of captain perry. great pummel, that cartoon. going through these periods of shamecider, enough of captain perry. great pummel, that cartoon. going through these periods of shame, was alexandria able to exert a voice or cowering in the district of columbia. >> exert a voice. unfortunately one of those voices, one of the two alexandria newspapers, no longers, no copies, extinct. the second one, there are a few copies from the fall of 1814. they don't have much to say. the reason i believe that's the case is because they wouldn't have been unhappy to get back to virginia. they had lost their votes, their representative in congress. for all his political wisdom, george washington, who believed that the location and collusion of alexandria would enrich the town, how many congressmen from boston, new york, philadelphia,

baltimore, charleston, south carolina, and a dozen other places are going to vote federal funds to build wharfs and other facilities in alexandria. so that money is not available. alexandria begins to decline. as a transatlantic commercial center. fortunately it's going to become a railroad center, et cetera. those petitions to retrocede the town or actually all of the district on the virginia side of the river, those pegs started very early. they were never effective until george washington park tried to give up protecting the dream of his grandfather for 100 square miles. when he signed in 1846, bingo, the legislation flew through

congress. in his first, i think, speech to congress, address to congress, president clinton called on congress to take back those 37 square miles and reincorporate them into the district. obviously it didn't happen. yes? >> not mention s word, slavery. of course, washington was probably the largest american slave trading city prior to 1850. how much did slavery influence whether the capital should be relocated? >> i did not see any evidence during september and october of 1814 that the issue of slavery

in any way played a role. i did not see any evidence one way or the other in 1790 that it played a role in the location, but it was the decision to locate here. it was as many historians of the early republic pointed out. it was the bull in the china shop. it was the ching you didn't mention. it very well may have been people, northerners, who were opposed to slavery who saw this as an opportunity. as an opportuni opportunity, but i don't see it actually in the sources. and by the way, since you mentioned washington and george washington, it gives me an opportunity to say because i'm trying to make the case that one of the most important abolitionists in the united states at the time was george washington himself who had become an abolitionist before he became president of the united

stat states. so think about that. okay. anything else? thank you very much. [ applause ] with congress returning monday, here's a message to congress from one of this year's c-span's student cam competition winners. >> throughout the years we have encountered be a handful of friends that struggled with mental illness and throughout those years we have seen how lack of support for treatment can result in devastating events, as well as emotional distress for those individuals and their families. >> my name is felix schmidt and i was diagnosed with schizophreniao-affective bipolar disorder. i ended up in the hospital after an episode, like an attack sent me there. i went straight to being an inpatient. they diagnosed me there after

five minutes or so of talking to me as bipolar and treated me for two weeks. i got out of the hospital and went from doctor to doctor, looking for someone who would actually listen. it took me over a year to find a doctor who actually did listen. >> we strongly encourage congress to continue from provide funding for those who struggle with mental illness and continue to allocate resources and develop new programs for those in need. join us next wednesday during washington journal for the theme of the 2015 c-span student cam documentary competition. now more from this week's war of 1815 sim posey automaker with pamela scott co-author of the buildings of the district of columbia. she discusses how it was rebuilt after the war. this is 50 minutes.

thank you. our next speaker will be pamela scott, and pam is an old friend. i have known her for many, many years, and she is, i think, the authority on the history of public buildings in washington, d.c. she has been an architectural historian here in washington specializing in the architectural landscape and planning histories of the city and i have learned a tremendous amount from her over the years. some of her books include "the temple of liberty," "buildings of the district of columbia," "designing the nation's capitol", and "the fortress of finance," and pam is going to talk about benjamin henry latrobe's work at the capitol. i month don is thrilled about that. ready to have the capitol become front and center in the

limelight. and, of course, latrobe is also the architect of decatur house and st. john's across the square, and so hopefully you'll learn a great deal about this architectural genius this afternoon and enjoy the house tonight at the reception. thank you. come on, pam. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, bill. your friendship over the years has meant a great deal to me as well. i want to add my thanks to the many, many thanks to the people who have organized this wonderful symposium. i have learned so much and have

enjoyed it so much and i'm sure that we all feel that way about what is almost over but still ongoing. today i'm talking about benjamin henry latrobe's capitol. i am an architectural historian, and i hope that i have watered down a little bit of my rhetoric enough so that i can be understandable to you all. the burning of the capitol on august 24th, 1814, was a reprieve rather than a disaster for benjamin henry latrobe. he now had the unexpected opportunity to repair some of his capitol's interiors and rebuild others into exemplars of greek revival architecture. during his first tenure, latrobe was constrained by william thornton's 1792 winning design for the exterior envelope and stephen hallet's for the

