a frequent haunt of George Washington. The location of Suter’s Tavern is today unknown, but the most likely location is thought to be on K Street, underneath what is now the AMC movie theater. (Perhaps why they can get away with charging $20.00 for a movie and popcorn?) Shortly after, Georgetown reached an early heyday, with money pouring in from the ports and high profile DC residents like Thomas Jefferson and Francis Scott Key purchasing properties in the area. Water powered mills, producing mainly flour and other processed grain, also brought money and work into the area, including droves of slaves, who are a long forgotten part of Georgetown’s past.

The heyday was unfortunately a little short lived, as the Potomac River began to silt up (some speculate because of the increased traffic and manufacturing in the area) and merchant boats were no longer able to make it all the way up to Georgetown. The early solution to the problem was the construction of the C&O Canal, which connected the District with Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. The success of the canal kept Georgetown afloat through most of the 19th century, but by the 1880s the problems with the river were again severe, and in 1890 a massive flood virtually destroyed all travel along the canal.

As the trade and manufacturing left, Georgetown became what can only be called a slum, with a large portion of its population consisting of the poverty stricken African American workers who had no place to go once their jobs were gone. They continued to live in cramped housing on K and M streets, and much of the structures that still remain there today - in what is now the heart of historic Georgetown – survived simply because there was no money to do anything else with them.

Meanwhile, in upper Georgetown near Rock Creek Park, luxury apartment buildings began to go up in the 1920’s and construction slowly made it’s way down towards the Potomac. In the 1930’s the area was given a new cache when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt purchased a home there. In the 1950’s a historic neighborhood association was formed to protect the area’s wealth of historic properties, and in the 1960’s Georgetown was effectively saved when John F. Kennedy, who owned a home there while serving as a Congressman, was elected President. Today the magnificent homes in Georgetown remain populated by the DC elite, and the port city-turned slum town-turned new Apple store location of K and M streets continues to attract the trade and commerce of visitors from around the world.

Photo Source: National Archives and Records Administration

Sources:

Ecker, Grace Dunlop (1933). A Portrait of Old Georgetown. Garrett & Massie, Inc..

Mitchell, Alexander D (2000). Washington DC Then and Now. Thunder Bay

Press.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401398.html