Associate
Dean Wally Mlyniec is chair of
the Law Center's Campus Completion Committee, which
chose the architects for the Hotung International Law
Building and the Georgetown Sport and Fitness Center,
and worked with them to design the complex. He is now
the Law Center's liaison to the construction team.
Dean Mlyniec has been a member of the faculty since
1973 and is Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic.
His emails keep the community up to date on the progress
of the construction project and try to place it in the
context of our neighborhood. This series of Construction
Notes is copyrighted by Wallace J. Mlyniec; 2002, 2003,
2004.
Date: Tue, 26 October 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Eric E. Hotung International Law Building
Tomorrow, we celebrate the opening of the Eric E. Hotung International Law Building. In doing so, the Georgetown Law Center completes a saga of academic excellence that is intertwined with the history of the Federal City. The Law Center began its educational mission in 1870 in a few simple rooms at the corner of 4 ½ Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
During the ensuing years, it maintained a peripatetic existence throughout downtown Washington, occupying buildings on five sites before it settled at New Jersey Avenue and F Street, N.W. At various times in its history, the Law Center’s stability, too often fragile, was tested; but on each occasion, its dreams were maintained and it emerged stronger than before. Today, it is a giant among academic institutions. Its faculty includes some of the best legal scholars and teachers in academia; its students are among the most talented law students in the nation; its programs in clinical education, international law, constitutional law are models for other schools to emulate. Now, after 134 years, it has a campus that retains its historic ties to the National City and is the equal of its academic aspirations.
It is fitting that the we complete this project this year. Fifty years ago, Paul Regis Dean became Georgetown’s dean. Often called the father of the modern Law Center, Dean initiated its march to academic greatness and foresaw its future emerging in the old East End neighborhood. So as we celebrate the generosity of Eric Hotung, we also celebrate the vision of Paul Dean and the dean’s who followed him: Adrian Fisher (1969 - 1975); David McCarthy (1975 - 1983); Robert Pitofsky (1983 - 1989); and Judith Areen (1989 - 2004). Each was the perfect choice for the time, and each contributed to the Georgetown we know today. As we begin a new era under the leadership of Dean Alex Aleinikoff, the story will continue with new vison, new directions, and new accomplishments.
It is also fitting that the Law Center’s newest building is dedicated to international, comparative, and transnational law. From its birth, Georgetown has welcomed students from foreign countries. Joseph I. Rodriguez, a resident of Cuba, was a member of the Law Center’s first class in 1870. Today, 298 students from 71 different countries are enrolled, comprising 12% of the student body. The design and construction process of the Hotung Building reflected this multi-cultural experience. It was designed and built by workers whose presence in America began with a migration from one of thirty-six separate nations located on six different continents.
The Hotung Building International Law Building was designed by Ralph Jackson, a partner at the architectural firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott. Shepley Bulfinch was founded in 1874, just four years after the Law Center’s birth. One of the oldest architectural firms in the country, Shepley Bulfinch designed buildings that are among the most admired in America. Trinity Church and the Ames Building in Boston, the Art Institute and the old Public Library in Chicago, the Allegheny County Court House in Pittsburgh, Stanford University, and Harvard Medical School all reveal a vision of design excellence that has permeated the firm since it founding. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the civic fabric of both Chicago and Boston owes much to the talent within this firm.
The very names of the firm’s partners give insight into the history of American architecture. Henry Hobson Richardson gave his name to a distinctly American style of architecture that “adapted historical European architectural forms to newly emerging American needs.” Called Richardson Romanesque, the style was emulated throughout the country. Two of Georgetown’s prior homes, the American Colonization Society and the building at 506 E Street, N.W., paid tribute to this style.
Richardson’s influence extended beyond his life. New York architects Charles McKim and Stanford White trained in his studio. Chicago architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright were influenced by his work. Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of Rock Creek Park, was a frequent collaborator. Edward Durrrell Stone, architect of McDonough Hall, studied there as well. Partner Francis Bulfinch is also well known and admired, especially by those who treasure American buildings that are closely related to the nation's history. He designed the Massachusetts State House and the Maine State House, and his renovation of Faneuil Hall gave us the building that we know today. The Shepleys, father and son, and Abbott, were not as renowned as Richardson or Bulfinch. Nonetheless, they also contributed to the firm’s reputation for design and engineering excellence.
The passage of time has not diminished the firm’s skills or influence. Subsequent generations of Shepley Bulfinch architects maintained its tradition of excellence in buildings created for Vanderbilt Medical School, Northeastern University, Brown, Wellesley, Cornell, and others. In the words of Vincent Scully, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Art History at Yale, the firm has “moved seamlessly from the late 19th century into the present.” These traditions of excellence and civic virtue continue today as a new century dawns. A new generation of architects at Shepley Bulfinch have redesigned an academic campus for a new generation of lawyers studying at Georgetown Law Center.
The International Law Building is named for Ambassador Eric E. Hotung, CBE, a world-renowned philanthropist and financier. Born in Hong Kong in 1926 and raised in Shanghai, he is the eldest grandson of Sir Robert Hotung -- the last of Hong Kong’s Merchant Princes and a prominent leader in the Chinese community. Ambassador Hotung came to the United States in 1947 and graduated from Georgetown University in 1951.
Following the passing of his grandfather and father in the late 1950s, he returned to Hong Kong to direct his family’s affairs. Ambassador Hotung’s humanitarian work has taken many forms and has touched the lives of people in need throughout the world. During the 1950s and 1960s, he provided low-cost housing to the thousands of displaced Chinese refugees who came to Hong Kong seeking shelter. In 1965, he founded the “Eric Hotung Trust Fund” to improve education in Hong Kong and to encourage young people to study abroad. During the 1970s Ambassador Hotung labored to create better relations between China and the United States. By organizing delegations to travel back and forth between the two countries, he helped arrange avenues of diplomatic communication that fostered a heightened level of mutual understanding and purpose between these two cultures.
Ambassador Hotung remains deeply invested in China’s development and social welfare. He is a Director of the Soong Qing Ling Foundation for Children and created a fund in Guangxi to teach safer childbirth practices, thereby significantly reducing the mortality rate of women and children in the region. Perhaps his greatest humanitarian achievement occurred in the nation of East Timor. In 1999, after learning about the plight of the East Timorese people following their newfound independence, he arranged the successful transportation of over 12,000 refugees from West Timor to East Timor by purchasing a vessel and supporting its operation for a two-year period. He also established free health clinics that have benefitted countless Timorese people. His dedication to the Timorese people and the newly forged nation of East Timor continues to this day, as he serves as Ambassador at Large and Economics Advisor for Timor-Leste. No building dedicated to transnational and international law and understanding could be more appropriately named.
The challenge facing the architects of the Hotung Building was to create a dramatic academic building in a traditional campus vernacular, while simultaneously creating a bold and modern architecture ensemble that opened the campus to the city and the world. Paraphrasing principle architect Ralph Jackson, Georgetown needed a building that exuded “restrained elegance.” He saw Georgetown at this moment in its history as wanting to proclaim its intention to pursue global academic excellence, but not wanting to appear aloof. He saw a school needing to nurture its own academic life, “but also wanting to contribute to life along the street -- to be part of the neighborhood, and indeed the world.”
The Hotung Building succeeds dramatically. Again paraphrasing Jackson, the Hotung Building is a statement about “civility and urbanity” reminiscent of other grand Washington buildings. It communicates the notion that the building is “about people, democracy, and accessibility” and not about the “sometimes rigid strictures of academic hierarchy.” Like its companion, the Sport and Fitness Center, the Hotung Building is contextual. It reflects the existing palette of textures and colors that distinguish the Law Center buildings from others in the neighborhood.
Existing campus cornice lines, podiums, and floor levels are key to the Hotung Building design. The building is similar in scale and exhibits the same quality of detail that is evident in the Williams Library and McDonough Hall. Although the inspiration for the Hotung Building’s form, material, and detail is drawn from existing campus buildings, it is clearly different from its predecessors. Unlike McDonough Hall, the Williams Library, and the Gewirz Residence Hall, the Hotung Building entrances are off center. Its cornice is bolder and suggests an Eastern rather than Occidental antecedent. The public’s first view of each of the Law Center’s buildings suggests its different function and marks a different period of time in the Law Center’s East End sojourn. McDonough Hall, the Williams Library, and the Gewirz Residence all look inward to our own community. Each presents a formal academic appearance and suggests a function that is protective and somewhat isolated from the surrounding neighborhood. The Sport and Fitness Center, while presenting a more casual approach to campus life, is sited in a way that also keeps it insulated from the outside world. The Hotung Building, however, has dual purposes. It presents a formal face that opens up to the city on the east and a somewhat softer campus orientation to the west. Although its rigorous and formal arrangement of windows and cornices suggest the rigorous and formal nature of the law, its windows are large and the glass is clear to connote the transparency and accessibility of the law and learning in America. The step pattern of the fenestration proclaims an elegant urban building that is part of the city and the world. Nonetheless, the Hotung Building retains the feel of an academic center, especially when viewed from the Tower Green.
The interior finishes of the 100,000 square foot building suggest the formality of international organizations along with the traditions of academia. Cherry anigre walls surround the second floor, the elevator lobbies, and the John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library, providing a rich and stately sense of place. The furniture in the lobby is formal though comfortable, encouraging study and diplomatic conversation. The Wolff Library is the central feature of the Hotung International Building. It occupies the third and fourth floor of the Hotung Building and contains 103,250 volumes and volume-equivalents. The tables and carrels are gracefully designed and possess a dignified and cultured style that blends harmoniously with the architecture. Visiting international scholars and student study groups will find five scholar studies, eight scholar carrels, and four group study rooms available for their use. This comfortable setting accommodates the research efforts of two hundred patrons at one time. Reference and circulation desks, on-line search stations, a computer training laboratory, and administrative offices for the International Law Librarian and her staff support the work of these students and scholars.
Professor John Wolff, for whom the library is named, has served the Georgetown community since 1961. For the past 43 years, he has taught numerous courses in international and comparative law in both the J.D. and the LL.M. programs. In addition, he has published many articles in numerous American and German legal publications. Professor Wolff graduated with a LL.D. from the University of Heidelberg and later received his LL.M. from Columbia University. In his long and illustrious career, he has served as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, as a deputy to the U.S. representative to the United Nations War Crimes Commission, as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Justice on issues of international and foreign law, and as the deputy chairman of the Federal Bar Association’s Council on International Law.
Professor Wolff has also lectured at the universities of Munich and Muenster, Germany, and at the Law Society of Berlin. Now in his 98th year, he continues to teach International and Comparative Law to grateful students at the Georgetown Law Center.
Changes in the way legal education is delivered and the growth of the scholarly and teaching activities of the Georgetown faculty guided the interior design of the Hotung Building’s twelve new class rooms. State-of-the-art, medium-sized classrooms are located on each of the first and second floors. They are horseshoe-shaped to encourage serious conversation and debate. Their modern and varied lighting patterns visually suggest the energy that we expect from the discussions that occur within them. A smart-podium with touch-screen controls enables faculty members to integrate on-line and audiovisual materials into their teaching. Professors can introduce physical evidence and printed documents to the class using high-definition evidence presenters. A sophisticated sound system and optimized room acoustics create an ideal environment for class discussions. An advanced fiber optic cable infrastructure combines with wireless connectivity to allow students to tap into internet resources while in class.
In addition to the two larger classrooms, nine new combination seminar/conference rooms are placed throughout the building. These rooms are equipped with an advanced infrastructure for audio and video recording, web casting, and video conferencing. Large monitors can be used to display audio-visual materials. As they can in the larger classrooms, students in the seminar rooms are able to connect wirelessly to the internet. These smaller classrooms permit students to apply the theory they have learned through traditional lecture methods by engaging in simulated litigation exercises, small group discussions, and collaborative problem solving.
The Supreme Court Institute Moot Courtroom is located on the second floor. More than 60% of all United States Supreme Court cases are now mooted at Georgetown’s Supreme Court Institute. To better prepare the advocates, the Moot Court is designed to evoke the interior of Supreme Court courtroom. Though not an exact replica, it does provide advocates the opportunity for a dress rehearsal in an environment strongly resembling the actual Supreme Court chamber. The wood finishes, the leather furniture, and the design and color of the carpet are strikingly similar to that of the real Court chamber. Doric pilasters line the walls in a manner reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s imposing marble Ionic columns. Round ceiling light fixtures set within coffers suggest the medallions in the Court’s coffered ceiling, while molded elliptical designs on the face of the Moot Court bench and rail are reminiscent of circular patterns on those of the Supreme Court.
One of the more unusual characteristics of the Supreme Court is the intimate nature of the Court chamber. Advocates stand in close proximity to the nine Justices and the Court’s well seems small in comparison to the building’s imposing facade and public halls. Our designers replicated the unique spatial relationship between the litigant’s podium and the Justices’ bench to help lawyers gain comfort with the intimate yet overpowering nature of the Court. The shape of the bench and its proximity to the advocate’s podium reproduce the tension of an actual argument. White and red lights on the lectern warn of, and then command, the end of each argument just as they do in the Supreme Court. Red curtains and an ornate clock, which paradoxically is not to be watched by advocates during an oral argument, hang behind the bench, adding yet another touch of reality to the rehearsal experience.
Because the Moot Court will also serve the needs of our trial advocacy program, it can be quickly transformed from an appellate court to a trial court. It contains the same complex technology now used in modern Federal District courts. Sophisticated audio and video recording systems, document cameras, annotation monitors, and plasma screens allow students to perfect their electronic trial skills by reviewing their courtroom performances with faculty members as they occur.
The Hotung Building also provides fifteen new faculty offices on the sixth floor. The Law Center’s various institutes and its renowned Continuing Legal Education Program are located on the fifth floor. Two of Georgetown’s eight law journals, the International Environmental Law Review and the International Law Journal, and various student organizations are located on the first floor. In keeping with the international theme of the Hotung Building, the Associate and Assistant Deans, the professional staff, and the support staff for our Office of International and Graduate Programs occupy the Yoshiyuki Takada Suite on the sixth floor. Mr. Takada is the president of the SMC Corporation, a progressive manufacturing company located in Tokyo, Japan. In 1997, Mr.
Takada helped establish a chair in Asian Legal Studies at the Law Center in honor of James Morita, L'40, H'95, whose work with the Japanese community in Hawaii is instrumental to its welfare. Offices for the staff of the Law Center’s International Summer School Programs in Florence and London and a resource library are also located in the suite. Finally, a graduate student lounge and information center are adjacent to the Takada Suite.