interior's. a succession of short-term architects finished much of the senate wing before latrobe's arrival. that was in 1803. the capitol latrobe inherited was that wing and the oven, the oval hall built in 1801 to accommodate the house of representatives. all these designs were a fusion of 18th century neo classism derived from roman and renaissance architecture as interpreted by italian, french, and english sources, as well as ancient ones depending on the education and tastes of the various architects involved. latrobe disliked the capitol he inherited. on both aesthetic and ideological grounds. fortunately, its decade long halting construction proved to be poor and he was able to rebuild the senate ring's interiors and to build much of the house wing before construction was halted by the

war in 1812. missed one of my slides. this is latrobe -- this is thornton's exterior on your left and then hallet's interior plan. note on the interior plan the oval rooms for both the house and the senate. latrobe soon found himself in 1803 supported and bedeviled in his collaboration with president thomas jefferson who had been involved with designs for the capitol since 1791. president washington had sanctioned hallet's oval senate and house of representatives, so their shapes remained in force when latrobe made this plan for the capitol in 1806. jefferson collaborated in the redesign of the east front which added a monumental staircase

leading directly to the rotunda labelled, hall of the people in latrobe's plan. in may 1807 while in battle with jefferson over the house chamber's vaulting, latrobe expressed to the president his fundamental architecture credo. my principles of good taste are rigid. in grecian architecture i am a bigoted greek. [ laughter ] to the condemnation of the roman architecture of balba, all the buildings erected subsequent to hadrian's reign. he admired the bold plans of early roman architecture but think their details absurd beyond tolerance. wherever therefore the grecian style can be copied without impropriety, i love to be a mirror, i would say a slavish copyist but the forms and distribution of the roman and

greek buildings which remain are in general inapplicable to the objects and uses of our public buildings. our government, our legislative assemblies, and our courts of justice buildings are based on entirely different principles from their basilicas and our amusements could not possibly be performed in their theaters or amphitheaters. yet despite these caveats, latrobe went on to infuse the capitol's rebuilt interiors and his new ones with direct references to greek architectural forms, greek architectural orders, and sculptural decorations. he adapted them, however, to his own purposes as he integrated them with other historical traditions. he had pioneered the revival of greek architecture in america in 1798 and even took it upon himself to educate congressmen about correct principles of public architecture.

latrobe's 1815 plan that you see here made after the fire depicts his semi circular senate chamber that he had built during his first campaign and his new designed semicircular plan for the house of representatives to replace the one destroyed by the british. he conceived both as ancient theaters. the best shape for seeing and hearing in both chambers. in november 1816 latrobe penned a diatribe against those american architects who were said to be building in a taste. the idea suggested it is it unites the most elegant proportions with the most severe simplicity. he condemned these architects for being the mere copyists of the absurdities of the roman luxury of the age when taste and morals were in the decline. in veiled references to thornton's capitol exterior and

the president's house, he noted even our national buildings remind us of the palaces of european kings by the taste of their external decorations rather than of athenian freedom by their beautiful, magnificent, and permanent simplicity. he concluded his essay by defining architecture as combining the most exalted science with the most perfect art to achieve the most perfect record of the public spirit, the wealth, the civilization, and the taste of nations. latrobe hoped the capitol would be his most lasting architecture legacy in america and wanted to make his position about its architecture hegemony clear for posterity. in 1810, 1811, latrobe redesigned part of the capitol's exteriors to be more in accord with his greek revival interior spaces. he planned a new west entrance in the form of a greek portico

based on the entrance to the athenian acropolis but altered its intercolumnation and added features from other athenian buildings. the main purpose of the capitol's entrance was to provide housing for the door keepers of the senate and the house while freeing up space for the committee rooms but also to improve the pedestrian approach to the capitol from the mall. the massiveness of his six greek doric columns 32 feet high vibed with a slightly taller roman corinthian capped columns in the loggia dictated by thornton's original choice. the sandstone walls of the capitol's wings were already painted white but latrobe's watercolor depicted his in the stone's natural light brown color. he may have intended it to remain unpainted in order to visually separate the capitol's two distinctly different

