page_title: Pan American Health Organization
section_title: Headquarters building
hierarchical_section_title: Pan American Health Organization / Headquarters building
caption_attribution_description: English: The Pan American Health Organization building in Washington, DC.
context_page_description: The Pan American Health Organization is an international public health agency working to improve health and living standards of the people of the Americas. It is part of the United Nations system, serving as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization and as the health organization of the Inter-American System. It is known in Latin America as the OPS or OPAS.
context_section_description: In March 1960, President Eisenhower signed into law a bill passed by the U.S. Congress  authorizing the U.S. government to purchase and donate a lot for the PAHO headquarters in Washington, D.C. At the meeting of its Executive Committee in April 1960, the PAHO decided to accept the USG's offer and set forth parameters for proceeding with the project of a new headquarters building. PAHO decided to use an international open competition as the means of selecting an architect for the project, following the recently successful model of other international organizations (most notably the United Nations New York headquarters inaugurated in 1952, and the UNESCO Paris headquarters in 1953 – both resulting in landmark designs of modernist architecture). PAHO framed the competition based on standards developed by the International Union of Architects, and determined that the competition should be open to architects from all countries of the Americas.  The vision was that “the new building should be a monument to international health cooperation.”
  Following a review of 58 entries, the PAHO in October 1961 declared Uruguayan architect Román Fresnedo Siri the winner of its competition. At the ceremony announcing him as winner, the organization's Director Abraham Horwitz said “this beautiful building will become a monument to the ideal of better health for the peoples of the Americas.” He described the winning design as one of “both grace and utility,” and said “it reflects the high ideals of the Pan-American spirit in an age when we must move ahead to build a better future for our peoples.”
  The building was designed in a modernist style by Fresnedo Siri in part as a tribute to Le Corbusier, a key influence on Fresnedo Siri's work. Constructed in 1965, the exterior features 29 round bronze seals of the founding nations of the Pan American Health Organization set in black stone.  Each medallion is 2.5 feet (0.76 m) in diameter and were designed by American sculptor Michael Lantz. They were originally meant to be carved in granite. The east side of the south facade (left to right) seals are for: France, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The west side of the south facade seals are for: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and El Salvador. In 1993 the seals were surveyed by the Smithsonian Institution's Save Outdoor Sculpture! program and were described as needing conservation treatment.
  The building is situated on a triangular lot of just over one acre nestled between Virginia Avenue, E Street and 23rd Street, Northwest, in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington. Constructed of reinforced concrete over a steel frame with an exterior of glass and marble, the building is one of Washington's most recognized examples of midcentury modern architecture.  The building is divided into two distinct volumes: a gracefully curved ten-story building that hosts the organization's main offices, and an adjoining four-story cylindrical annex that serves as the congress hall for formal assemblies of the PAHO member state delegates, as well as other meetings and events. It is surrounded by George Washington University to the north and east, the Columbia Plaza office/residential complex to the west, and the State Department to the south across the E street expressway underpass.
  The main building features soaring white vertical columnar ribs evenly separating dark vertical columns of glass. There are no horizontal lines to compete with the vertical symmetry; the building's vertical ribs disappear along “blind gables” into an invisible roofline. In the formalism and attention to symmetry, Fresnedo Siri said he was trying to stay true to the “classic spirit of the city of Washington.” The interplay of light and dark is accentuated by the use of white American marble, black Mexican granite, and dark gray glass. The building's slender, window
caption: Pan American Health Organization building, Washington, DC
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