US Department of Agriculture Administration Building
| US Department of Agriculture Administration Building | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
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| location | Row of pillars in the Jamie L. Whitten Building on the National Mall | ||
| Coordinates | 38 ° 53 '16.9 " N , 77 ° 1' 48.1" W | ||
| architect | Rankin, Kellogg & Crane architecture firm | ||
| Architectural style | Beaux-Arts | ||
| NRHP number | 74002175 | ||
| The NRHP added | January 24, 1974 | ||
The US Department of Agriculture Administration Building , also known as the Jamie L. Whitten Building since 1995, is the headquarters of the US Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC The Administration Building is located on the north side of Independence Avenue and protrudes into the National Mall , where it faces each other the National Museum of Natural History is located. It is the only building on the National Mall that is not open to the general public. It was the first larger Beaux Arts style building in Washington and thus set the prototype for later buildings in the Federal Triangle . The east and west wings of the building were the first office buildings of the United States federal government made of reinforced concrete . The structure was entered on January 24, 1974 on the National Register of Historic Places .
The location of the structure on the National Mall was controversial because it was not in accordance with the McMillan Plan , which provided the National Mall without disruptive structures. Daniel Burnham and Charles McKim spoke out against the location . After a series of interventions by President Theodore Roosevelt , the building was eventually moved in accordance with the plan; however, at this point in time the foundations already existed, some 32 m further east of the later construction site.
The building facing the National Mall was designed by the architects Rankin, Kellogg and Crane to a higher standard than the South Building , which was built from 1930 . Due to its limited budget, it looks modest compared to the other buildings on the National Mall. The L-shaped side wings were built between 1904 and 1908, but the central building was not completed until 1930. The model for the building was the Hôtel de la Marine, completed in 1774 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel on Place de la Concorde in Paris . The cornices towards the roof are decorated with sculptures by Adolph Alexander Weinman , the wall paintings inside the building are by Gilbert White. The two side wings were made of reinforced concrete, the later central building is a steel construction.
The pedestrian bridge over Independence Avenue was added in 1936 to connect the two side wings to the South Building. The arched bridges with a span create such a dramatic accent on Independence Avenue. The undersides of the bridges are designed as Catalan vaults . The eastern footbridge is dedicated to Seaman A. Knapp , while the western one commemorates Agriculture Secretary James Wilson .
The Administration Building was established in 1995 in honor of former Congressman Jamie L. Whitten of Mississippi renamed. Whitten was chairman of the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies .
Web links
- History of the Washington USDA Complex ( Memento from April 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d John D. Milner: National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination: US Department of Agriculture Administration Building ( English , PDF; 647 kB) National Park Service. June 22, 1973. Retrieved May 10, 2009.
- ^ US Department of Agriculture Administration Building in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 3, 2017.
- ↑ Pamela Scott, Lee, Antoinette J .: The Mall . In: Buildings of the District of Columbia ( English ). Oxford University Press, New York 1993, ISBN 0-19-509389-5 , pp. 99-100.
- ↑ Histories of the USDA Headquarters Complex Buildings ( English ) US Department of Agriculture. 2004. Archived from the original on April 25, 2009. Retrieved October 16, 2015.