The Timothy and Linda O’Neill Alumni Welcome Center was created on the second floor of the Hotung Building overlooking the Tower Green to acknowledge the importance of the Law Center’s alumni to its mission and to the success of the Campus Completion Project. The Welcome Center includes a library and business center for alumni visitors. The Alumni, Development, and Public Relations staff, along with reception areas, exhibit spaces, work spaces, and conference rooms are located both on the first floor and in the Welcome Center. The O’Neills are 1977 graduates of Georgetown, he from the Law Center and she from the School of Nursing. Mr. O’Neill practiced law as an associate at Donovan, Leisure, and Irvine in New York before joining Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in 1988. Mrs. O’Neill volunteers full-time at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and is a trustee, along with her husband, of the Timothy J. and Linda D. O’Neill Foundation. Placing the Alumni Center on the campus brings together for the first time all segments of the Law Center community and offers students unparalleled access to the alumni. We hope that the Alumni Center will connect the students of today with the students of the past in ways that will encourage an understanding of the Law Center’s history and permit alumni to guide students who are contemplating their future life and work.
The celebration tomorrow ties together our past, our present, and our future. It marks the end of a half century of academic achievement and physical expansion, and summons dreams of greater challenges and achievement. Georgetown’s initial investment in the East End thirty-five years ago was the catalyst for the vibrant neighborhood that grows around us today. Since our arrival in 1971, hotels, residences, restaurants, and retailers have joined the Law Center to completely transform our neighborhood. By leading this East End renaissance, Georgetown reaffirmed the commitment it made to Washington, D.C. in 1870, when it chose to locate its law school in the city’s downtown rather than on the Georgetown University hilltop.
As we contemplate the reinvigorated campus today, we are reminded of that commitment and our history. The Tower Green that now encompasses the old F Street, reminds us that our prior buildings were located on various streets in the original L’Enfant plan. Looking north from the Hotung Building, we see Gonzaga High School’s first building in the East End, still standing on I Street, N.W., but now surrounded by other buildings that provide a testament to their own history of growth. Doing so, we are reminded that a century ago, Gonzaga vacated the old Washington Seminary at 9th and F Streets, N.W., and offered the building to the Law Center for its second home. Looking east, Union Station reminds us of Washington D.C.’s post Civil War rebirth and of the McMillan Commission’s revitalization plan that married the Beaux Arts movement to the L’Enfant plan at the beginning of the twentieth century.
To the west we see the Holy Rosary Church and hear the bells ringing from its campanile, reminding us of the immigrants and former slaves who occupied our East End neighborhood between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the disastrous era of urban renewal. When we look south, we see the majestic U.S. Capitol Dome, reminding us that the city of Pierre L’Enfant and George Washington is a tribute to the great democratic experiment of the 18th century philosophers and patriots, and a monument to the rule of law which we study every day. Each day into the future, the vistas we see from this Hotung International Law Building will remind us anew of our history in Washington and of our enduring commitment to this city and to the world.
The old East End, a neighborhood once teeming with life and then abandoned, is now restored. Together, we and our neighbors look to the future; we await stories yet to be told and dreams yet to be fulfilled. Dreams of academic excellence and civic virtue dance in the minds of our Georgetown Law Center community, while dreams of hope and prosperity linger in the air of the old East End. Our past and our pursuit of global understanding and justice link us to this neighborhood and to the rest of the world. It is our duty to remember those who once lived here, and to hold the land and our aspirations in trust for those who will follow us.
As the Campus Completion Project comes to its end, so do these Construction Notes. For those of you who are new to the Law Center, you can find the earlier stories on the Law Center web page. To those of you who have wandered with me during these last two years through Georgetown’s history and architectural achievements, I hope you have enjoyed reading the Notes as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you.
Date: Thu, 9 September 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Georgetown Sport and Fitness Center
Tomorrow we celebrate the opening of the Georgetown University Law Center Sport and Fitness facility. Designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbot, with the assistance of Ellerbe Becket and Group Goetz, this stunning athletic center with its welcoming Tower Green has transformed both the Law Center and our old East End neighborhood. The architectural goals for the site were to develop a formal, urban, architectural experience that strengthened the existing character of the campus and to provide a sequence and variety of spaces using form, mass, and materials that complemented and completed the existing buildings on the Law Center campus. Our goals have been met. The arrangement and design of the new buildings complete the evolution of the campus as an urban academic center, strengthen its sense of identity, and provide that variety of activities and experiences that are consistent with the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis, caring for the whole person.
The 100,000 square foot Sport and Fitness Center is contextual, and thus, its detailing and scale reflect the other buildings on the campus.
Its height is approximately the same as McDonough Hall and the Williams Library. Its brick color blends with that of McDonough Hall and the Gewirz Residence, yet it is not identical. There is a range of brick colors that add subtle variations and a vitality to the walls. As in other buildings on campus, the Sport and Fitness Center has architectural reveals set in the masonry to break the plane of the large wall surfaces, making them more human in scale. Set back between the more formal Hotung International Law Building and Gewirz Residence, the Sport and Fitness Center uses its great expanse of glass to welcome and protect its visitors. Indeed, the building is open and transparent at all levels to clearly indicate its informal functions and to permit patrons to see in and out. Its north facade celebrates this principle with a four-story glass curtain wall, articulated by four elegant branching columns that reach the roof. The support for the roof, also visible from both the inside and the outside, is an intricate system of trusses that is as much a piece of art as it is a roof support.
The non-academic character of the Sport and Fitness Building is reflected in a physical presence that is different from its companion and from the other campus buildings. Though physically connected to the Gewirz Residence and to Hotung, the Sport and Fitness Center is designed to function differently from its neighbors. As one enters the Sport and Fitness Center, there is no doubt about its separate design and purpose.
The Café and dining spaces on the second floor display a modern, almost European design that is at once playful and relaxed, but strong and sleek. The upper and lower floors clearly define the building’s character as a recreation center.
The building’s playful purpose surrounds patrons as they enter the second floor from the Tower Green. Once inside, they may choose to dine at the Courtside Café, purchase items from the Recess Express, or choose from a wide array of athletic activities. A two-story high atrium lounge, a double fireplace, and a double-pool fountain signal areas for quiet thought and conversation in a building designed primarily for active enjoyment. The Recess Express will supply the retail needs of both Fitness Center visitors and Gewirz residents. The Café, serving traditional student fare, overlooks the lap pool to the south and the Green to the north. A juice and coffee bar, also serving wine and beer in the evening, adds to the casual nature of the room. Both modern dining furniture as well as comfortable, casual chairs and sofas are available for more relaxed camaraderie. The Courtside Café and lounge, like the entire campus, has wireless internet connectivity so that patrons can access legal research and web-based course materials, read their e mail, and peruse their student accounts while they eat, play, study, or relax.
Those choosing to exercise will register at the desk opposite the main door. There they will be directed to the locker rooms and pool below, or to the sports equipment desk, exercise rooms, and game courts above. The four-lane, twenty five meter lap pool on the first floor is in a naturally lit, high-ceilinged space with windows that open above to the dining area on the north and to the exterior on the south. One hundred and fifty day lockers and a whirlpool are located in each locker room.
Staff offices, a towel service and laundry, massage rooms, and rooms for health and fitness counseling and music and art practice are also located on the first floor.
The third floor of the Sport and Fitness Center contains a weight training and exercise room overlooking the atrium and the Green. Over 60 pieces of equipment, some with computer, video, and audio enhancements are available to achieve one’s fitness goals. There are 32 separate cardio machines, 3 nautilus chest machines, 3 Cybex and 3 Nautilus back machines, 3 Nautilus shoulder machines, 2 Nautilus arm machines, 5 Nautilus and 2 Cybex leg machines, 2 Nautilus abdominal machines, and 5 Nautilus XPlode Machines for a complete circuit training experience.
Many of the treadmills overlook the Tower Green and McDonough Hall. In addition, there is an assortment of free weights, presses, benches, and cross overs to turn anyone in Arnold Schwarzenegger. Two aerobics rooms and a spinning room with 28 bikes are located to the south side of the third floor. Those unsure of their physical capacity may employ personal trainers for a fee.
The fourth floor contains two glass-backed racquetball courts, and a double-height, maple-floored basketball court that converts into two volleyball courts or two basketball half-courts for intramural competition. The Tower Green is visible from the courts through tall glass windows. Classes in dance, racquetball, cardio, kick boxing, spinning, pilates, self defense, yoga, swimming, bosu, and sports conditioning will be available. When the workout is over, patrons will cool down in Adirondack deck chairs on a fourth-floor balcony overlooking the Tower Green.
The stone plaza in front of the Sport and Fitness Building and the Tower Green are designed to be experienced by passers-by as well as users.
They serve to connect McDonough Hall to the Sport and Fitness Center and to the Hotung Building and provide a grand entrance to the new buildings. The entrance to Sport and Fitness relates to the McDonough Hall entrances and to the pedestrian routes through the campus.
Moreover, the combination of the Green, the plaza, and the glass curtain wall create an inside/outside experience that enlivens the area and makes it feel safe and pleasant. This inside/outside experience is further enhanced because the plaza’s fan-shape design mimics the curve of the building’s facade. The pattern of the plaza’s stone pavers also reflects the deliberately off-center orientation of the interior floors and walls. They also resemble the pattern of the Cafe’s terrazzo floors.
Stone benches on the plaza, the soon to be added tables and chairs, and the glass curtain wall reinforce the integrated indoor/outdoor experience whether one is dining, studying, or engaging in conversation.
The edge of the stone plaza flows seamlessly into the Tower Green. The main area of the Green follows the natural downward slope of the land between 2nd and 1st Streets. Despite this eastern-sloping grade, the Green is flat enough to allow an impromptu touch football game in the Fall or a frisbee tournament in the spring. Trees and shrubs are modest to allow for such activities; yet when the trees mature and additional benches are placed, there will be ample quiet areas for dreaming and contemplating one’s future and past.
Rising above the Tower Green is our elegant brick and precast campanile, topped by a copper roof. Though built in context, it is a structure unto itself. It commands attention from both inside and outside the campus, yet does so with grace and charm. It reflects our past, but also suggests our permanence. Tomorrow the clock will begin to mark the flow of our lives, pleasantly chiming the hour to add to the ambiance, and reminding our neighbors that we are a place of academic reflection and a potent partner in the future of our city and our world.
None of this would have been possible without the vision of former Dean Judy Areen and the generosity of Dallas business leader and 1978 Law Center graduate, Scott K. Ginsburg. As a child in Sioux City, Iowa., Mr Ginsburg was fascinated with television cameras and courtroom lawyers, two interests he has retained throughout his life. After graduation, he served as Staff Director for the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Poverty, and Migratory Labor and the Senate Subcommittee on Social Security. He also worked on several Senatorial campaigns, including that of former Senator John Culver of Iowa, before moving to Dallas to embark on a career in media ownership. Mr. Ginsburg was the founder of Evergreen Media Corp, Statewide Broadcasting, Inc., and H&G Communications, Inc. He is currently chairman of Digital Generation Systems. His cumulative experiences in law, politics, business, and philanthropy have been the foundation for a string of notable achievements in both the Dallas and Georgetown communities.
Athletics have always been an important part of Mr. Ginsburg’s life.
Remembering his own experiences at the Law Center, he wanted to contribute to the quality of the Georgetown students' lives. He hopes his gift will remind our community that “recreation and fitness are important parts of law school life, and that it will inspire other alumni to support the Center's facilities.”
The partnership of Mr. Ginsburg and Dean Areen have produced an extraordinary Sport and Fitness Center. No free standing law school in America, and few university-based law schools, provide a recreation center as magnificent as ours. A hundred years ago, a thriving neighborhood with homes, churches, and businesses occupied this site. A mere three years ago, nothing remained but a parking lot and the Tobishima Company’s shattered dreams of a flagship commercial property.
Today, the Georgetown Sport and Fitness Center and its companion Hotung International Law Building form a quadrangle with McDonough Hall and the Gewirz Residence that will bring new activity, new conversation, and new academic inquiry to our community. The neighborhood will once more reverberate with energy, laughter, and purpose. Vitality and vibrancy, silenced for so many years, has finally returned to the old East End neighborhood.
Date: Mon, 16 August 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Law Center Expansion Years
The final weeks of any construction project create tension,
stress, and anxiety. Hundreds of details must be addressed.
Tempers flare, voices are raised, and friendships begin
to strain. Inspectors discover flaws where none were
thought to exist, and demand changes that delay the
building's opening. Furniture installers wait at the
lower floor hoping that inspectors will certify an elevator's
operability. Inaccurate shop drawings show square columns
where round ones exist, forcing slight relocations of
furniture and the redrilling of concrete slabs for new
electrical and data outlets. Ceiling designs become
more difficult to install than originally anticipated,
requiring hours of overtime. Future users of the buildings
survey their spaces and find fault, forgetting that
theirs is but one of hundreds of electrical outlets
and dozens of bookcases that have been placed according
to standard use patterns rather than individual preferences.
Late deliveries bring complaints, ill will, and bad
behavior from future users. They ignore the immense
amount of coordination required to complete a $61 million
project as they demand solutions for personal idiosyncracies.
Through it all, the work systematically continues. As
the lighting and electrical contractors finish their
work, Go Card swipes and closed circuit television (CCTV)
cameras must be tied into the security system. After
optical fiber is blown into the conduit, network engineers
must install servers and tie in the data outlets so
that telephones and computers work when the offices
are occupied. A.V. engineers install and connect cable
access television (CATV) systems, plasma screens, and
televisions. Painters touch up previously painted walls
and ceilings, while wood workers erase nicks from anigre
paneled walls. Masons clean bricks and blocks, and buff
down rough edges on stone walls, while window washers
provide spotless views from the offices within. Fitness
equipment arrives, the pool is filled, and mirrors and
curtains are hung in the locker rooms, showers, and
bathrooms. Basketball hoops are erected, the court is
striped, and the glass walls of the racquetball courts
are polished. The aerobic floors are redone because
they do not meet our satisfaction. Crews scurry around
daily, cleaning each area and recleaning as inspectors
require additional work. Ceiling tiles are replaced
as previously unnoticed leaks are repaired. Retail shelves
are installed, kitchen equipment is tested, and stone
for the fireplace is finally released by U.S. customs.
Damaged sprinkler heads are replaced just ahead of an
inspector's visit.
Outside, pathway and sidewalk pavers are set and street
lights are installed. Landscapers set the grass pavers,
fill them with soil, and then watch as hurricane induced
rains wash the top soil away. This week we begin again,
replacing the top soil and adding sod to the surface
of a simple yet clever planting system that will provide
a beautiful lawn and yet be strong enough to support
a moving fire engine. Dying trees are cut down as new
trees and shrubs are planted. Watering systems are installed,
and F Street is prepared for a new guard station and
garage entry system.
All the while, the GULC/Whiting Turner team perseveres,
trapped between self imposed deadlines and city inspection
schedules. And then, on Friday the 13th, with the specter
of hurricane winds and rain ahead of us, the final inspector
releases his stickers and a certificate of occupancy
is granted for the buildings. The Campus Completion
Project, the culmination of almost 50 years of plans
and dreams, is ready for occupancy.
