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Franklin, Benjamin, School (& Interiors)

Architect
Adolf Cluss
Style
Romanesque Revival
City
Washington, DC
Collection
romanesque revival
Franklin, Benjamin, School (& Interiors)
Photo: APK, CC BY 4.0
See it on the map

Completed in 1869 at 13th and K Streets on Franklin Square, the Franklin School was designed by Adolf Cluss in the German Rundbogenstil, or round-arch style, and served as the flagship of eight modern public school buildings Washington built between 1862 and 1875 to create the city's first comprehensive system of universal public education.

the building

Bell's Photophone experiment. In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell used a beam of light to transmit a voice message with his newly invented Photophone from his nearby L Street laboratory to the Franklin School, an early milestone on the path to fiber-optic communication.

From schoolhouse to museum. After decades as a school and later a homeless shelter in the 2000s, the building's interior was largely gutted, and in 2020 it reopened as Planet Word, a museum devoted to language.

the style

Cluss designed the Franklin School in the Rundbogenstil, a German round-arch style he brought to several of Washington's most prominent 19th-century public buildings, marking the school as a serious civic monument rather than a plain schoolhouse.

More on Romanesque Revival

the architect

Adolf Cluss was a German-trained architect who became one of the most prolific designers of Washington's public buildings in the 19th century; the Franklin School was the flagship of his citywide public school program.

significance

Designated a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Franklin School is also an individually designated DC Historic Landmark.

nearby

All 315 buildings in Washington, DC