historical sources, roman and greek. instead of the open balustrades atop the house and senate wings, latrobe planned solid ones for his center building. he designed a monumental statue of athena as american liberty for its central stepped podium, a reference to the cult statue of athena in the parthenon. the greek athena wore a helmet, her left hand resting on her shield and right one raised holding the palladium, the small statue that represented civic power in the greek world. she wears a liberty cap and her awkward stance in this drawing suggests latrobe may have drawn her in reverse to accommodate the sculptor. when cast in bronze, athena liberty would be reversed, that is her left hand resting on a stone tablet signifying the constitution, her right arm

raised with palm open and cupped to express the openness of american government. congress itself being the american palladium. athena underwent a sea change in america during the revolutionary era. pierre's 1776 design for the great seal of the united states included a figure of american liberty as athena holding the constitution. when congress chose the eagle, the bird associated with the power of european kings for the great seal's final design, it was stated specifically that the eagle represented congress as power was passed from kings to the representatives of the people. latrobe's athena liberty was an allegorical reminder of greek democracy, the common heritage of euro americans. latrobe altered thornton's roman pantheon inspired dome to be

more greek. one way of achieving an acceptable architectural fusion of greek and roman architecture elements. he added a hexagonal drum and a series of stepped rings. from which thornton's low roman dome emerged. this perspective from the northeast shows a distinctly greek frieze of figures decorating the drum. the timing suggests latrobe celebrated jefferson's retirement in 1809. the architect was now free to express the simplicity of greek architecture. on the exterior of the capitol to be in accord with his interiors. these designs were not just wishful thinking. he included them in his estimates until 1816 when he replaced the propylaea with the west wing to accommodate the library of congress. and additional congressional committee rooms. so much for the introduction. now the details.

on april 17, 1815, when latrobe visited the capitol to visit -- view the melancholy spectacle of the ruins, he was encouraged by what remained intact. many important parts are wholly injured. what is read of mine the picturesqu entrance of the house of representatives with its handsome columns. the great staircase and the vault of the senate chairman are entirely free from any injury which cannot be easily repaired. the mischief is must more easily repaired than would appear at first site. i was less chagrinned than i had prepared myself to be. he wrote he wished british had burned the capital to the ground so he could have begun anew.

his thinking was evolving. egyptian, greek, roman and medieval in such ways to create new and meaningful spaces. america has a nation of immigrants. the family fathers examined and debated western systems of governments governments ancient through modern.

latrobe believed abstract representations of ideals were eternal and perfectly appropriate for the new nation of euro americans. all three of his designs, chamber were similar if shape and construction. the central space within a room. a semicircular arcade defining it. a screen of columns faced east. those many the second and third separated the space that you see here. classical architecture rules dictated as a ground floor room

the supreme floor be dooric. they were built in the dawn of greek architecture. supreme court justices protected the constitution, the beginning of the united states. in the second courtroom latrobe designed to relieves to decorate the impost blocks.

in may, 1817, carla franzoni, a seated justice in the figure she holds scales in her left hand and rest her right hand on the sword of justice. latrobe's former student later wrote that the sword points down rather than being raised because american justice is not punitive. an her right a young greek figure holds the constitution is seated in front of radiant sun. the constitution is a book rather than a charter because the court's laws interpreting the constitution continues to ensure the rights of americans.

it was hallmark of latrobe as the capital's architect. the entrance to this wing was via his vestibule finished in 1810. it survived the fire and contains the first of latrobe's borders. he may have seen or was told about america's first border. the kcolumn capitals including stars raised to the sun. latrobe approached in an entirely different way.

he used flora of native americans to represent the population. latrobe broke from the tradition of 1790 capital in other ways. drawing for the first senate included paintings of stars and state seals in its vaulted ceiling to express the chamber's function as representing the states. latrobe's first senate chamber finished in 1808 was directly above the courtroom. it was entered in the center of the semicircular side. those originated on one of two porches located on the

acropolis. senators represented america's widely divergent regional history cultures and populations. greek figures of women supported the east gallery. they represented art, commerce, agriculture, science, military force and civil government. the range of occupations in which americans excelled as an independent nation. neither images or descriptions of them survived. latrobe designed in room in figures as a theater for the

senate and a gallery or galleries supported for the people and a work of art in which the character and taste of russian architecture is preserved and a work of rational decoration in which that is reasonable is made to supply the decoration. all lost the 1814 fire.1ñ for his post-fire senate chamber they would stand atop the public gallery. latrobe's son remembered seeing

some of these, figures of north and south carolina represented as sisters. the arm of one around the neck of the other. also massachusetts and maine. a mother leading her child for maine was in district only. one of these in shown in provile on the 1817 section drawing of the north wing. even highly educated euro americans. -- backwards. backwards.

