renwick was privy to the point the romanesque, rounded arch style. he designed the building with input from robert dale owen. >> they did it on purpose to get away from the bleak style of the other buildings being built. >> it was the first non-ecclesiastical but also national building in this style of architecture. there were a lot of churches in gothic revival, universities had many buildings, yale and harvard. this was the first and we are not a government the but we're on that level. the federal level. >> what did the public think? >> it was mixed. dorothea dix who saw the building being built and she wrote a letter to the president and said that in a near proximity to the white house stands the smithsonian edifice, massive deficient edifices and went on for a long couple of paragraphs and hated it. other people loved it. the sculptor horacio hated it. he said it stamped itself on the beautiful dome of congress as ink upon paper. it was a blot. >> brutal, weren't they? [laughter] it is a really impractical building just because of all of the littl