Herbert C. Hoover Building
| Herbert C. Hoover Building | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| Historic District Contributing Property | |||
| National Historic Site | |||
 Aerial view of 14th Street, with the Hoover Building and its six courtyards in the foreground. In the background is the President's Park |
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| location | Washington, DC | ||
| Coordinates | 38 ° 53 '39.5 " N , 77 ° 1' 58.1" W | ||
| Built | 1927-1932 | ||
| architect | Louis Ayres | ||
| NRHP number | 66000865 | ||
| The NRHP added | October 15, 1966 | ||
| Declared as NHS | September 30, 1965 | ||
The Herbert C. Hoover Building is the headquarters of the United States Department of Commerce in Washington, DC and the contributing property of the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site .
The building is located at 1401 Constitution Avenue NW. It is part of a block enclosed by Constitution Avenue NW to the south, Pennsylvania Avenue NW to the north, 15th Street NW to the west, and 14th Street NW to the east. It is located in the Federal Triangle , east of the Ellipse , north of the National Mall, and west of the other Department of Commerce buildings, the John A. Wilson Building and the Ronald Reagan Building . The building is owned by the General Services Administration .
The building was completed in 1932 and renamed after Herbert Hoover in 1981 . Hoover was Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928 and President of the United States from 1929 to 1933. The closest Metrorail station is on the Federal Triangle.
The National Aquarium in Washington, DC (in the basement ) and the visitor center of the White House (ground floor) are also located in this building.
history
The Department of Commerce was established after President William Howard Taft signed the law dividing the “Department of Commerce and Labor” into the Department of Commerce and Labor on the last day of his term, March 4, 1913.
In 1928, Congress approved the purchase of land that is now known as the "Federal Triangle for departmental offices". The permit was part of a wave of government construction. The Public Buildings Act allowed the government to hire private architects to design public buildings. This resulted in large-scale public works construction, including the development of the 280,000-square-foot Federal Triangle site between the Capitol and the White House. A short time later, Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon and a panel of architectural consultants developed guidelines for the design of the site. The panel consisted of senior architects and was chaired by Edward H. Bennett of Bennett, Parsons, and Frost of Chicago. Under Bennett's guidance, each member designed a building in the Federal Triangle Complex to provide each government agency or department with a building that meets all functional requirements, while the combination of the individual buildings provides a harmonious, monumental overall impression that reflects the dignity and authority of government United States underlines. Louis Ayres, a member of the panel, was selected to be the architect for the Department of Commerce building. Ayres, Arthur Brown Jr. (in charge of the Interstate Commerce Commission building), and William Adams Delano (selected for the United States Post Office Department Building) were charged with designing the western area of the Triangle and creating a green, shady boardwalk.
Construction began on October 4, 1927, when Herbert C. Hoover was Minister of Commerce. The foundation stone was laid on July 10, 1929, at the beginning of Hoover's tenure as president. The building was completed in 1932 and was the largest office building in the world at the time.
On September 30, 1965, part of Pennsylvania Avenue including the Herbert C. Hoover Building was declared a National Historic Site . On October 15, 1966, the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places .
In 1981 the building was renamed Hoover due to federal law. The official inauguration as the Herbert C. Hoover Building was on April 25, 1983, at the same time as the publication of the first edition of the biography The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer. by George H. Nash.
Construction and design
The building is rectangular and measures approximately 98 meters from east to west and 310 meters from north to south. It forms almost the entire west side of the Federal Triangle from Constitution Avenue to E Street. The building contains 3300 rooms that are connected with 300 meter long corridors. Flexible partitions instead of rigid walls was part of the original design to allow many of the authorities to change the organization of the departments. The New York Times described it as "huge"
The Malcolm Baldrige Great Hall (named after Howard M. Baldrige , Jr. , Secretary of Commerce under Ronald Reagan 1981–1985 ) is on the first floor of the north end of the building, overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue . It houses the White House Visitor Center , operated by the National Park Service . The Great Hall is 69 meters long and 19 meters wide and was originally designed as a patent register of more than 3 million patents cataloged by the Department of Commerce, which includes the US Patent and Trademark Office. {As part of the United States Bicentenary, the Great Hall became the Bicentennial Visitor Center. Until 1989 it housed the Washington City Tourist Information Center. Renovation work began in July 1993 with the restoration of the ornate plaster ceiling to restore the simple elegance of the great hall. The original Indiana limestone walls, bronze doors, ornate Vermont marble floors, and Italian bronze candlesticks have all been cleaned and renovated. In March 1995, the White House Visitor Center finally opened.
Features of other buildings in the Federal Triangle of the 1930s can be found in the building, including the inner courtyards (the interior offices are supplied with daylight and air is exchanged through 6 inner courtyards) and a neoclassical architectural style ( Doric colonnades on three sides).
The facade to 15th Street is 3 blocks long and has four pavilions with flat triangular gables in the Greek style. These are adorned with sculptures by James Earle Fraser and Haig Patigian . The National Aquarium is located in the basement and has been open to the public since the building was completed. The Department of Commerce Library Services Branch , a library primarily used by government employees and scholars, is also located in the building.
The population clock is in the lobby of the Hoover Building, as the United States Census Bureau is part of the Department of Commerce. In 1982 the watch malfunctioned when it indicated about 50 million more Americans than was estimated.
credentials
- ^ A b Francis X. Clines, Phil Gailey: Briefing. In: The New York Times. 28th Dec 1981.
- ^ National Aquarium in Washington, DC
- ↑ Visiting the White House ( Memento of September 13, 2001 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Federal Triangle Historic District , National Park Service.
- ^ A b c Clyde H. Farnsworth: Washington Talk: The Commerce Department; A Many-Tentacled Agency Lights Up 75 Candles. In: The New York Times. March 3, 1988.
- ↑ a b c d U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC - Building History. ( Memento of September 27, 2006 on the Internet Archive ) General Services Administration. Aug 21, 2007.
- ^ Frederick Gutheim, Antoinette J. Lee: Worthy of the Nation: Washington, DC, from L'Enfant to the National Capital Planning Commission. Johns Hopkins UP, 2006, pp. 181-189.
- ^ A b Peter Pennoyer, Anne Walker: The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich . WW Norton, 2003, p. 158.
- ↑ a b c d e Explore the Southern Trail: President's Park (White House). National Park Service, Sept. 5, 2005.
- ↑ a b James Clarity, Warren Weaver: Briefing. In: The New York Times. Apr 25, 1983.
- ^ National Park Service : The National Parks: Index 2009–2011 . United States Department of the Interior, ISBN 978-0-912627-81-6 , p. 36.
- ^ Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site. in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 3, 2017.
- ^ "Library Services Branch" ( memo of December 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). United States Department of Commerce.
- ^ Robert D. Hershey, Jr .: Washington Watch: The Future Of Oil Prices. In: The New York Times. July 19, 1982.
- This article includes text from the General Services Administration and the National Park Service , which are public domain works of the United States Government .
