A workman surveys Corinthian capitals atop the National Archives in 1934.
Secretary Andrew Mellon to work with leading architects to produce designs for the monumental buildings that form today’s Federal Triangle. In 1929 President Herbert Hoover laid the cornerstone for the first new structure, the Department of Commerce building bounded by Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues, and 14th and 15th Streets, NW. Within months, the world’s economy collapsed. The Federal Triangle project proceeded, however, providing needed jobs for construction workers, as well as for the artists and craftsmen who embellished the buildings with sculpture, mosaics, murals, and ornamental metalwork. By 1938 seven majestic new buildings filled the Federal Triangle. They share certain features — limestone façades, red-tiled roofs, and classical colonnades — but, following traditions of the Paris École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts), each building’s architectural details illustrate the mission of the government department or agency for which it was built. The single exception is the Old Post Office, which predates the Triangle.
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