Although the Campus Completion Project is nearing its
end, one chapter remains to be told in the architectural
history of the Law Center campus. McDonough Hall was
barely completed in 1971, when growth and progress created
new strains on the building. By 1977, the Law Center
was seriously considering enlarging McDonough Hall,
renting office space, and erecting another building.
The library stacks were nearly filled, the building
was crowded, and the space did not match the Law Center's
ambition. In 1982, the Law Center's Planning Committee
reported that the library in McDonough Hall exceeded
it design capacity of 275,000 volume equivalents. 2,500
students occupied the single building that served the
Law Center's entire academic and administrative program.
Students were demanding even more services, more Law
Journals, and more elective courses, all of which required
more space. Since no Law Center housing existed, all
students were commuters and campus life was nonexistent.
In truth, the Law Center had no campus. Moreover, our
neighborhood was virtually deserted and not very safe.
Architectural critic Ben Forgey, when later recalling
the neighborhood around New Jersey Avenue and F Streets,
N.W., wrote that for most of the 1970s, "there was no
there there."
The full time faculty was growing. In 1978, 54 full
time faculty taught at the Law Center. By 1984, the
faculty was to grow to 63, all of whom were expected
to produce more scholarship, forge links with other
scholars and policy analysts, and create institutes
that would further the Law Center's goals for interdisciplinary
learning. The growing Clinic Educational program was
housed in rented space, some on the other side of G
Street in the Levy Building, some downtown at 605 G
Street, N.W., and some at 25 E Street, N.W. Classrooms
for seminars and small sections were lacking since McDonough
was designed with large lecture halls, the predominant
venue for classroom instruction in most American law
schools at that time.
In 1977, a committee appointed by Dean David McCarthy
and chaired by Professor Frank Flegal, began considering
the challenges posed by the Law Center's ambitions in
relation to its reality. Georgetown had purchased most
of the few remaining houses and parcels of land on the
Williams Library site. One of the buildings on the site,
a restaurant called the Chancery, was once owned by
a group of Georgetown faculty members. By then, however,
it had become a topless bar whose owners held out until
late in our planning process. At one point, the University's
lawyer, Al Ledgard, reminded the bar owner that Georgetown
had been in Washington for almost 200 hundred years
and was likely to remain here for at least another 200.
Citing the power of permanency, Al advised him that
Georgetown would one day own his property, and would
own it on our own terms. Because of the hold-out, the
original library plan was drawn to literally surround
the restaurant. Over time, Georgetown sued the restaurant
for operating a sexually oriented business near a church
(our chapel), the topless bar business declined, and
the owner died. Georgetown then bought the property,
and the south east corner of the library was redesigned.
The Building Committee chose the firm of Hartman and
Cox to design a building that could hold the library,
the law journals, and the clinics. Established in 1965,
Hartman and Cox had broken from the modernist trends
of 20th century architecture and established a style
that was contextual, that is, sensitive to a building's
location and surroundings, and one which recalled the
classicist school of architecture. Hartman and Cox became
leaders of the so called "Washington School" of architecture
which was, in some sense, part of the post modernist/contextual
wave of architecture occurring in the 1970s. Old facades
on Washington buildings began to be preserved as new
construction rose behind them. Innovation in materials
was explored. Architectural elements from older buildings
were reassessed and reused with modern adaptation.
Warren Cox has stated that Washington is "more than
a place; it is a state of mind." Such thinking permeates
his work and that of Mario Boiardi, a Hartman Cox partner
who helped design four projects for the Law Center.
The Edward Bennett Williams Library, named for a legendary
Washington lawyer and 1944 Law Center graduate, is a
grand building in the Washington vernacular. Its rotunda
and curved east end suggest the neo classical buildings
of the Federal Triangle, while its overall look has
been called "greco-deco." Its three story atrium with
a central, top lit, interior court is reminiscent of
the Corcoran Gallery. Its reading room recalls the Folger
Shakespeare Library which Hartman and Cox remodeled
between 1976 and 1983. Yet it is built in context with
and sensitive to Edward Durrell Stone's McDonough Hall.
Like McDonough Hall, the Williams Library is "placed
on a podium and has a repetitive ordering of facades.
It also emulates Stone's building in height. But, it
is not the same. Unlike McDonough Hall, it has no roof
slab cornice. Three sides of the building are placed
on the street line whereas McDonough Hall sits entirely
on the podium. The Williams Library was one of the first
Washington buildings to use decorative precast concrete,
often mistaken for limestone, whereas Stone used brick
and poured concrete for McDonough Hall. This combination
of old and new, context and contrast, and invention
and emulation can be seen in Hartman Cox buildings throughout
the city. 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Sumner School
complex, Market Square, and others all incorporate the
Hartman Cox design philosophy.
The $25 million Williams Library, completed in1989 under
the leadership of Dean Robert Pitofsky, was to be only
the first of the Hartman Cox projects at the Law Center.
During the course of the library project, the original
plans were changed. The later Boiardi and Cox design
moved the clinics and a new cafeteria into an underground
expansion to the west side of McDonough Hall. Renovations
to the old library spaces on the third and fourth floor
of the building avoided the labyrinthian passages of
the original and brought light to the building's interior.
Many of the interior concrete block walls were covered
over, painted, and decorated to eliminate the industrial
feeling that permeated the building.
In the 1980s, Georgetown partnered with the Tobishima
Company of Japan to co-develop the parcel of land south
of the Law Center. A little fish restaurant and the
Salvation Army offices and book store made way for a
project that envisioned Georgetown building a residence
hall on the west side of the site and Tobishima erecting
a $150 million office building on the east side. A shared
urban park would have joined the two buildings. The
vagaries of the Japanese economy, however, ended Tobishima's
plans for its flagship American development, and eventually
caused the demise of Tobishima itself. Georgetown, however,
continued to move forward.
The $23 million Bernard and Sara Gewirz Center, named
for a local developer and philanthropist who attended
Georgetown Law Center and his wife, was completed in
1993 under the leadership of Dean Judy Areen. Warren
Cox and Mario Boiardi again combined context and contrast
when designing a 12 story residence hall that had a
child care center below grade and a ceremonial dining
room and balcony at the top. Interior and exterior columns
and pilasters reflect the grandeur of Washington. A
series of projections and recessions create a rhythm
on the long east and west facades. The decorative Union
Jack railings, pilasters, and half columns distinguish
the building from the mundane and suggest a first class
apartment building. According to critic Ben Forgy, "playful
little triglyphs ...[on the curtain wall are a] sign
of the design's distinct origins in the classical Doric
order." The building, however, remains contextual. The
cylindrical drum rising from the fifth to the eleventh
floor echos the rotunda of the Williams Library, while
the fourth floor cornice over the door denotes the lower
heights of the other Law Center buildings. Repetitive
ordering of the facades recall both McDonough Hall and
the Williams Library, and the arcades on all three buildings
unite them. The brick color resembles, but is not identical
to, the color of McDonough Hall, while precast cornices
and lintels recall the Williams Library. Again, according
to Forgy, "it is a quietly distinguished building that
literally and figuratively helps transform things around
it." Finally, the arch over the door connects the building
to Georgetown's history. Its shape resembles the entry
arch at the Law Center's prior building at 5th and E
Streets, N.W. built by James Denson. That arch now decorates
a wall at the east end of the Library Quad.
The last project Hartman Cox designed for the Law Center
was the East Wing of McDonough Hall. Completed in 1997
under the leadership of Dean Judy Areen, the East Wing
houses classrooms, offices, and conference rooms. Built
at a cost of $12 million, the new wing improves the
east facade of McDonough without looking like a last
minute fix. Stone's unwieldy podium is shortened, thus
making it more inviting. The color of the bricks is
identical but their shape is slightly concave, bringing
"new interest" to the curtain walls. The wing's height
lines up with McDonough Hall and retains Stone's signature
flat protruding eave. The rotunda and precast concrete
recall the Williams Library and the Gewirz Center. The
architects reproduced Stone's vertical piers and windows
but introduced architectural hierarchy to the facade.
In addition, the piers are fluted rather than flat.
In sum, like all Hartman Cox/Boiardi projects, the East
Wing is contextual but contrasts with and improves on
the original.
The engineering for the East Wing is equally impressive.
Because it is built over the Hart Auditorium, essentially
a large cavern incapable of holding the weight of a
building, the wing had to be hung rather than set on
the surface. Mining equipment was brought into the McDonough
Hall garage to dig fifty-foot deep holes under the garage
in which supports were set to hang the building. Hartman
and Cox had performed a similar feat when remodeling
the Folger Library. In both cases, the architects provided
a sophisticated solution to a complicated engineering
problem.
The concepts of context and innovation and the blend
of old and new architectural elements introduced by
Hartman, Cox and Boiardi resonated in our planning for
the Hotung Building and the Sport and Fitness Center.
Architects from Shepley, Bullfinch, Richardson and Abbot
and from Ellerbe and Becket studied our campus and borrowed
design elements from the earlier buildings. Both new
buildings recall elements of earlier Law Center buildings
and treat them with respect without replicating their
essential nature. Nonetheless, the Shepley architects
have created two new striking architectural ensembles
that break from earlier motifs while respecting their
integrity. As we begin to occupy the new buildings this
week, their design reminds us of both our venerable
past and our limitless future.
Date: Fri, 2 July 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: F Street and the Highway to Nowhere
So many activities are occurring at the construction
site that it is difficult to recount them all. New sidewalks
have been set along First Street; concrete pavers are
being set along F Street; and the alley behind the buildings
is ready for repaving. New sewer lines are going in.
Every day, another mechanical system or air handling
system is being tested.
Inside the Sport and Fitness Center, floors have been
laid in the aerobics rooms, the cardio and weight areas,
and the spinning room. Glass walls are standing and
the floors have been finished in the racquet ball courts
anticipating the first serve. Concrete pavers now rest
on the third floor terrace, awaiting Adirondack furniture
and weary athletes. Lockers have been installed on the
first floor, and an intricate ceiling above the swimming
pool will soon be visible. Fireplace boxes, metal column
covers, and stone wall coverings are being installed
on the second floor, completing the interior design
of the cyber café, the juice and coffee bar,
and the lounge area.
In the Hotung International Building, anigre millwork,
stone column covers, and custom shelving grace the library.
Terrazzo risers are being set in the staircases. Lighting,
wall paneling, desks, and blackboards give hints of
the coming student-faculty discussions in the classrooms.
Offices have carpets and bookshelves, data and electrical
outlets. The Moot Court judges' bench, coffered ceiling,
walls, and pilasters reflect the elegance of the United
States Supreme Court, upon which our courtroom is modeled.
On the Tower Green, decorative louver grilles and an
elegant Roman-numeraled clock face now command the Tower.
Soon they will be joined by chimes to mark the passing
of time. Landscaping preparation has begun on the Tower
Green itself. Concrete sub-base has been poured for
the Sport and Fitness terrace and the walkways. Soon
their pavers will delineate the flow of pedestrians.
Whiting-Turner construction trailers are being dismantled,
a sure sign that the site is almost ready. Watering
systems will soon be installed, followed by grass, trees,
shrubs, and flowers that will add texture to the Tower
Green. F Street as a thoroughfare will disappear, replaced
by landscaping all the way to the north curb line.
According to the D.C. Historic Preservation Board, F
Street ranks as one of the most important lettered streets
in the original city plan drawn by Pierre L'Enfant.
Although L'Enfant sited most public buildings on the
wider diagonal streets that were to be named for the
states, F street, like 8th and G Streets, served to
connect the original Appropriations, that is, the lots
on which major buildings, parks, and memorials were
to be sited. As originally designed, F Street connected
the Appropriation for the Executive Grounds (the President's
House) with the Appropriation for the National Church
(the idea of a National Church was later replaced by
the Patent Office), and with the Appropriation for Judiciary
Square. Moreover, L'Enfant used F Street as part of
a Baroque triangulation device that reappears throughout
his city plan. Instead of showing important vistas as
"simple views down a street from one building to another,"
L'Enfant created oblique views of significant buildings
and "an interlocking geometric composition" to display
the grandeur of the City. For example, when one looks
at the Capitol while standing on Pennsylvania Avenue,
one sees the building as it relates to the Mall (originally
L'Enfant's Grand Avenue) even though the Mall itself
is not visible. L'Enfant also wanted someone standing
on F Street to see the National Church (or later the
Patent Office) jutting out slightly into the street
at the intersection of 8th Street to mark the cross-axis
of his plan. As the cross axis, 8th Street was placed
midway between the President's House and the Congress
House, and ran from the Potomac River, across the Mall,
into the residential area of the City, and then out
to the boundary of the Territory of Columbia. In addition,
the Executive grounds were sited so that George Washington
and his successors could look down F Street from a window
in the President's House and see clear across the Anacostia
River.
Notwithstanding the importance of F Street and its vistas
to the L'Enfant plan, the Street has suffered several
indignities which contributed to our ability to close
it to traffic. President Andrew Jackson initiated its
spoliation. After the second Treasury Building burned
down in 1833 (the first burned down also), Congress
debated the site of the new building for three years.
Unable to reach an agreement, they left the decision
up to the President. According to a story that persists
today, Jackson, in a pique, walked out of his office
and planted his cane at a spot which would block his
view of "the Capitol and its stiff necked occupants."
He chose Robert Mills, architect of the Patent Office
and many other public buildings, to design the Treasury
Building. Mills' magnificent neoclassical building,
with its towering one-piece Ionic columns, succeeded
in blocking Jackson's views of the Capitol. Sadly, it
also blocked his view down F Street, compromising the
original L'Enfant plan. Residents decried the destruction
of the Pennsylvania Avenue vistas. Indeed, a movement
began to destroy and relocate the Treasury Building.
Mills and his defenders rallied in an attempt to save
the building. In the end, the proposed cost of tearing
it down and rebuilding it ultimately silenced the critics.
Today, even though it stands in the middle of F Street,
Mills' Treasury Building with its later additions remains
one of the most admired public buildings in the Capital.
In the early 1900's, the F Street vista was again interrupted
by the construction of Union Station. Given the importance
of unifying the railroads into one station, and given
the general decrepitness of the old Swampoodle neighborhood,
there was no outcry when Daniel Burnham sited his beautiful
Beaux Arts train station in the middle of F Street at
First Street, N.E. Although the building is clearly
an architectural delight, the once sweeping view along
F Street to the Anacostia River was lost forever because
of its siting.
The final depredation to L'Enfant's plan for F Street
was the Center Leg Freeway, which runs in a ditch west
of the Law Center. America's post-World War II love
affair with the automobile coincided with or created
a passion among American urban planners for highways.
The District of Columbia was not immune. Despite the
departure of many government employees who supported
the war effort, the population of Washington had soared
to over 900,000 by 1950. In that same year, the population
in the metropolitan area exceeded 1 ½ million.
