National Building Museum, Washington, DC: architect, style and history

Built in 1887 as the Pension Bureau, this vast brick building was designed by Montgomery C. Meigs, the U.S. Army's quartermaster general, to house the U.S. Pension Bureau's work processing Civil War veterans' and widows' claims. An act of Congress converted it into the National Building Museum in 1980, and it remains centered on a soaring, high-columned Great Hall that has hosted presidential inaugural balls since the nineteenth century.

the building

The Great Hall. Meigs organized the entire building around a colossal interior courtyard ringed by towering columns, a space large enough that it has hosted presidential inaugural balls and today anchors the museum's rotating exhibits.

Buberl's sculpted frieze. A sculpted frieze by Caspar Buberl wraps the building's brick exterior, part of the ornament on what was, at completion in 1887, one of the largest brick buildings in the world.

the style

Sources describe the building's style differently: it is sometimes cited as Art Nouveau, but the museum's own historical account calls the Pension Building an important early large-scale example of Renaissance Revival architecture, with a columned brick exterior closer to an Italian palazzo than to Art Nouveau's curving lines.

the architect

Montgomery C. Meigs served as the U.S. Army's quartermaster general. The Pension Bureau Building, completed in 1887, was his largest architectural commission, built to house pension administration for Civil War veterans and their families.

significance

The Pension Building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites. Congress established it as the National Building Museum in 1980, giving the country's museum of architecture and design a landmark home.

nearby

Moran Building 490 ft · Second Empire · 1889
Bulletin Building 0.1 mi · Art Deco
Old City Hall (District of Columbia Court of Appeals) 0.2 mi · Neoclassical
Surratt, Mary House 0.2 mi · Federal · 1843
Germuiller Row 0.2 mi · Victorian Terrace
United States Tax Court 0.2 mi · Mid-Century Modern

All 315 buildings in Washington, DC