page_title: John Adams Building
section_title: Bronze entrance doors by Lee Lawrie
hierarchical_section_title: John Adams Building / Bronze entrance doors by Lee Lawrie
caption_attribution_description: English: Sculpted bronze figures by Lee Lawrie. Doors, east entrance, Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: The John Adams Building is the second oldest of the four buildings of the Library of Congress of the United States. It is named for John Adams, the second president, who signed the law creating the Library of Congress. The building is in the Capitol Hill district of Washington D.C. next to the Library's main building. It opened to the public on January 3, 1939, and was long known as The Annex building. The annex was built in a restrained but very detailed Art Deco style and faced in white Georgia marble. It is located on Second Street SE between Independence Avenue and East Capitol Street in Washington, DC.
context_section_description: Commemorating the history of the written word, artist Lee Lawrie sculpted figures into the bronze doors at the west (Second Street) and east (Third Street) entrances.
  The figures—all deities or culture heroes associated with writing—are:
  Hermes, the messenger of the gods
  Odin, a Norse/Germanic god and creator of the runic alphabet
  Ogma, the Irish god who invented the Gaelic alphabet
  Itzamna, a Mayan god of writing
  Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of writing
  Sequoyah, a Native American who defined Cherokee syllabary
  Thoth, the Egyptian god of knowledge, serving as the divine scribe
  Cangjie, the legendary inventor of Chinese writing
  Nabu, an Akkadian god of writing
  Brahma, an Indian god
  Cadmus, the Greek sower of dragon's teeth, and importer of the Phoenician alphabet
  Tahmurath, a Persian hero
  The entries to the John Adams Building were modified in 2013 with the addition of code-compliant, sculpted glass doors that mirror the original bronze door sculptures by Lee Lawrie. The original doors are set in a "hold-open" position within each entryway, flanking the new monumental doors made by the Washington Glass Studio and Fireart Glass.
  The south entrance doors (not currently used) facing Independence Avenue are reached by a stairway decorated with stylized owls and lamps.  On the doors are a male figure representing physical labor and a female figure representing intellectual labor.  Before it moved to newer quarters, this was the entrance for the United States Copyright Office, which is under the jurisdiction of the Librarian of Congress.
caption: Lee Lawrie, sculpted bronze figures, east entrance doors
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