Although retailers saw their customers abandoning the
inner city for the far reaches of the District and for
the newly emerging suburbs, the demand for downtown
office space accelerated as trade associations, educational
societies, and national planning groups recognized that
the Federal government was not about to give up its
primacy in the affairs of the nation or the world. In
1950, there were over 600,000 civilian jobs in Washington,
D.C., twice the number there had been in 1940. Suburbanites
driving into the city to work congested the streets,
causing the police to complain that the overwhelming
number of cars interfered with crime fighting activities.
The National Capitol Park and Planning Commission, authorized
in 1945 by Congress to rebuild Washington's deteriorated
neighborhoods, was beset by lobbyists from many special
interest groups, each with a grand plan to end the blight
and revitalize the city. Among the more powerful were
the officials of the local departments of transportation
and the sellers of beautiful and affordable automobiles
who demanded that City transportation be improved. At
first they were extremely successful. In 1947, the Whitehurst
Freeway began to move commuters around the congested
lower Georgetown area. In 1948, century old elm trees
were destroyed to build the Dupont Circle Underpass
to ease automobile traffic and serve the city's busiest
trolley line. The Capital Beltway, originally called
the Circumferential Highway, was also designed in the
mid-1950s. Its first segment, which included the Woodrow
Wilson Bridge, was completed in 1961. The entire 64
mile highway was completed in 1964 at a cost of $190
million.
The Center Leg Freeway was part of a larger project
called the Inner Loop, which itself was part of an even
larger scheme to reroute traffic along several corridors
through the city and then out to the developing Capital
Beltway. The Inner Loop had several iterations. The
South Leg was designed to run along the Potomac River,
connecting the Southeast Freeway, the 14th Street Bridge,
and the new Theodore Roosevelt Bridge before turning
towards Georgetown, where it would connect with the
Potomac River Expressway, a new highway to be paved
over the C & O Canal. The last part of this plan
was eliminated after Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas challenged highway proponents to walk the entire
length of the Canal with him to discover and then preserve
its natural beauty. The East Leg was to have begun at
the new Anacostia Freeway, cross the 11th Street bridge,
and proceed along 11th Street near Lincoln Park to Florida
Avenue. It would have destroyed a beautiful group of
row houses on 11th Street built by Charles Guessford
between 1865 and 1867 now called Philadelphia Row. At
Florida Avenue, the loop turned west and followed along
T Street until it turned south above Dupont Circle to
join up in lower Georgetown with the Potomac River Expressway.
Another proposed highway, called the Northeast Freeway,
would have commenced on the East Leg at Florida Avenue,
and then continued along the railroad tracks to Silver
Spring. Other features proposed at one time or another
were a North Leg going up K Street from the East Leg
to Georgetown, and a bridge over the Potomac River at
the Three Sisters Islands. Planners also proposed an
expressway along Missouri Avenue and another, called
the Industrial Parkway, that would have run along New
York Avenue and then to Baltimore via the new Baltimore
Washington Parkway.
Fearful that the highways would diminish the grand views
contemplated by L'Enfant, the planners intended to depress
the highways below the surface of the city. The Mall
would be spared by a tunnel running under the Lincoln
Memorial. Each Leg of the Inner Loop would be built
below the streetscape and bridged at strategic points.
Remnants of the depressed highway system exist today
at the E Street Expressway and at Virginia Avenue in
Foggy Bottom, and at the Center Leg Freeway west of
the Law Center. Obviously, such a system would have
cut the city into several enclaves isolated by highways.
Old Capitol Hill provides an example of how this plan
would have degraded the city. The original Capitol Hill
neighborhood began at the Navy Yard created on the Anacostia
River by President John Adams and grew to the north.
The Eastern Market, a Capitol Hill landmark located
today at 7th and C Streets, S.E., was originally sited
at about 5th and K Streets, S.E., between the Navy Yard
and the emerging Capitol Hill residential neighborhood.
Today, the Southeast Freeway, elevated rather than depressed,
divides the Capitol Hill neighborhood at about Virginia
Avenue, hampering efforts to unify and enhance the old
8th Street commercial district and the neighborhood
south of the highway.
The Center Leg Freeway, approved in 1964, was also a
companion of the urban renewal project developed for
our East End neighborhood in the 1950s. By the time
it was completed in 1966, over 400 dwellings had been
demolished displacing 1600 people and more than 100
businesses. One of those buildings was the Standard
Oil Company Building at the northeast corner of Constitution
Avenue and 3rd Street, N.W. Erected in 1931, it was
commonly known as the Esso Building and was reputed
to be the largest and grandest service station in America.
The building stood 300 feet long and 6 stories high,
and was clad in limestone. Given today's gas station
architecture, it is difficult to comprehend the grandeur
of this dignified neoclassical structure. America's
post-war love affair with the automobile carried over
to the architecture of automobile showrooms and service
stations. Early automobile service station design often
included elements of Colonial, Georgian, Gothic, or
other architectural motifs. None, however, surpassed
the dignity of this building or its volume of business.
The service station occupied the basement, first floor,
and sixth floor of the building, moving cars between
floors by elevator. Major businesses like Ford, Prudential
and the General Electric Credit Corporation leased space
in the rest of the building, as did the Territory of
Alaska and the United States District Court. Like so
many handsome residential and commercial buildings,
the Esso Building could not hide from the "progress"
of the 1950s and 1960s. The building was razed in 1964.
It is commemorated in Capital Losses, a book recounting
the destruction of Washington's architectural treasures
during the 20th Century.
Several prominent churches along the proposed Center
Leg route avoided the wrecking ball. All were spared
after years of haggling with the government. The Center
Leg was originally designed to follow a path between
2nd and 3rd Streets, a path that would have caused the
demolition of four churches - Bible Way, Mt. Carmel,
McKinley Baptist, and our neighbor, Holy Rosary. Fortunately
for some of their congregations, Congressman Sam Rayburn
thought the highway interchange at the Southeast Freeway
was too close to the new House of Representatives building
that would one day bear his name. As such, the highway
was rerouted in a way that brought it closer to 2nd
Street, thus sparing the churches. Holy Rosary lost
its rectory which was located at the rear of the church.
In exchange, it was given the opportunity to build a
new rectory in the middle of what used to be F Street,
thereby again compromising the L'Enfant vista.
Notwithstanding the approval of the Center Leg Freeway,
it was never completed. The portion of the Center Leg
that was completed in 1972 ran a mere 1.4 miles from
the Southeast Freeway interchange to Massachusetts Avenue.
It was 22 feet below sea level, with a tunnel under
the Mall that ran 3,500 feet. The tunnel was 66 feet
wide from wall to wall and ran seven blocks of the sixteen
block highway. It had 41 emergency phones, 30 cameras,
64 lane controls, 3,865 fluorescent lights, and 28 fans
to remove carbon monoxide from the tunnel. Costing $81
million, it was reputed to be the most expensive highway
ever built at the time. It was also the most technically
complex. Despite its technological complexity, it became
a highway to nowhere. Beyond Massachusetts Avenue, the
highway became a pit that remained a parking lot until
1982 when it was extended to K Street. The extension
did nothing to change its fate as a highway to nowhere.
Most of the Inner Loop plan was scrapped after years
of controversy. Law suits by the Committee of 100, the
D.C. Federation of Civic Associations, and other civic
groups, protests by activists like Sammy Abbot and Peter
Craig, the demand for a new subway system, and the obvious
racial discrimination associated with the plan ultimately
resulted in its demise. Still, remnants remain. The
Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, the South East Freeway, the
Anacostia Freeway, and the depressed Virginia Avenue
in Foggy Bottom are a few parts of the original plan
that still exist. The Drive along the Potomac River
and around the Lincoln Memorial that connects Independence
Avenue with the Rock Creek Parkway and the E Street
Expressway was built as a compromise. Old arguments
about parts of the plan resurface from time to time.
Debates continue about the existence of an interchange
at Barney Circle on Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E., and Virginia
legislators still dream of a Three Sister's Bridge.
Nonetheless, the highway plan is dead. The intense and
prolonged resistance to the Inner Loop ultimately saved
the L'Enfant plan. Saving it turned out to be critical
to the urban renaissance that we are experiencing in
Washington today.
The history of local Washington is written on F Street.
As conceived by L'Enfant, the Street was a major design
element for graceful living in nation's capital. It
was the center of an early residential area, populated
by some of the most influential people of the newly
founded republic. As the city grew after the Civil War,
F Street became its most important commercial thoroughfare
and the scene of fashionable balls attended by national
and world leaders. When the city sought to redefine
itself after World War II, F Street came to signify
all that was wrong with that definition. Neighborhoods
adjoining F Street suffered while L'Enfant's plan was
cast upon a scrap heap. Today, as the old downtown thrives
anew, F Street has reawakened from its nightmare.
Little can be done now to fix the damage done to the
L'Enfant Plan by the Center Leg Freeway. Plans to create
housing or offices over the highway arise from time
to time, but the money and the technology necessary
to develop the site are elusive. Our plan for F Street
seeks to revive what is salvageable of L'Enfant's plan
in the East End. The site lines along F Street will
remain open, leaving the vistas intact. Once the Tower
Green is completed, we will be able to look east and
see the grandeur of Burnham's Union Station. Our imagination
can take us all the way to the Anacostia, the first
great river of Washington, cleaner now because of the
efforts of our own Institute For Public Representation.
When we look west on F Street, Holy Rosary's Rectory
will impede but not obliterate the view. We know that
the axis at 8th Street, where the old Patent Building
juts out, remains, and that the Treasury Building and
the White House stand beyond. The Tower Green will complement
a great center of learning, so necessary to L'Enfant's
conception of a great city. The Tower itself will be
the kind of public monument that he envisioned to liven
the urban landscape, while the Green will bring the
tranquility that he knew would be necessary in the capital
of a great and busy nation.
Georgetown University was founded as our nation was
born. The Law Center began as our nation redefined itself
after a terrible Civil War. We are and always have been
a part of this city, and it is part of us as well. No
city planner on this continent ever conceived a more
perfect urban design than Pierre L'Enfant. Our conception
of the Tower Green and F Street pays homage to Pierre
L'Enfant's vision, brilliance, and creativity, and is
Georgetown's gift back to the city in which we live.
Date: Thurs, 27 May 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Clock Towers
As construction trailers begin to disappear, the installation
of the interior elements of our buildings proceeds at
a dizzying rate. Over 100 workers are on the site almost
every day installing dry wall, millwork, lighting, and
tile. The curved walls and domed ceiling that form the
entrance to the Hotung Building have been framed. The
glass railings and walls that surround the library entrance
are being set. Carpet has been laid on the fourth floor
and cherry millwork surrounds the elevator lobbies,
bringing new hints of color to the Hotung Building.
Cabinets have been hung in some of the library staff
areas. Book cases are being installed in faculty offices.
One elevator is on line.
The terrazzo floor has been poured in the Sport and
Fitness Building and grinders are bringing its multi-hued
stone patterns to the surface. The walls of the basketball
court and the intricate ceiling trusses have been painted.
The branching outside trusses have been primed and the
columns are being wrapped. The pool has been tiled and
grouted, showing off the racing lanes in blue and white.
Tile on the pool deck and in the pool offices has also
been set. Ceiling grids, coffers, and lighting coves
have been installed, suggesting the final appearances
of some of the interior spaces. Fire alarm and security
features are being mounted, air handling units are being
tested, and kitchen equipment is arriving.
On the Green, footings for the patio that surrounds
the front of the Sport and Fitness Building are being
poured. The most visible progress outside the buildings,
however, is at the clock tower. All of the brick and
precast concrete is in place. The GFRC (glass fibre
reinforced concrete) cladding which will surround the
clock face has been installed. The roof has been covered
by its brilliant blue-green copper sheeting. Atop the
tower rises a six foot finial. Soon, the clock itself
will be mounted and the passing of time will be marked
by chimes.
Time always intrigues. To Byron's Don Juan, "Time is,
time was, time's past." Augustine differentiated among
three times, time past, time present, and time future.
To Einstein and to all of us in the modern world, time
is no longer absolute. Unlike the ancients whose measure
of time always seemed the same, scientists have revealed
what poets always knew -- that time flows are variable
and elusive, dependent upon where one stands in the
vast universe and on the speed, no matter how imperceptible,
one travels.
Man's preoccupation with time began over 20,000 years
ago. Archeologists have found sticks and bones with
scratched lines or carefully gouged holes that seem
to be ancient calendars used to mark days between phases
of the moon. Five thousand years ago, Sumerians living
in the Tigris-Euphrates valley developed a system that
divided the year into 30 day months and a 12 "hour"
day. Babylonians and Celts measured time 4,000 years
ago with lunar cycles and star movements. The Babylonian
cycle was 364 days. The Egyptians, using Sirius or the
Dog Star in the constellation of Canis Major, first
measured the 365 day cycle in 4236 B.C.E. Julius Caesar
brought the 365 1/4 day calendar from Egypt to Rome.
The Julian calendar, however, proved slightly incorrect,
and so it was modified by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
It is the calendar we use today.
All ancient civilizations of which we know sought to
measure time to mark plantings and harvests, signal
the commencement of war, and to honor their gods with
celebration. The need to measure time, so elusive in
the mind of a poet, remains a constant in the evolution
of science, commerce, and philosophy. Measuring months
and years did not suffice as human knowledge increased.
Understanding ever smaller units of time preoccupied
at least Western thought since the Middle Ages and continues
to do so today.
True clock-making began to appear in the Middle East
and North Africa between 5000 and 6000 years ago. Around
3500 B.C.E., Egyptians began to use obelisks to cast
shadows that marked portions of the day. As early as
1500 B.C.E., they used sundials to measure the passage
of time. These horological instruments were not precise
because of seasonal changes, but they served their agrarian
populations and warring kings well enough. Merkhets,
measured "hours" at night by marking the movements of
stars crossing a median. Charts used to measure such
movements are pictured in the tombs of Ramses VI and
Ramses IX at Luxor, dating them to 1150 and 1120 B.C.E.
Amenhotep III owned water clocks, sometimes called clepsydrae
or "water thieves" in 1400 B.C.E., although the tomb
of the craftsman Amenemhet suggests that he created
water clocks with floating statues to mark the Egyptian
hours as early as 1550 B.C.E. Clepsydrae arrived in
Greece by the 5th century B.C.E. The great astronomical
water clock of Su Sung stood in a 37 foot tower in the
Chinese Emperor's court in 1088 C.E. In 1126, it was
carried away and destroyed by Chin invaders who could
not make it work. Despite the Chinese preoccupation
with calendars and astronomy, the clock then disappeared
from China until the Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, reintroduced
it to the Chinese Court in 1605.
The Egyptians notion of a 24 variable-hour day and the
sun dial that measured it passed to Greece during the
time of Alexander the Great and then to Rome about 293
B.C.E. By 30 B.C.E., sundials were used throughout the
"civilized" world. They remained in use almost to the
end of the Middle Ages. Minutes, however, had no meaning
to the ancients. Short intervals were often referred
to with simile and metaphor such as, "in the blink of
the eye." Arabic astronomers may have been the first
to use minutes although the true source remains unknown.
