Evening star., 1951-06-12
An Italian Palace or Wisconsin Barn?
By Froncis P. Douglas

~ when they come to Washington
they step into world Of fantasy. The
size of governmental operations. their
dispersal along miles Of corridors. and
the difficulty sometimes encountered in
finding the right person with whom to
do business, all seem to get them down.
Now, with businessmen calling at the
Defense Production Administration. they
are encountering the very apogee Of the
fantastic-the old Pension Office Build
ing. DFA succeeded the General Ac-
counting Office as tenant and the GAO
followed the Pension Office itself. The
building also was the scene Of inaugural
balls from Cleveland to Taft
Behind the exterior Of the building.
which has the appearance Of an enor-
nous red barn, is an interior court OF
a vastness that Cecil B. DeMille would
envy. Involuntarily the visitor looks up.
Above is the roof structure, high enough
for a 10 or IL story building. Only
clouds are lacking.
Dividing the court into three parts are
two rows of enormous columns, four to
a row. Huge in girth. they rise to the
height of a seven-story building. Rest
ing on their great Corinthian capitals
are arches that tower above to support
the roof.
The columns are constructed Of brick
more than $1,000 to column-plas-
tered over and originally painted to
resemble Siena marble. Now the mar
belized surface has been painted a
pinkish buff that covers all the interior.
Embedded in the columns are the 1880
version of time capsules, metal cases
containing several volumes of the "Rec-
ord of the Rebellion" battlefield and
other maps, and War and State Depart
ment publications judged to be histori-
cally important. They are thus pre-
served against "tine, accident and hos
tile violence"
The offices are all in the outer shell Of
the structure. AL open on arcades
which, on the upper floors. overlook the
court. At the flrst-hoor level the arcade
is formed of Doric columns and, on the
second floor Ionic columns. At the third
floor the encircling promenade has
parapet on the inner side. Those made
nervous by height have been noticed to
shrink back toward the wall after
glancing over the parapet toward the
floor so feet below.
The building actually is memorial
to the Union soldiers Of the Civil War.
1t was begun in 1883 and completed
in 1885. Gen. Montgomery c. MeigS.
who had served in the Engineer Corps
and was quartermaSter general of the
Union armies, was architect and builder.
In the decade before the Civil War,
Gen. MeigS, then a captain, was in
charge of the Army engineers detail
which supervised erection of the present
Senate and House wings and dome of
the Capitol. Apparently he fancied him
self as an architect, for it is recorded
that he changed in some particulars the
plans Of the distinguished architect In
charge. Thomas U. Walter of Philadel-
phia.
Gen. Meigs also built. the WASHINGTON
Aqueduct which is still in use, and the
Cabin John Bridge with its stone arch
spanning 220 feet, which was said at the
time to be record and possibly still is.
All these big works must have impressed
Gen. Meigs with the advisability of
making no little plans.
After the Civil War, the general took
some time OF and went to Europe. He
must have visited Rome and admired the
Farnese Palace there, for when he be-
came architect of the Pension Office
Building he took the palace as his model.
Basically. the Pension Office is a three
story building of red brick-15 million
OF them. A story here means about Is
feet, not the present-day picayune 10
feet. The Farnese Palace covers an area
185 by 225 feet, but these dimensions
apparently could not stir Gen. Meigs'
imagination. He made his building 200
by 400 feet with the interior court about
100 by 800.
If Gen. Meigs had stopped with the
cornice his building might have passed
muster from the outside. But he had the
problem Of lighting the interior court.
Instead Of covering it with low-pitched
roof of beams and glass he erected, on
the interior walls. gables running up an
additional three heroic stories with the
vertical walls pierced by windows. This
Superstructure gives the building the ap-
PC0A NASV VI tAAC O4oRLulS Oh tQS ullSS
mating Of an Italian palazzo with Wis
consin barn.
Around the whole building between
the, first and second story windows runs
a three-foot high terra Gotta frieze on
which Civil War infantry marches, artil-
lery rolls and sailors row their boats.
Some years ago it was proposed to tear
the building down. There was an uproar
of objections. Not that the objectors
liked the building, but they insisted that
the frieze should not be touched.
When the building was erected it was
the custom to provide, where feasible,
living quarters for the head of the bu-
reau the building housed. These quarters
were a series of rooms with arched CELL
ings at the southwest corner of the sec
ond floor overlooking r and Fifth streets
NV.
The corner room is now the Office of
Edwin T. Gibson, Defense Production Ad-
ministrator. It seems small in COM
parison with the other rooms but at q
recent press conference about Is re-