ARCHITECTURE · HISTORY · WASHINGTON DC
Well-researched articles by Solomon Rokowsky about the buildings that shaped Washington, DC.
Original watercolour art illustration by Solomon Rokowsky
George Washington laid the cornerstone in Masonic regalia in 1793, British troops burned the building in 1814, and the cast-iron dome that defines it rose during the Civil War. Much of the early work was done by enslaved laborers hired out to the federal government.
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Original watercolour art illustration by Solomon Rokowsky
Washington began promising Lincoln a memorial almost before he was buried, then spent half a century fighting over it. The Greek temple that finally opened in 1922 rings its chamber with 36 columns, one for each state in the Union when Lincoln died.
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Original watercolour art illustration by Solomon Rokowsky
A private society started it in 1848, the money ran out at 152 feet, and Congress finished the job decades later. The three slightly different colors up the shaft still show where the work stopped and started again.
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Original watercolour art illustration by Solomon Rokowsky
James Hoban's neoclassical house won a public competition in 1792, and John Adams moved in while the plaster was still wet. Since then it has been burned once, gutted once, and rebuilt for a third century.
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Original watercolour art illustration by Solomon Rokowsky
The Supreme Court spent its first century and a half as a tenant, borrowing rooms in the Capitol. William Howard Taft, the only man to lead both branches, finally won it a marble home of its own.
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