Minutes did not arrive in Europe, however, until the
end of the Middle Ages.
Early notions of time were far different from those
of modern man. To the ancients, the notion of being
"late" could only be determined by the rising and setting
of the sun, the passage of water from a bowl, or the
movement of the stars. Sometime between the 13th century
and the 16th century, the need to understand ever smaller
units of time began to preoccupy Western thought. Time
consciousness also began to change. Although sun dials
and water horologias measured time for monks and astronomers,
time for common people was usually marked by periods
of prayer, for example, matins, terce, and vespers.
Indeed, our word noon come from the None prayer period,
which began shortly after the sun reached its peak.
Bells usually tolled church time. Legend tells that
church bells may have been invented in the Italian town
of Nola in Compania, but that story may merely be a
Latin play on words (small bell). Sabinianus is said
to be the first Pope to order the ringing of church
bells to signal the hours of the day. The practice expanded
with the proliferation of church architecture during
the Middle Ages. By the 13th century, church bells signaled
the hour throughout all Christendom.
During the course of the Middle Ages, the notions of
Church time and secular time began to diverge as peasants
moved to the cities and industry moved out of the monasteries.
By the 13th century, clocks were in daily use. Like
bells and relics, they were part of the church's and
the monastery's ornamentation. Indeed, churches and
monasteries competed with each other based on the grandeur
of their clocks. Writers and artists were very conscious
of time. Petrarch wrote about the "incalculable value
of time." Dante refers to clocks in the Divine Comedy.
14th century art portrays various subjects in the presence
of a sand glass which replaced the small water clock
during the late medieval period.
No one knows who invented the mechanical or wheeled
clock, and historians can date it no better than the
late 13th or early 14th century. Nor do we know whether
the Europeans invented it or merely adopted it from
China or the Arab world. One school of thought holds
that the mechanical clock was merely a step-child of
other commonly used astronomical instruments. Galileo's
need to measure velocity and acceleration led to an
understanding of the uniformity of nature and of mechanical
laws that made the prediction of astronomical events
fairly accurate. His proofs, however, depended on the
accurate measurement of time. The invention of the mechanical
clock made Galileo's theories verifiable; but, it did
more. As described by Robert Andrews Millikan in 1932,
these new scientific notions "transformed this world
from one that is at the bottom capricious and animistic,
as was in fact both the ancient world and the medieval
one, to a world that is dependent and in part, at least,
knowable and controllable by man..."
The essence of the mechanical clock was the verge and
foliot escapement. This mechanism, consisting of an
escape wheel and weights mounted on an axle, provided
an oscillating movement that controlled the periodic
movement of the hand on the clock. The speed of the
wheel's movement was affected by adjusting the weights.
These mechanical clocks were made of iron or, in the
case of royalty, silver. Though they employed only an
hour hand, they were more accurate and efficient than
water clocks. Thus, mechanical clocks replaced large
water clocks in Central Europe by the late 13th century.
The water clocks completely disappeared from Europe
by the end of the 14th century.
Horological innovation continued throughout the Middle
Ages. Clocks became portable when spring drives replaced
weights at the end of the 15th century. The minute hand
was invented by Jost Burgi in 1577. Clocks became even
more accurate when the pendulum, a time keeping concept
first noted by Galileo, was developed for a clock by
astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1657. This mechanical
innovation affected all manner of thought. Newton's
postulates required accurate time measurements for their
proofs. Descartes, Hobbes, and Kant all relied on time
and on clock analogies as they expounded their philosophies.
In time, even God was compared to a clock maker.
One of the first references to clock housings comes
from Villard de Honnecourt in northern France. His sketch
drawn in 1235 C.E. shows a wooden Gothic case with four
floors and a gable. It claims to house a mechanical
clock but he drew no description. The relationship between
bells, clocks, and towers spread during the late 13th
century and thereafter. St. Paul's in London and the
clock tower in Genoa were built in the mid 14th century.
Rouen had one in 1385. The oldest preserved clock tower,
built in 1386, is at the Cathedral of Salisbury in England.
Artists depicted playable carillons in the early 1300s.
Controlled by weights and pulleys and connected to the
clock's escapement, these striking clocks were more
far complicated than the clock itself. They became the
pride of the emerging cities of Europe. Mechanical figures
soon joined the bells atop the towers. Often accompanied
by melodic chimes, these figures moved in and out of
the tower as the clock stuck the hour. Moscow's first
striking clock appeared in 1404, Dubrovnik's in 1389.
The Cathedral at Norwich (1325) had a procession of
monks. The three Magi walked around the tower of St.
Jacques Hospital (1326) in Paris. An angel "flew" around
St. Paul's. These astonishing inventions were intended
to be more than mere entertainment. As Gerhard Dohrn
van Rossum reminds us, the cathedral protocol from 1407
in Chartre states that the "purpose of these contraptions
was, right up to the nineteenth century, ...to lure
people into church, to astound them, and to strengthen
the authority of the Church."
In Milan (1322), Orvieto (1307), and Westminster (1369),
clock towers were also used to strengthen the political
control of their patrons and to regulate the ever increasing
mercantilism of the era. By the 15th century, life in
the cities centered on their clock towers. Again in
the words of van Rossum, "the striking clock was born
in fact from the needs of urban life." By the 16th century,
even life in the villages and towns of the slightly
backward German Empire kept tempo with the public clock.
Clockmakers' guilds were formed in Paris in 1544, in
Nuremberg in 1565, and in Geneve in 1601. Bells had
names, and chimes became recognizable and famous. The
Westminster chime, probably composed by William Crotch
or his master Reverend Joseph Jowett in the late 1700s,
was based on a Handel aria. Originally installed in
the Cambridge tower, it was later used at Westminster
and now carries that name.
Time had taken on a new meaning for Europeans, one that
was far different from the world view of pre-mechanical
man. Social complexity had arrived; and, it was time
driven. In the words of Ben Franklin, "time was money."
By the early 1800s,120,000 watches were being manufactured
each year by 20,000 workers in Great Britain, a fact
that escaped neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx. Once
"time" was reinvented, the need for greater accuracy
produced better and better clocks and watches. In 1721,
George Graham improved the pendulum clock's accuracy
to an error margin of one second per day. Today, simple
quartz clocks with neither gears nor escapements provide
anyone with amazingly accurate time measurement at little
cost. Modern atomic clocks are now accurate to within
one-millionth of a second per year.
Clock towers, like fireplaces and academic robes, are
no longer necessary in the modern world. Wrist chronometers,
furnaces, and down jackets make them all unnecessary.
Yet we continue to use them because they bring comfort
and evoke traditions associated with human enlightenment
and progress. Clock towers also bring a sense of place
and purpose. Our tower has a traditional design reminiscent
of clock towers on campuses around the western world.
It reminds our neighborhood that we are, at heart and
purpose, a center of learning with roots that reach
back to the first colleges of the Middle Ages. Nonetheless,
our clock tower is distinctly modern as well. The movement
of its clock is electronic rather than weight driven;
its settings are controlled by a G.P.S. system. The
tower employs no bell pullers; its chimes are programmed
by computer. It will toll the familiar Westminster chime,
but will also play a hundred other tunes at the turn
of a switch. Like towers of old, it will combine invention
and awe. As our tower signals the time to our community
and to our neighborhood, it will mark not only the time
of the poets and scientists, but also the time of the
ancients who strove to understand it and to understand
their place in the vast universe where time has both
relative meaning and no meaning at all.
Date: Fri, 23 April 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: McDonough Hall
The last of the exterior elements of the Hotung International Law Building and Georgetown Sport and Fitness Building are being set into place. The east entrance of Hotung and the north entrance of Sport and Fitness are nearly complete. The last of the windows have been installed on the south walls, and spandrel glass covers most of the otherwise visible beams. Mullion covers are being installed on both buildings and louvers hide the air shafts and mechanical rooms.
The interiors change daily. Most of the door frames
are set in their dry wall partitions. Blocking and plywood
are being installed in the servery of the cyber café,
and vanity tops and millwork are starting to appear
throughout the buildings. Interior architectural motifs
are emerging. The first section of the terrazzo floor,
angled towards the curve of the facade and the main
entrance, has been poured on the second floor of Sport
and Fitness. Design walls have also been erected, similarly
oriented towards the door. The decorative millworked
walls of Hotung's moot court offer glimpses of our intention
to mimic the interior of the Supreme Court. Gleaming
stainless steel elevator doors peek through their protective
coverings, and the cherry-finished library circulation
desk gives hints of the rich textures of Hotung's interior
palette. Ceiling grids and light fixtures are being
mounted and are visible from the outside. Walls on several
floors of the Sport and Fitness Building are already
painted, and tile floors are being grouted in the bathrooms.
Air handling units, gas lines, and plumbing fixtures
are being tested throughout both buildings, all working
as intended.
On the F Street Green, concrete support walls have
been poured for the clock tower, showing the cut out
for the four-sided clock. The tower's pre cast concrete
base has been attached, and the first course of bricks
has been laid. This steady but accelerating pace of
work reminds us that the campus completion is nearly
at hand.
It has taken almost 40 years to build this campus,
and to fulfill the dreams of former Dean Paul R. Dean
and his colleagues. In 1962, Dean described the old
"E Street Warehouse," the Law Center's complex
of buildings at 5th and E, Streets N.W. as "unquestioningly...the
least adequate of any of the major law schools in the
country." The library was housed on 13 floors of
three separate buildings; the dormitories no longer
met minimum standards for safety, and the expansion
of the evening and graduate curricula was hampered by
a lack of space. Dean realized that the Law Center's
future could not be assured without a new facility.
In 1965, he announced that he had purchased, for $2.3
million, 82,000 square feet of land six blocks from
the United States Capitol and four blocks from the judicial
center of Washington. Although the old arguments about
moving to the Georgetown main campus arose anew, the
Law Center's historic commitment to the center city
remained intact. Dean retained a world class architect,
Edward Durrrell Stone, to design a building that would
accommodate 1,675 students, 75 faculty, 21,000 square
feet of classroom space, a moot court, and 50,000 square
feet of library space. Dean reported that "the
new building [would] liberate the Law Center from the
physical and academic inefficiencies [of the] present
maze of buildings which grew in a casual unintegrated
manner, and which have constituted in the past obstacles
of crippling proportions to student and faculty research."
Paying for the building was not a simple matter. The budget for the building was projected to be $11,000,000. Alumni donors and federal grants and loans were needed to finance the building. At that time, fund raising for the Law Center was not a major University priority and the Law Center itself had no separate development staff. Indeed, before 1965, no one had ever made a one million dollar gift to the University let alone to the Law Center. But dreams are often fulfilled in surprising ways. Help came from two remarkable men who had experienced Georgetown in very different ways. Nonetheless, they shared a belief in the Law Center’s educational mission that was pivotal to the emerging campus we see today.
In 1934, Lyndon Bains Johnson, while working for a
Congressman on Capitol Hill, entered Georgetown Law
School as an evening student. He wanted to study law
"to better [his] mental processes, to prepare [him]
to earn an honest and respectable living, and possibly
qualify [him] to make some contribution to society."
Although the pace of his work on the Hill and his recent
marriage to Lady Bird forced him to withdraw even before
he sat for his first examinations, he retained ties
to his "almost alma mater." That was fortunate.
When a funding freeze threatened a loss of federal funds
for Georgetown's new building project, then President
Lyndon Johnson told an aide to "call them up down
there and tell them to take the damn freeze off the
grant to my alma mater."
The other man, like Johnson, sparked both admiration
and controversy during his career. Bernard P. McDonough
never boasted about his academic work at Georgetown
Law Center. He entered in 1925 and often said he "finished
last in his class." His biographer, Eugene Murdock,
wrote that McDonough was a practical man who "never
sat for the bar exam and actually developed an antipathy
toward lawyers." Nonetheless, he valued the logic
that the study of law provided. McDonough was a late
bloomer whose business success was slow but steady.
He built his fortune on "shoes and cement, shovels
and concrete, hotels and barges." He was 52 when
he first considered himself wealthy and was 66 when
his financial empire, the Marmac corporation of Parkersburg,
West Virginia, was completed. He had boundless energy
and a passion for work. "Business was both his
work and his play." "His mind was like a dynamo,
powering a network of activities in dozens of places."
"He was tough, demanding, driving, intense, and
impatient with inefficiency and insubordination;"
but he was loyal to people and to places that helped
him along the way. McDonough had always been a contributor
to Georgetown's alumni fund and had been a member of
the Board of Regents. He was interested in the new building
and told Dean that he wanted to do "something big."
At a lunch at the Mayflower Hotel, McDonough offered
Dean one million dollars for the Law Center's new building.
At the time, it was the largest gift ever given to Georgetown.
In return, the Board of Directors named the new building
the Bernard P. McDonough Hall.
The architect Dean chose to design the building, Edward
Durrell Stone, was once described by Time Magazine as
"a pioneer modernist, undoubtedly the profession's
freest spirit, and by general consensus, the most versatile
designer of his generation." The passing of time
has not been as generous to Stone's legacy as was Time
Magazine. Stone began his career as an apprentice for
Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbot, the firm started
by H. H. Richardson and a forerunner of our current
design firm. In the early 1930s, he started his own
practice, designing residential buildings in the International
Style, an austere "modern" style of architecture
featuring reinforced concrete, steel, glass block, and
strip windows. This sleek, spare style abandoned ornamentation
and lavish materials. By the 1950s, Stone had totally
repudiated this modernist style, comparing it to "the
latest model automobile, doomed to early obsolescence."
Following the lead of Frank Lloyd Wright, Stone began
to see the importance of a building's site to the style
of his architecture. His approach, still "modernist"
but with more decorative elements, first appeared in
hotel and academic architecture in the 1940s. It was
decisively displayed in his stunning design of the U.S.
Embassy in New Delhi. Its "rectangular shape and
temple like form" anticipated both the Kennedy
Center and Georgetown's McDonough Hall.
Stone's work featured pierced screen walls, non-load
bearing partitions behind structural members, overhanging
canopies to provide shade and breeze ways, and platforms
that hid automobiles, created garden areas, and provided
monumental settings. These stylistic elements appear
in Stone buildings at Harvey Mudd College, the University
of Chicago, the U.S. Naval Academy, and many other universities.
Stone also employed these elements in many public buildings
in cities around the country. In Washington, D.C., three
Stone buildings bear these features; the National Geographic
Society Building, the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, and Georgetown's McDonough Hall. Stone
worked for more than eight years on the Kennedy Center,
providing two concepts for the building. Unfortunately,
the first and better design proved too costly. The Kennedy
Center we visit today is his second attempt to integrate
the banks of the Potomac into the building's design.