thomas law's elegant condemnation was not unique. everybody to whom i have spoken condemns them equally. the architect responded with a lengthy essay of how sentiments and abstract ideas are expressed on human faces, heard as human languages, written as records, and depicted in paintings and sculpture as signs and internal operation of the mind neither audible, visible, nor tangible. and this i'm quoting him now in extent. if then it is the intention of architectural writing to record events or to perpetuate sentiments, national customs, or private matters and it is

admitted that such records are worthy of the expense they may occasion, the consideration of the character in which the records shall be written and of the style is the only one before us. it may, indeed, be said that as good laws may be made in a wigwam as in the capital and that all decoration is useless and all history mere idle amusement. the senate by the constitution of our country represents not the majority of the people like the house of representatives but the individual states as corporate bodies. if their chamber is to be decorated at all, the decoration should have the character consistent with the character of the body for which it was built. their character as the assembly of the states is that which is most prominent. the practice of representing

communities by female figures hayes existed since the dawn of hit. an unknown statute without attributes is every where received the portrait of an individual. this then remains the only question, it is a question respecting the talents of the architect and of his sculptors. are the attributes intelligible. the chronological state of the agricultural and improvement of the states at the time of building the senate chamber furnish an exuberant choice strongly marking and distinguishing the states from one another. latrobe's other two american orders are associated with the senate chamber. he designed his magnolia flower order for dwarf columns on the visitor's gallery above the entrance to the first senate. he probably represented -- it probably represented america's arts and sciences. the magnolia was the first

native american tree considered to be beautiful enough to be planted at the royal botanical garden at kew gardens in london. he designed his first order, the tobacco leaf rotunda outside the entrance of the senate after the fire. tobacco was america's second largest export product after grain and latrobe probably intended the delicate flowers and broad leaves to represent american commerce, the nation's merchants. both latrobe's pre and post-firehouse chambers commanded his best architectural efforts. he finished his first house of representatives in 1807 designed in close collaboration with president jefferson. it was intended to be a unique room where the directly elected representatives of the modern world's first system of

government by and for the people assembled. the elliptical hippodrome footprint on his pre-fire chamber was predetermined. hallet had chosen the ancient hippodrome shape because of its associations with the seating at versailles. the french national assembly met there to hammer out a peaceful transition from monarchical to democratic government for america's principal ally during the revolution. the central podium surrounded by tiered seats proved to be good acoustically and visually for a large assembly being addressed by individual orators. washington had sanctioned hallet's design in 1793, so the shape itself remained.

latrobe modified the elliptical shape to have semi circular ends to be more in harmony with the pure geometry of the greeks but also because it was cheaper to build in stone than an oval one would have been. latrobe wanted -- jefferson wanted latrobe to build skylights over this unusual house chamber based on some used in paris which had long rectangles down to the base. after latrobe argued against the inherent problem of sky lights, leaks and much too much heat and light, the president opined, the house's sky lights would make it the chamber the handsomest room in the world without a single exception, in the world. during night sessions, for example, jefferson's house dome would have radiated light like a beacon.

latrobe's modification was to light the chamber via 100 sky lights set in rows alternating with rows of coppers here accurately and beautifully reconstructed digitally. this house chamber existed for seven years from 1807 until burned by the british in august 1814 yet no drawings nor paintings of it are known. there's not even a single description of how people reacted to it. mr. chenoweth has also visually recreate what had latrobe's first house would have been like had the architect not acquiesced

to jefferson's desire for sky lights. it would have been lit by a cupola flooding the chamber with a large mass of central light. jefferson and latrobe were at odds about the choice of the ancient architectural order for the house chamber. members of congress were elected directly by the people, and thus in jefferson's view its chamber was the capitol's most important room deserving of the stateliest of the classical orders. jefferson preferred the corinthian. perhaps his choice was not just their beauty but the fact that the brothers castor and pollux were the sons of zeus, helen of troy their sister. because it was part of rome's foundation, jefferson may well have considered their temple's order an appropriate link to america's founding era which was so steeped in the ideals of roman republicanism. at first latrobe favored roman doric columns for the house

chamber, but his next choice was the order of the winds -- order of the tower of the winds located in the roman forum on the athenian acropolis. by october 1804 he abandoned the tower's order in favor of a more elaborate greek one and by november 7 had convinced jefferson to accept the corinthian order which you see in the center. latrobe offered to marry this order together with the cornice of the temple of castor and pollux but jefferson preferred the roman medallion cornice used in american georgian architecture. latrobe justified this kind of

