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Judiciary
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
The National Building Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. dedicated to "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning."
It is housed in the former Pension Bureau building, a brick structure completed in 1887 and designed by Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, the U.S. Army quartermaster general. The building is notable for several architectural features including the spectacular interior columns and a frieze sculpted by Caspar Buberl stretching around the exterior of the building depicting Civil War soldiers in scenes somewhat reminiscent of those on Trajan's Column in Rome as well as the Horsemen Frieze of the Parthenon in Athens. The vast interior, measuring 316 ft. (96 m) × 116 ft. (35 m), has been used to hold inauguration balls since the building's construction and a Presidential Seal is set into the floor near the south entrance.
Following the end of the Civil War the United States Congress passed legislation that greatly extended the scope of pension coverage for both veterans and for their survivors and dependents, notably their widows and orphans. This ballooned the number of staff that was needed to implement and administer the new benefits' system to over 1,500 and quickly required a new building out of which to run it all. Meigs was chosen to design and construct the new building and in doing so broke away from the established Greco-Roman models that had been the basis of government buildings in Washington D.C. up until then, as was to continue following the Pension Building's completion. Meigs based his design on Italian Renaissance precedents, notably Rome's Palazzo Farnese and the Palazzo della Cancelleria.
The National Building Museum's Corinthian columns are among the largest in the world measuring 75 ft. (23 m) tall and 8 ft. (2.4 m) in diameter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Building_Museum |
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Howdy Chris! Good POV. Very good sharpness and lightness. Wonderful colors. Beautiful capture. Regards!
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