He placed his emphasis on the view of the Potomac, creating
a grand foyer that simultaneously provides access to
the three auditoria and to an equally grand terrace
overlooking the river. Tall columns separated from the
frame of the huge, rectangular, white marble building,
support Stone's typical overhanging flat roof. These
columns do not harken to the neoclassical columns of
triumphant Washington. Instead they are thin and seem
to hold the building down rather than support it. Gardens
on the building platform, another Stone hallmark, surround
the building. On the terrace side, tall wide windows
alternate with equally tall and wide slabs of marble
to take advantage of the river view. Stone hoped that
the building would be "worthy of the great man
for whom it has been named." Critics, however,
found it "bland and uninspiring," "flat
and lifeless." Stone thought it represented "2,500
years of Western culture rather than 25 years of modern
architecture." Critics found it "totally lackluster,
distrustful of creativity: the biggest box in the world
[that] adds nothing to the art of architecture."
Depending on one's appreciation of Stone's design style,
McDonough Hall, completed the same year as the Kennedy
Center, receives the same admiration and the same condemnation.
Following the lessons of Wright, Stone sought to use
the site to combine the advantages of an urban location
with a college atmosphere. Unfortunately, the area was
an urban wasteland rather than a vibrant urban landscape.
Lucretia's Beauty Shop, Niosi's Grocery and Liquor Store,
the Holmes Bakery, and most of the residents had departed
the area. Creating a college atmosphere was equally
daunting. Stone designed his four story square building
on his signature massive platform. To bring a campus
feel, the podium was to be "liberally planted"
with trees. The trees, however, were planted in boxes
since there was no earth. The podium was so large it
resembled a Roman forum more than a campus green. To
understand its original enormity, one must visualize
McDonough Hall without the East Wing which sits on part
of the original podium and faces its remnant. Moreover,
the combination of the podium and the New Jersey Avenue
stairway created a forbidding and foreboding entrance,
hardly conducive to a social gathering or a to welcoming
invitation to enter. This entrance, then as now the
Law Center's main entrance, has never really served
that purpose.
Stone also used another of his signature elements, the overhanging flat roof; but it was stunted, offering neither shade nor breezeway to ward off the hot Washington sun. The facade contained alternating ground to roof rows of glass and masonry, again mimicking the Kennedy Center; but it was made from lesser material. Stone included a sunken courtyard on the lower level, now the covered lobby of the Hart Moot Court, but it was small, uninviting, and very hot in the afternoon sun.
The interior materials were more stark than the refined
brick, glass, and paving stones that are visible on
the outside. Moreover, budget shortfalls and disagreements
with contractors provided less than masterful craftsmanship.
The main floor walls were painted concrete block. Many
of the walls remained uncovered block until the East
Wing was built. But as Paul Dean noted at the groundbreaking
in 1968, "a building does not make a law school,
not even a new building. A law school is produced by
spiritual things. A new building simply removes an obstacle
to education and thought." McDonough Hall removed
many of those obstacles. At the heart of the building,
from which all other functions radiated, was a two story
library visible from a large main hall surrounded by
classrooms. Approached by a floating stairway, the library
housed an expanding collection of books and provided
seating for hundreds of patrons. It originally occupied
the current third and fourth floors of McDonough.
The expanding and improving faculty finally had proper
offices, with room for secretaries, research assistants,
and visiting faculty and researchers. New classrooms
and seminar rooms were available. Law journals and student
groups had offices for their work. A multipurpose moot
court room held almost 500 people. When the McDonough
Hall was dedicated in 1971 by Chief Justice Warren Burger,
and counter dedicated out in the street by William Kunstler,
Arthur Kinoy, Katie Rohrback, and Marion Barry, everyone
was looking forward to a new phase of Georgetown's history.
Although clashing visions of education were apparent,
and though the nation was in turmoil over the Viet Nam
War and the civil rights movement, it was clear to everyone
that the old days at Georgetown were over. New energy
and purpose prevailed in students and faculty alike.
In retrospect, the criticism of Stone and of his McDonough Hall reflected a changing understanding of architecture in Washington at that time. Despite the pervasiveness of modern architecture in Washington today, the modernist movement was powerful and truly radical at the time McDonough Hall was designed. In his Washington, D.C. buildings, Stone developed a romantic twist on modernist architecture and set them down in a city dominated by the neoclassic and beaux artes styles. Today, the exterior of McDonough Hall seems well designed. To many people, it is as attractive now as it must have seemed to its supporters when it was new. Its detractors saw the same flaws they saw in the Kennedy Center. McDonough Hall, however, is more conservative than the Kennedy Center, and has none of the structural tricks that often appear in Stone’s work. McDonough is far more forthright, and solid.
Though somewhat flawed, the building's exterior expresses
a pleasing sense of rhythm. The glazed brick is particularly
beautiful. In fact, Stone's choice of building materials
has been a major influence on the selection of building
materials for all of the subsequent buildings on the
Law Center campus. Most recently, our architects spent
many days testing brick colors to ensure that the bricks
of the new buildings would complement those of McDonough
Hall and the buildings that came after it. A close inspection
will reveal that the bricks of McDonough, Gewirz, Hotung,
and Sport and Fitness are all slightly different from
one another, providing an integrated palette without
being redundant.
The fusion of purpose and material, dreams and style,
remains a powerful idiom in American education and architecture.
Georgetown's campus began with dreams and a clearly
defined purpose. It has been enhanced through architectural
style and material. The architecture of each of the
Law Center buildings speaks to the dreams and purpose.
McDonough Hall brought a permanence of place for academic
excellence in this neighborhood. It did so with a modernist
architectural statement of power and forthrightness
that embodied Paul Dean's dream of a modern Law Center,
built on a bedrock of excellence and justice. Our new
buildings continue that dream, in architectural styles
that harken back to our purpose, but open us to an urban
vibrancy that is returning to our neighborhood, and
to a community of nations of which we are an indivisible
part.
Date: Fri, 12 March 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Urban Ghost Town
Although we had hoped to have both new building sealed
by now, their major entrances still await doors and
windows. Installation of the arched curtain wall of
the west entrance to Hotung is underway, however, and
work will begin shortly on the east entrance. The glass
curtain wall of the Sport and Fitness Center is also
nearly complete, although its complicated entrance required
some structural redesign. We have also taken the first
steps in designing the green. A 55-foot clock tower
will be part of the design. Excavation for the tower
is complete and the footings and the foundation walls
have been poured. Other significant tasks are underway,
although many take place outside the view of the casual
observer. Gas lines are now connected, allowing temporary
heating units to operate inside the building. As a result,
the installation of interior walls and finishes has
begun in earnest. The building waterlines have been
tied into the 12-inch water mains so that plumbing systems
can be tested. Sewer line tie-ins will occur shortly.
Contracts for exercise equipment, furniture, security,
and technology are being issued. Architects have been
retained to redesign the first floor of the Williams
Library when the international law collection moves
to Hotung in the summer.
The interior block walls in the Sport and Fitness Building
are almost complete. The aerobic and spinning rooms
are clearly identifiable. Walls now separate the two
racquet ball courts from the basketball court. Frames
to support the lockers are being installed and the whirlpools
are poured and plumbed. Shower basins are in place and
ceramic tile is being installed throughout the entire
locker room complex.
The seating tiers have been framed in the mid-sized
class rooms in the Hotung International Building, and
the seminar rooms on the fifth and sixth floor are clearly
identifiable. Most of the faculty, library, and program
offices are framed and dry walled, so the alumni visitor
center, the International Programs Office, and the Continuing
Legal Education offices are defined. The glass and stainless
steel railings on the monumental stairway leading to
the new International Law Library are in place. The
two main elevators are operational and their stainless
steel doors await our first visitors. Four other elevators
will come on line soon.
Georgetown's campus will soon be a jewel in our East
End neighborhood. As you may have read in last Sunday's
Washington Post, "the once desolate East End [is] bustl[ing]
with new life." Condos and apartments bring new residents
while shops, restaurants, and theaters reestablish the
area as a commercial engine of the city. The map of
the East End that appeared in the Post showed the eastern
boundary of the neighborhood at the Interstate 395 ditch;
but citizens with longer memories know that the original
East End boundary was North Capitol Street, thus encompassing
our property as well.
The desolation from which we are recovering can be traced
back to the 1950s. Its roots, however, go deeper into
history. The East End and the former neighborhood just
to the north sometimes called Northwest 1, were populated
mostly by working class African Americans and some European
immigrants. Although wealthy and prominent people like
Stephen Douglas, Ulysses Grant, and William Tecumseh
Sherman once lived near 2nd and I Streets, N.W., the
area never became fashionable. As the grip of segregation
tightened in Washington after 1870, the few wealthy
citizens in our neighborhood moved to the northwest
sections of the city. Those who remained often struggled
economically and socially, with help coming primarily
from the area churches.
Residential neighborhoods north of Massachusetts Avenue
deteriorated in era between 1890 and 1950. Referring
to that era and that neighborhood, local newspapers
described a "half century of decay and neglect" producing
"slums, crime, and degradation." They called the neighborhood
a "menace -- the veritable sink of iniquity." The area
around Holy Rosary parish avoided much of this desolation
until after World War II, but the Northwest 1 neighborhood
across Massachusetts Avenue suffered greatly throughout
the era. Racism and the Depressions of the late 1870s,
the early 1890s, and the 1930s exacerbated the misery
of the people living there. Moreover, restrictive real
estate provisions forced the increasing number of African
Americans moving to the area from the South into already
overcrowded and substandard housing. Although new employment
opportunities were created during World Wars I and II,
African Americans usually had access only to the lower
paying positions. As those jobs were filled, the new
residents streaming in from the South had few options.
The infamous 2nd police district, stretching from Massachusetts
Avenue to Florida Avenue and from Union Station to 14th
Street, N.W., was a neighborhood of "rotting hovels,
rusted tin fences, and littered yards." Called the "Sinful
Second" or the "Wickedest Precinct," it housed the worst
slums in Washington D.C. Flats and tenements were built
"side by side and back to back." It was an area where
"sunlight was a stranger." By 1950, one third of the
houses were dilapidated, without plumbing, and without
adequate heat or light. People in the area often lived
six to a room. Housing codes were seldom enforced, either
out of pity for the residents who had no where else
to go or because of graft. Social services, then like
now, were under-funded and poorly staffed. Every other
child in the area was illegitimate under the laws of
that day, and the tuberculosis and alcoholism rates
were the highest in the city.
Thirty courts or alleys, with names like Logan, Marion
or Clothesline, infamous for one vice or another, laced
the neighborhood. Crime was rampant. One could buy "with
ease a shot of dope, a numbers play, a woman, a jug
of Sneaky Pete on ice and all the stolen merchandise
you want. Make a wrong remark and you [could] get your
throat cut for free." Although the precinct's 1953 crime
rate of 19 murders, 269 robberies and 714 house breakings
seems low today, it was a scandal for that era. The
police call box at 6 ½ and N Streets, N.W. was
the busiest box in the city.
The reasons for this slide within this otherwise thriving
international city were as common then as they are today.
Budget strangulation by a Congress unwilling to appropriate
an adequate Federal payment, the lack of meaningful
home rule, and the pervasiveness of racism in an essentially
southern city virtually guaranteed the result. Moreover,
the post World War II boom spurred on by a GI Bill and
housing policies that benefited whites more than blacks
resulted in a flight of the middle class from the city
to the suburbs. Even after attorney Ralph Urciolo, a
Holy Rosary parishioner, teamed with legendary African
American lawyer Charles Houston to attack restrictive
housing covenants in the D.C. Courts, city planners
were still looking for ways to keep neighborhoods segregated.
Urciolo and Houston eventually prevailed when the Supreme
Court declared restrictive covenants unconstitutional
in Shelley v. Kraemer, a case with which theirs was
joined for Court consideration. Nonetheless, their victory
had little immediate effect on segregation in the City.
The Federal committees that ruled Washington D.C. were
often led by Congressmen from southern states who found
little political advantage in ameliorating the causes
of poverty, especially since the urban poverty in Washington
affected citizens who did not look like the voters in
the Congressmen's home towns. By the mid 1950s, the
combination of these policies and practices had devastated
Northwest 1 and spilled over into the East End.
Calls for urban renewal to relieve the plight of those
living in poverty began in the late 1940s and came to
fruition in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Plans were
made to build new parks, improve commercial areas, and
close the dangerous streets and alleys. North Capitol
Street was to become a "dignified and beautiful" approach
to the Capitol. But the early plans, issued by Ulysses
S. Grant III, grandson of the hero of the Civil War,
also reinforced the practice of segregated housing.
The first D.C. urban renewal site was the old Southwest
neighborhood, a small enclave of mostly black and some
poor white residents living between the Potomac and
Anacostia Rivers and Independence Avenue. The plan called
for the complete destruction of the neighborhood and
the permanent relocation of its residents to the other
side of the Anacostia River. By the time the bulldozers
were through, there was nothing left of the old neighborhood.
The total devastation of Southwest produced calls for
something different in the Northwest Urban Renewal District.
The original plan for the 2nd precinct called for the
destruction of 16,000 houses and the relocation of 60,000
people. Neighborhood outcries produced new plans, intense
debates, and more new plans and challenges. The City
issued "raze or repair" orders against many dwellings
hoping to force some resolution of the issue. Ultimately
most of the early urban renewal plans were abandoned.
During the past thirty years, housing policies changed
and new residents moved into the area. Today, homes
in the 2nd precinct's Shaw and Logan Circle neighborhoods,
once called "rotting hovels," now sell for hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
The final plan for Northwest 1, an area within the larger
Northwest Urban Renewal tract bounded by Union Station
on the east and I 395 to the west, and Massachusetts
Avenue on the south and M Street to the north, called
for the demolition of 1,011 homes and the displacement
of over 7,000 people. Although some houses were rehabilitated,
most were torn down. The few residents who remained
could walk out their front door to a view of the Capitol
that was unimpeded by other buildings.
Many buildings on the land we currently own were also
torn down. At one time the City planned to build a thirty
one unit Mobile Home Park on our McDonough site, but
I can find no evidence that the plan was carried out.
Some time later, a similar park for 225 units was planned
along New Jersey Avenue between Prince and L Streets.
Some hope actually emerged out of all this human and
architectural desolation. Officials from Mt. Airy Baptist
Church, Bible Way Church, and the Prince Hall Masons
formed non-profit organizations that built Sibley Plaza
and Tyler House, two mid-rise apartment buildings on
North Capitol Street for low and moderate income families.
The Golden Rule Apartments soon followed. A group of
Catholics from Gonzaga College High School and St. Aloysius
Church formed a nonprofit group to build a low and moderate
income housing community called Sursum Corda, Latin
for "lift up your hearts." Built between 1967 and 1969,
the town houses and apartments featured air conditioning,
garbage disposals, and washers and dryers. The concept
for these houses and apartments grew out of socially
progressive ideas of the 1960s and 70s to provide affordable,
quality housing to poor residents who had been displaced
by urban renewal. A group of nuns moved into the neighborhood
to provide spiritual and temporal assistance to the
residents, some of whom lived in the neighborhood before
the demolition began. At the time, an editorial in the
Washington Post lauded the architects for building "a
compact little village."