synthesis because he believed the greeks did not have the same rigid rules of the orders that vitruvius and his renaissance followers imposed on antiquity. the greeks knew of no such rules but having established general proportions in laws of form and arrangement, all matters and detail were left to the talent and taste of individual architects. the total destruction of the 100 skylight house left latrobe now free of jefferson's influence and he built his final house as a semi circular auditorium room. you recognize this as statuary hall but i just want to point out that along the diameter marked by the columns, those columns are standing on plinths that are about five feet tall because when this was in use as the house of representatives, the seating was canted as in the theater but once it became just

a passway to the new house chamber, then they had to have a flat roof -- a flat floor to walk across. colorful and monumental potomac columns framed the circumference and diameter of this semi circular auditorium room. the choice of the order might also have been because of the close association of all the monuments with the nature of greek theater which was song rather than recited. the house's auditorium form was descended from ancient theaters. an individual greek actor might have been considered and appropriate choice to be remembered in this chamber whose occupants were directly elected

by individual americans. once corinthian was selected for the house chamber, latrobe used the tower of winds order for the columns in both vestibules serving the house chamber. british 18th century scholars of greek architecture considered the towers orders as intermediate between ionic and corinthian and called it the attic order. the vestibule between the house and the capitol's central lip ÷ rotunda is a circular tempietto with columns. on the east side that you see looking up on the left are set between two sets of attic columns allowing visitors to look into this brightly lit adjacent space, the house's second vestibule. so the two vestibules are the upper vestibule behind those

columns and then the floor level from which i am taking this picture is the second vestibule. this was a double vestibule beginning at the ground level entrance to the house wing. more complex than the corresponding corn capitol vestibule in the senate wing. visitors to the house chamber entered at ground level, a rectangle the same size and shape as the corn capitol vestibule but light flooding the inner vestibule drew them into a two-story upended double cubed space. all of its upper walls were decorated with two free-standing tower of the winds columns. those on three sides stood in front of walls except those facing the tempietto vestibule's window. from the ground floor vestibule one looked up diagonally through the windows into the dome of a circular vestibule outside the house chamber. cupolas lighting both of these house vestibules admitted

abundant light and concentrated light in this vertical space. the unity of light latrobe so favored. both are intact but are under the skirting of the cast iron dome erected in the 1850s. but how to ascend to the house chamber? no immediately apparent staircase was in the double cube inner vestibule. rather, it was enclosed in its south wall. an ill lit flight of stairs that ended at the entrance to the house. those who claimed the staircase emerged from dimness into brilliant light from two directions, the house chamber's cupola and those of its vestibules.

latrobe was employing his version of architecture which speaks, the late 18th century french architectural theater which eschewed decoration to convey meaning in favor of relying on the functions associated with architectural forms itself. for latrobe it was light that was speaking as those entombed in the stair's darkness -- the darkness representing monarchical forms of government rose gradually to the light of x democracy. jefferson and latrobe meant the physical light flooding the house chamber and its vestibules to represent the enlightenment ideal of liberty as the new civic religion.

the correction between light and liberty was common in the colonies where enlightenment ideals of liberty and religious tolerance were linked. in 1795 jefferson wrote, light and liberty go together. his most succinct commentary. but on july 12th, 1812, he wrote latrobe that the capitol was the first temple to be dedicated to the sovereignty of the people. to jefferson's written words we must add his intention to light the house chamber as a kind of light house pinpointing the location of america's representative form of government. latrobe understood jefferson's covert meaning for the house but reversed the flow of light to flow downward to enlighten the deliberations of congressmen. neither latrobe nor jefferson left a known paper trail discussing the hidden meanings that raise the house of representatives to the pinnacle

of what the american revolution had achieved, the truth is in their work. the house's magnificent entrance sequence survived the fire to serve latrobe's second house chamber but was ruined when in the early 1820s congressmen demanded an open staircase were stalled. today one ascends to the house within what was once light and air. latrobe used sculpture to express overt messages. the tradition of a figure of american liberty behind the speaker's chair dates from federal hall in new york and congress hall in philadelphia. the 1792 terra cotta minerva as the patroness of american liberty who wears a helmet decorated with an eagle and a breast plate decorated with the liberty pike and cap was installed in congress hall but it might have been the one planned for federal hall in new york. minerva was the roman equivalent of the greek athena. for latrobe's first house chamber, there was modeled a seated figure of liberty above the speaker's chair. its appearance reconst