Capitol Hill's New Colossus

By Wolf Von Eckardt

A controversial Senate building may be worth the price after all

During a decade of planning, building and bickering, the $137.7 million Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building has been much denounced as a wasteful, Mussolini-style marble barn. Now that it is essentially completed and ready for occupancy, some Senators have declined to move into it. Wisconsin's William Proxmire and others object that it is too opulent. John Stennis of Mississippi and Charles Mathias of Maryland say they prefer the old-shoe comforts and fireplaces of their present quarters. With most of the Senate leadership setting a good example, however, the marble barn's 50 office suites have all been assigned. Says Majority Leader Howard Baker, the first to move in: "I approved the design as a member of the Senate Public Works Committee. I want to be the first to enjoy its advantages."

The advantages are considerable. The 1.1 million-sq.-ft. colossus is not, to be sure, the kind of building to wrap your heart around. The surfeit of white Vermont marble is a bit intimidating. Yet the building fits politely between the clumsily classical Everett Dirksen Senate Office Building and the Federal and Queen Anne-style Sewall-Belmont House and garden, headquarters of the venerable National Woman's Party. The Hart Building's classically well-ordered, box-construction windows, reminiscent of Le Corbusier's famous brise-soleils, or sun screens, harmonize with the forest of Roman columns that flourishes on Capitol Hill. Most important, of the six congressional office palaces built in the 20th century, this is the first to make 20th century functional sense.

Part of the credit for this goes to George M. White, who, after being appointed Architect of the Capitol in 1971, decided that Roman pomposity had become a Capitol embarrassment. White stopped further encroachments on the surrounding residential neighborhood. He commissioned a master plan for development of the congressional campus within its existing boundaries. And when a third Senate office building became necessary in 1972 (supplementing the Dirksen and Richard Russell buildings), he spurned the short roster of traditional architects who had worked on Capitol Hill for generations and selected John Carl Warnecke and Associates for the job.

Warnecke, based in San Francisco, had won national acclaim for his ability to design buildings that do not flaunt their modernity but get along well with older neighbors, notably two office buildings opposite the White House whose brick facades effectively echo the residential accents of surrounding Lafayette Square.

Within the nine-story Hart Building, Warnecke has created a vast 100-ft.-high skylit atrium of the kind that Architect Kevin Roche pioneered at the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York City. This eliminates the endless, oppressive corridors of other congressional buildings and lets additional daylight into the offices, which are entered from open galleries surrounding the atrium. Unlike the Ford Foundation's atrium, which sports a lush tropical garden, the Hart Building's inner court is as yet a marble void. Plans for a huge sculpture by Alexander Calder (the last he designed before he died in 1976) were cut from the budget. Something is needed here. Elsewhere, Warnecke has created spots of charm, as in the lofty, baroque-style circular staircases.

The 1909 Russell Building has uniformly high 16-ft. ceilings, which seems a waste of space for clerks and typists. The 1958 Dirksen Building has uniformly low 10-ft. 4-in. ceilings, which seems undignified for Senators. Warnecke's solution: 16-ft. ceilings for the senatorial offices, with the adjoining staff space built on two levels, each with 8 1/2-ft. ceilings. One advantage of the older buildings that Warnecke omitted: private office doors allowing Senators to slip in and out unseen.

But this design flaw aside, the Hart Building is efficiently suited to its unique purposes. The cost adds up to an all-inclusive and defensible $100 per sq. ft., approximately. You can get buildings for less, but the Hart's cost cannot fairly be compared with other office buildings, public or private. There are few Government departments or corporations, for example, that average one boss for every 27 employees, which is the ratio in the Hart Building. The structure, furthermore, shows laudable attention to detail and quality of materials and craftsmanship. Among its features are a 3-in. marble veneer (in contrast to the 7/8 in. to 2 in. common in cheaper structures), solid brass hardware and double-glazed windows to save energy.

As the Italian Renaissance architect Filarete said more than 500 years ago, "Some buildings cannot be constructed without great expense, but magnanimous and great princes, and republics as well, should not hold back from building great and beautiful buildings... When they are completed, there is neither more nor less money in the country, but the building does remain ... together with its reputation and honor."

--By Wolf Von Eckardt This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.