But the hope generated by these projects soon turned
to bitterness. Urban renewal stalled, and white flight
produced an even more segregated city. Instead of model
communities, urban renewal had produced total devastation
in the Southwest Urban Renewal area and "a low income
segregated ghetto without adequate schools, shopping
or community facilities" in Northwest 1. Recent stories
in the Washington Post tell that the residents of Sursum
Corda continue to suffer from the debilitating effects
of the well intentioned but misguided and poorly planned
efforts of the 1950s and 60s. The last of the many nuns
who once lived at Sursum Corda moved out when their
home became a target for crime.
Many of the homes south of Massachusetts Avenue were
torn down because of urban renewal, but no new housing
was built here. When the Law Center began purchasing
land in 1965, few vestiges of this once thriving neighborhood
remained. No buildings stood on the McDonough Hall site.
The Salvation Army and a few other small commercial
buildings stood south of F Street, and a few town houses
remained on the Williams Library site. To the west,
land was being cleared for the Center Leg Freeway (the
subject of a future Construction Note). The Italians
of Holy Rosary had moved to the suburbs although they
remained active in their church. The hotels near Union
Station had long lost their glory as airplanes replaced
trains as the major form of transportation. By 1965,
the hotels had deteriorated into dingy way stations.
Urban renewal, once thought of as a cure for the city's
poverty, had instead created an urban ghost town in
the East End. It would take the foresight of Dean Paul
Dean and his colleagues at Georgetown to begin the long,
but now successful rejuvenation of our neighborhood.
Date: Fri, 30 January 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Windows Redux
Every construction project has milestones that measure
its progress. Topping off, completing the masonry, sealing
the building, finishing the duct work, and other such
events are noted and celebrated, giving us a chance
to pause and ponder at the combination of mind and might,
math and mud, that ultimately results in a functional
work of art which may stand for centuries. Although
the vagaries of the weather have left us slightly behind
schedule, we recently celebrated one of those milestones
in the Campus Completion project and will soon celebrate
another. The Bennu scaffolding has been removed from
the south side of the Sport and Fitness Building, signaling
the completion of the masons’ work. 140,000 bricks
were laid in Hotung and another 150,000 were set in
Sport and Fitness. If piled one on top of the other,
they would reach over 54,000 feet into the air, slightly
less than the altitude of the Concorde in flight. If
laid one next to the other, they would set a path to
the
door of Camden Yards.
Once our bricks were laid and the walls washed down,
the scaffolding was dismantled, bringing us one step
closer to a completed building. Scaffolds have been
used to build walls for centuries. Artwork from a thousand
years ago shows wood or bamboo scaffolding scaling up
the sides of buildings, battlements, and statues. Today,
thousands of feet of pipe scaffolding are sold or leased
every day in all parts of the developed world for the
same purposes. On our project, we have used this traditional
pipe scaffolding called “scaffolding in place”
to build the west wall of Hotung and the east and west
walls of Sport and Fitness and to install their windows.
For the remaining walls, we have used the more modern
“mast climbing work platforms” manufactured
by the Bennu Company of Canada. These yellow towers,
connected by steel beam platforms, lift workers and
materials up the sides of buildings, permitting both
to reach their place of work quickly and safely.
According to Masonry Magazine, mast climbers were developed
in Europe in the 1970s and first appeared in the U.S.
in 1982 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Originally powered by
electricity, the mast climbers are now powered by gasoline
engines. These mast climbers have heavier load capacities
and faster installation times than traditional “scaffolding
in place.” The fast elevator speeds generate high
efficiency, safety, and productivity in the masonry
trades. They also fascinate construction site on-lookers
as the platforms literally climb up the sides of a building.
Mast climbers usually rise up to 35 feet in the air
without being tied to a building and up to 800 feet
when anchored to a wall. On our buildings, they have
reached a height of 74 feet. A mast climbing platform
can extend up to 60 feet between its support
columns, as those on our project did. Climbing platforms
can also be bridged together, permitting workers to
move easily along an entire span of a building. Mast
climbers have revolutionized the masonry industry and
were essential to maintaining our construction schedule.
Had we used only “scaffolding in place,”
the unfavorable weather would have placed us far behind
schedule. Although the absence of the mast climbers
on our site signifies progress, I note their departure
with
just a tinge of regret.
A second milestone will be the sealing of the buildings.
Only a few of Hotung’s taller window openings
remain empty. They will be soon filled with soaring
three story windows that will complete the building’s
dramatic exterior design. Within a few weeks, the stunning
glass curtain wall of the Sport and Fitness building
will be completed as well. In both cases, the power
and clarity of the buildings’ designs
become apparent as the windows fill the openings in
the facades. Once the buildings are sealed, they can
be heated and work can begin on the interior finishes.
Early in the design process, the Committee and the architects
decided to make the Hotung Building and the Sport and
Fitness Center appear very different from one another.
We did so to reflect their different uses and to create
a strong sense of identity for the donors. The sizes
of the windows signal the kinds of activity occurring
within a particular area of the building. Large size
windows signify areas that are open and occupied by
many people, such as classrooms, lobbies, exercise
rooms, and reading rooms. Narrower windows denote individual
offices or places of individual study. The arched windows
in Hotung, a building with a traditional academic purpose,
recall the vestigial arch from the Law Center’s
now destroyed 1890 to 1971 home at 5th and E Streets,
N.W. That entry arch now sits in the G Street quad,
a visual connection between our past and our present.
Hotung’s articulated panes of glass (some panes
are forward of others) offer a rhythm and vitality to
the facade by creating shadows in an otherwise very
large surface. The floor to ceiling glass curtain wall
in the Sport and Fitness Building conveys a more contemporary
and playful tone, suggesting its more relaxed purpose.
It provides a welcoming invitation to those outside
and brings natural light to the inside. This glass wall
was designed to take advantage of the F Street
green that will separate McDonough Hall from the new
buildings. The ground level interior of Sport and Fitness
is designed to complement the stone patio that sits
between the curtain wall and the green space. A fourth
floor terrace, adjacent to the basketball court, provides
a place to cool down after a game. The inside/outside
effect created by the glass curtain wall serves to unify
the relaxed atmosphere of the interior and exterior
spaces and visually connects all of the buildings surrounding
the new F Street green.
Windows have had a great influence on American architecture.
Indeed, late Tudor commercial policies concerning glass
affected the exploration and settlement of the New World.
Elizabeth I held the monopoly on glass production in
England. Her most loyal supporters installed large windows
in their palaces to show support (both political and
financial) for the monarch. Tourists visiting stately
English homes today will notice that palaces from the
Elizabethan era have larger and more
expansive windows than buildings from any other period
of English history except the modern. The demand for
glass, however, surpassed Elizabeth’s ability
to produce it as the energy to fire her furnaces ran
out. Much of the 17th century English woodland had been
cut down for energy, and coal was just emerging as a
source to power the furnaces. Moreover, few Englishmen
were skilled in glass making. Thus, much of England’s
glass had to be imported from other regions of Europe.
Elizabeth saw the New World as an energy resource for
her furnaces. To that end, she sent Polish and German
glass makers to the Jamestown colony in 1608 to produce
glass. These artisans produced the first factory-made
products on the North America continent. For reasons
that remain obscure, this first attempt to create a
glass-making industry failed. Another was organized
in 1622, but the imported Italian glass makers “fell
extremely sick” and the venture ceased by 1624.
Nonetheless, the introduction of coal to fire the English
furnaces reinvigorated the glass industry. The first
successful Colonial glass making industry was developed
in New Jersey in 1739. Glass windows became common during
the 18th and 19th centuries, and the English vertical
sliding sash window and the double-hung window became
the standard in the United States.
The glass for windows is made from silicas such as sand
mixed with soda ash and lime. The mixture liquefies
when heated to 1,500 degrees centigrade and then solidifies
as glass when cooled. No one knows who invented glass,
but some disputed legends attribute its discovery to
Phoenician sailors. Early European glass did not resemble
the glass we use today. Most early window glass was
produced by the “crown process,” developed
by the Normans in the Middle Ages. According to the
Britannica, crown glass is produced by blowing a mass
of glass into a globe at the end of the blowing iron
that is then marvered to a conical
shape. “A pontil rod [is] then attached to the
other end and the blowing iron [is] cracked off, leaving
a jagged opening.” The glass maker then places
the globe into the “glory hole” (the mouth)
of the furnace and reheats it, all the while spinning
the soft glass to keep it from sagging. “At some
point, centrifugal force [from the spinning motion]
causes the globe to flash into a flat disk, which grows
larger
as the spinning continues. Upon cooling, the disk [is]
cracked off the pontil rod.” The glass produced
by the “crown method” is not truly flat.
Concentric circular waves emanate from a thick center.
In the middle of the disk is the crown, the point where
the pontil formerly was attached. The crown method could
not produce large sheets of glass but it did create
panes large enough for early windows. Windows in buildings
from the colonial era still retain such glass. Such
glass is
still prized today, especially if it original; but is
now used as a decorative element rather than a functional
one.
Broad glass was developed in medieval times using
a process that continued to be used with variations
into the 20th century. Again according to the Britannica,
broad glass is created by repeatedly gathering, blowing,
and swinging molten glass until it forms a large cylinder.
These cylinders would often be as much as 50 centimeters
in
diameter and 175 centimeters long. “The cylinder
[is] slit when cold and then gradually opened with moderate
reheating to become flat. Glass made from this process
was flatter than crown glass and did not have the telltale
crown in the middle; moreover, it could be made in much
larger pieces. The use of compressed air in the early
1900s allowed the cylinders to be blown as large as
75 centimeters in diameter and up to 9 meters in length.
Despite its advantages over crown glass, broad glass
had surface waviness and variations in thickness.”
A higher degree of
flatness could be obtained if the glass was cast on
a steel table and rolled. These glass plates were then
ground and polished. Using the Bicheroux process, “introduced
in Germany in the 1920s, about a ton of glass was melted
in a pot and carried to the table, where it was poured
through a pair of rollers. Rolling the sheet reduced
the amount of grinding needed for flatness.”
At the dawn of the 20th century, Émile Fourcault
of Belgium and Irving Colburn of the Libbey-Owens Glass
Company in Charleston, West Virginia, each invented
a process that greatly improved the glass rolling process.
Nonetheless, like glass from earlier processes, theirs
had to be ground and polished for optical clarity. Finally
in 1959, Alastair Pilkington introduced a float glass
process in England that eliminated
the need for grinding and polishing.
The windows we chose for our buildings are made from
two pane, four surface, insulated glass. The panes are
clear although they have the slightly greenish cast
that is typical in glass. Our glass has a “Low
E” coating that reduces heat loss and heat gain
through the window. The coating is transparent and is
placed on the inside face of the outside glass. “Low
E” rated glass reduces energy consumption and
costs by
reducing the loads on the heat and air conditioning
systems. A vacuum is created between the two panes to
prevent fogging and the accumulation of condensation
on the interior surfaces between the two panes of the
glass.
The window frames and the window mullions are also insulated.
Mullions are the vertical and horizontal dividers in
windows. The frames and the mullions are assembled from
about half a dozen pieces of extruded aluminum. These
hold the glass in place and provide a framework to attach
the windows to the wall. Because they are made from
metal, the frames expand and contract depending on weather
conditions. This expansion and contraction could permit
water to seep into the frame and to hold condensation
that might infiltrate the window system. To allow
moisture to drain from the frame, weep holes are placed
on the underside of the mullions and in the window sill.
To minimize condensation further, the cavities on the
inside of the frames and the mullions are filled with
insulation. The insulation prevents the accumulation
of condensation on the inside faces of the frames and
mullions which result when the temperature on the outside
of the window is at a different level from the temperature
on inside of the window. Such condensation
can lead to the formation of mold and an unhealthy environment.
A simple and common example of heat transference and
its subsequent condensation occurs when beads of water
form on the outside of a glass of iced tea on a hot
day.
Attaching the windows to the wall is also critical to
reducing heat transfers. The walls of our buildings
are masonry while the window frames are metal. The two
materials expand and contract at different rates, creating
a vulnerable zone where the two meet. Consequently,
the joint between the masonry and the metal must be
flexible enough to allow movement but strong enough
to prevent the windows from being knocked or blown out.
A structural engineer designs the connection to allow
this seeming contradiction of stability and flexibility.
Since the wall assembly and the window assembly are
both insulated, the joint between the two must also
be insulated, otherwise air or moisture will penetrate
the building. The infiltrating air causes drafts and
renders the HVAC systems ineffective. The moisture causes
mold.
The windows are also engineered to withstand pressure
changes. Evolving weather systems and wind movement
around a building cause the air pressure inside and
outside of a building to be different. In addition,
at any given time the air pressure near the corners
of a building is different from the air pressure at
its center. To endure the pressure differential, the
windows and frames must be sturdy yet
flexible.
Once the windows are fabricated and brought to the
site, they are bolted into place. The joint between
the window and the wall is covered with the blue sheet
rubberized air barrier (SRAP) that I described in an
earlier note. The barrier overlaps the sprayed-on air
barrier between the face brick and the concrete block
backup. The SRAP then folds into a special compartment
of the window frame creating a seal. The joint is stuffed
with insulation and caulked on both the inside and the
outside of the joint.
The amount of physical labor and mental ingenuity that
goes into designing and installing a modern window system
is astounding. Windows must please the eye, but they
also affect the senses of touch, smell, sound. To most
people, windows seem like simple devices that let in
air and light but keep intruders out. Like in times
past, those intruders are both visible and invisible.
Now, however, we understand them with a much greater
level of sophistication. Centuries of thought and labor
have taken these simple objectives of light and protection
to levels of intense design, planning, and implementation.
These engineering advances have combined with our designer’s
art to create two of only a handful of buildings that
will be certified by the Air Barrier Association of
America as true air barrier buildings. The windows are
a critical element in the air barrier assembly. The
air barrier design
will make the our buildings more comfortable, will lead
to a substantial reduction in energy use, and result
in buildings that are hostile to pathogens and intruders.
With the sealing of the buildings, the exteriors will
be completed. Our activity will turn to the interiors
and the F Street Green. We are issuing contracts for
security systems and telecommunication systems. We are
picking colors for the walls and carpets, locks for
the doors, and fabrics for the furniture. We are making
final design changes to the dining area and the retail
space. Our landscape plan, anchored by a clock tower
that identifies our campus as an academic center within
a vibrant urban neighborhood, is almost complete. The
dreams of former Dean Paul Dean and his successors is
approaching a reality.
Date: Mon, 8 December 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The East End
As winter approaches, weather delays continue to
menace our progress. Nonetheless we hope to have the
Hotung International Law building sealed around the
end of this year and the Sport and Fitness Center sealed
shortly thereafter. The cornices now adorn all sides
of the Hotung building. Roof membranes cover both buildings
and insulation is being installed for the roofs covering
the connectors between Gewirz, Sport Fitness and Hotung.
Masonry has been completed on the Hotung Building and
on all but the south wall of the Sport and Fitness Building.
The
majority of the windows have been installed in Hotung
and they await application of the exterior mullions.
Installation of the four story glass curtain wall on
the front of the Sport and Fitness Building will begin
within the next few weeks.
When the exterior of a building is completed, progress
becomes less obvious. We anxiously and impatiently await
its occupancy forgetting that there is still much to
do inside. The interior block work for the Sport and
Fitness building is progressing and we can now see the
outlines of the locker rooms and showers, the whirlpools
and massage rooms, the racquet ball courts, and the
aerobic and spinning rooms. The
ceiling lights are in place in the gym, awaiting the
first tip off or volley for serve. Wall, door, and soffit
framing continue, outlining the shapes of the various
suites and offices in both buildings. Fire sprinkler
main and branch lines run up to the third floor of both
buildings. Conduit, cable, and wiring course through
the walls, and
compact shelving rails are set in the library floors.
We can see where classes will occur -- in the high tech
moot court, the seminar rooms, and the classrooms of
Hotung. In the Sport and Fitness Center, the fireplace
supports are hung, the fountain basins are poured, and
the wine and coffee bar plumbing is set, awaiting quiet
contemplation and social moments when classes are over.
The coordination of all these systems defies a layman’s
understanding. Both the devil and the angel
are in these details.
When the Law Center buildings and the National Real
Estate Association building are completed, the area
will bear no resemblance to the land where Native Americans
hunted and where streams and creeks swelled into swamps
and marshes. All vestiges of post Civil War life will
also be gone. The history of this neighborhood, however,
is rich, vibrant, and complex, reflecting the 19th and
early 20th century American experience. Before the Law
Center moved to this neighborhood in 1971, European
settlers, former slaves, and their descendants had lived
here for almost 200 years. When Washington City was
carved out of Maryland in 1791, Benjamin Oden became
the original proprietor of our land.
During that time, it was called Bealls Levels. Later,
it would be called the East End. Few people lived in
the area during the first half of the 19th century.
Early maps of our neighborhood show few buildings before
1850. Even when the Law School was founded in 1870,
the land to the northeast of our present site remained
rural and sparsely settled, due in part to the swamps
surrounding the Tiber Creek.
One of the earliest buildings in the neighborhood was
started by George Washington in 1798, and completed
shortly after he died. The house, built at about North
Capitol and Constitution Avenue, N.E., remained standing
until 1914. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad came to
this area in 1835. The tracks ran though what is now
Union Station and down Delaware Street before depositing
travelers at New Jersey Avenue. In 1852, the B &
O Railroad built a charming train station in the Italianate
design at New Jersey Avenue between C and D Streets,
N.W., about where the Japanese-American memorial stands
today. Abraham Lincoln, fearing a possible attack or
kidnaping, arrived warily at this station to assume
his Presidency in 1861. His funeral entourage departed
this same station in 1865, taking his body from a mourning
Washington to his home in Illinois.
After a brief period of northernization during the Civil
War, Washington slowly returned to its southern roots
at the war’s end. Attempts at integration, a main
goal of the reconstructionists, fell by the wayside
after 1870. Defacto segregation in hotels, restaurants,
hospitals, and theaters reemerged. Southern congressmen
fought for segregation in the public transit system.
By 1906, as described by Henry James, Washington was
a place where “the North ceases to insist [and]
the South may begin to presume.”
Class distinctions reemerged as well, and were apparent
in this neighborhood. Stephen Douglas built a house
called Mount Julep (named for Douglas’ partiality
to whisky), and two other homes in 1857 at 2nd and I
Street, N.W. After the war, Generals Grant and Sherman
joined Douglas as residents in what was then called
Douglas Row. Sherman soon became a prominent resident
of Washington and addressed a class of Georgetown Law
students in the 1870s. The wealthy continued to live
even further west at Judiciary Square and Blagden Row,
and in boarding houses and homes along C Street between
1st and 4th. Millard Fillmore,
John Calhoun, Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, John Fremont,
and Thomas Hart Benton all resided in that neighborhood
both before and after the war.
To the northeast lived poor whites, recent immigrants,
and African Americans who had moved north during and
after the war. Land values to the north and east of
our site were among the lowest in the city because of
the swamps and marshes caused by the Tiber Creek. Until
1880, the only street paved in the northeast quadrant
of D.C. was H street, which linked Washington with the
Bladensburg turnpike. The notorious Swampoodle neighborhood,
a shanty town bounded by 1st Street, N.W. and 2nd Street,
N.E., between G street and K streets, was home to poor,
mostly Irish, immigrants. During the Civil War, soldiers
were warned to stay out of the area because it was so
dangerous. By 1880, it was well known for crime, tuberculosis,
typhoid, and malaria. Because of the rowdiness and mayhem
of Swampoodle, the old #6 police station was located
on New Jersey Avenue between D and E Streets, just south
of the existing fire station. The proximity of the police
did not disturb one of the areas most successful crime
organizations whose work was grizzly but necessary for
the advancement of medical science. At 419 New Jersey
Avenue, where the Holiday Inn now stands, Maude Brown
led a group of “resurrectionists” or body
snatchers who stole bodies from the city’s
burial grounds and then sold them to out-of-town medical
schools. Their exploits were uncovered and finally ended
in 1894 when a barrel labeled “pork,” but
containing pickled human remains, was found in a warehouse
at the B&O train station.
The late 19th century was an era of tumult and growth
in Washington, and this area experienced it all. Between
1870 and 1900, development brought many people and jobs
to the neighborhood. Boss Shepherd brought corruption
to Washington in the 1870s, but he also brought roads,
street lights, and sewers to the area. Most of the Tiber
Creek was enclosed in a sewer by 1877; but it was not
completely tamed and consigned to the deep earth until
1907 when Union Station was built. Even professional
baseball could be found in the area. From at least 1886
to 1890, the
immortal Connie Mack played baseball for the Washington
Nationals at Swampoodle Stadium. Afficionados agree
that home plate was at the corner of North Capitol Street
and Massachusetts Avenue. Some people think that the
third base line went up North Capitol Street and that
centerfield was located where Union Station now stands.
My own assessment of the only extant photo of the park,
showing trains and tracks in left field, favors instead
a southern orientation, with the first base line going
down North Capitol. In either case, professional baseball
in Washington would return nearly to its roots if Mayor
Williams succeeds in bringing a team to a stadium at
Florida Avenue and M Street, N.E.
Development did not bring prosperity to everyone. African
Americans who had enjoyed real freedom and opportunity
during and just after the Civil War, found the grip
of segregation tightening anew as the southern culture
of the city regained its preeminence. The concept of
separate education for white and black children was
affirmed by Congress in 1870. Nativists and immigrants
lived side by side but uneasily, always fearful of gang
attacks. Nonetheless, jobs were available and communities
began to develop. The M Street School, the first school
for black students constructed with public funds, was
built in the Romanesque style with colonial accents
between 1890 and 1891 at M and 1st Street, N.W. It served
as a high school until it was replaced by Dunbar, also
in our neighborhood, in 1916. Between them, they educated
many of Washington’s 20th century African American
intellectuals. The M Street School became Perry Elementary
School and educated students until the 1950s. It is
a now community center at which Georgetown University
college and law students volunteer. Many Irish and other
Catholic children attended St. Aloysius Elementary School
and Gonzaga High School. Gonzaga moved to North Capitol
and I Street in 1881 and remains a premier high school
in the city. The Romanesque style Gales School, named
after the eighth mayor of Washington, also opened in
1881 to serve white children in the neighborhood. It
continued to educate students until 1944. The Gales
School building still stands across from the Law Center
on the triangle north of Massachusetts Avenue at 1st
Street, N.W. It will soon be renovated and become a
center for the care and assessment of abused and neglected
children.
In 1856, the first Government Printing Office was opened
at North Capitol and H Streets. The current building
was erected in 1903. Hotels such as the Commodore (now
the Phoenix Park), the Dodge, the Continental, the Pennsylvania,
the Capitol Park, the Bellevue (now the George), the
Strathford, (now the Capitol Plaza apartments and home
to some law students) and numerous boarding houses opened
to serve the streams of people arriving at Union Station.
New apartment houses, such as the Pierpont, the Navarre,
and the Lundberg, were built where the
highway now runs. Immigrants poured into the neighborhood
after 1880, still the Irish but also the Italians who
came to build the City Beautiful. Public buildings,
such as the Library of Congress built in 1897 and Union
Station built in 1907, and Washington’s beautiful
cathedrals all felt the touch of the Italian mason’s
skilled hands. New parishes and congregations were formed.
St. Aloysius Church was completed in 1859 at North Capitol
and I Streets, N.W. A German parish, St. Mary Mother
of God, opened at 7th and G Streets, N.W. in the early
1900s. Holy Rosary was formed in 1913 in a house at
83 H Street, N.W. to served the Italian immigrants.
According to Dr. Mary Brown, who has recently written
a history of the parish, its pastor Reverend Nicholas
De Carlo, was instructed to minister only to Italians
and to forbid English speaking people from attending
Mass. Holy Rosary’s new church, still standing
across the highway from the Law Center, was built between
1919 and 1923 with a rectory behind it. Holy Rosary’s
rectory, now
moved to the south side of the church, figured prominently
in our ability to close F Street in 2003 for the campus
completion project. The church bell tower, the mosaics,
and the interiors decorations were all added in the
late 1920s. This parish quickly became the a center
of East End social life and continues to be a thriving
parish today. Second Baptist built its church at 3rd
and H Street, N.W. in 1898.
Washington’s oldest synagogue, Adas Israel, was
built between 1873 and 1876 at 600 Fifth Street, N.W.
That building was moved to 3rd and G Street, N.W. in
1969. It is now a museum of Jewish heritage. In the
early 1900s, three synagogues operated between 5th and
8th Streets on I Street, N.W. Jewish merchants from
the East End, my wife’s ancestors included, joined
the merchants from 7th Street as they walked to Shabat
services, literally closing I Street on Friday nights.
By 1923, the area was completely developed. Small factories
and flat front houses stood side by side in this multi-cultural
working class neighborhood. Looking at it now, one can
hardly believe that this was a thriving residential
area, teeming with small businesses. Vaccaro’s
Italian Delicatessen and Bakery survived at 3rd Street
and Massachusetts Avenue until the 1970s. Each morning,
trucks laden with bread left the Holmes Bakery with
their morning deliveries. Holmes stood about where
the new Sport and Fitness Center stands. During the
excavation of the site, we found remnants of the old
Madison Alley that connected 1st and 2nd Streets and
provided the exit route for the Holmes drivers. Viareggio’s
grocery store stood at 3rd and I Streets, N.W. My in-laws
relatives ran a grocery store on 1st and E Streets,
N.W. One of the few remaining examples of the area’s
residential architecture stands on E Street between
1st and 2nd Streets, N.W., vacant and a silent reminder
of the laughing children and struggling families who
lived here in another time. A few other such houses
still stand north of Massachusetts Avenue on 3rd Street.
These solid middle class houses often occupied the same
blocks as notoriously squalid and overcrowded alley
houses. Although construction of alley housing was prohibited
after 1892, the very poor occupied them here and throughout
the city until the Franklin Roosevelt Administration.
The people of this neighborhood were a melange of nationalities,
with the Irish, English, German, Swedes, Italians, and
Eastern European Jews mixing relatively peacefully with
African Americans until the 1950s. Between 1950 and
1970, these communities were all swept away. Because
of ill managed urban renewal and a planned inner city
highway system that nearly destroyed L’Enfant’s
dreams, the neighborhood became a wasteland. In 1971,
Georgetown Law Center became the pioneer that brought
life back to this neighborhood. By 2004, stories will
again
resonate from this thriving urban neighborhood. But
the history of our site is not yet complete. The stories
of the demise and subsequent rise of this area will
appear in future Construction Notes.
Date: Mon, 20 October 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Windows
The glorious days of October have enabled us to recover
some of the time lost to the rains of spring and summer.
Roof membranes are being applied to both buildings and
the mechanical penthouse on the roof of Hotung is nearly
complete. The masonry work on the south side of Hotung
is now complete; work on the west side is progressing;
and it has just begun on the north side. On the east
side, the masons have completed their work. The face
brick is complemented by the architectural “eyebrow”
over the second floor and the steel supports await the
dramatic cornice that will overhang the roof. Face bricks
have also reached the fourth floor on the west side
of the Sport and Fitness Building, and we will soon
begin to lay them on the south wall. To the north, the
brick is climbing up the relief angles on the air shafts
that will frame the glass curtain wall facing the green.
We expect that all of the exterior work on both buildings
will be completed in early
January.
Work progresses on the interiors as well. CMU blocks
now define the basketball court, the racquet ball courts,
and the locker rooms outside the pool. Scaffolding has
been set, enabling workers to build the ceiling above
the pool. Office walls are defined by metal studs up
to the fifth floor in Hotung. Library shelf rails are
in place. Door frames are appearing; elevators walls,
rails and machinery are being
installed; and the pipes, ducts, and wires, soon to
disappear from sight, continue to wrap the building.
Perhaps the most visible sign of imminent exterior completion
are the windows, now being set in the Hotung Building.
Office windows have been installed on the south and
east side. Soon the impressive multistory windows and
the dramatic arch windows will arrive.
Windows are seemingly everywhere in modern life. The
double hung sash and casement windows of our homes,
the storefronts that liven our commercial corridors,
and stunning and soaring design windows, such as those
that billow out like blue-green sails from the new building
on the New Jersey Avenue triangle add to our comfort,
beckon us outward or inward, and play with our senses
of sight and touch.
The modern world’s love affair with windows and
light is relatively new. The ancient world was at the
mercy of weather, disease, stench, and war. Visible
and invisible enemies hovered everywhere, taking lives,
often without warning or explanation. Early men and
women sought to seal themselves off from strangers and
strange vapors rather than invite them in. The prophet
Jeremiah, for example, warned that “death has
come into our windows and entered our palaces.”
Middle eastern legend tells that Baal, the Canaanite
god of fertility, objected to windows in his palace.
After his arrogant designers ignored his warnings, Mot,
the god
of sterility, entered the palace “doing great
harm.”
The history of windows is far more complex than our
current familiarity and acceptance of them suggests.
For this Construction Note, I rely heavily on the work
of James Cross Giblin and his book called Let There
Be Light. The book is written for children, but provides
wonderful descriptions and tales about windows in early
civilizations. 12,000 years ago, windows were unknown.
Nomads built their bee hive shaped huts from stones
or slept in teepees and lean tos made from branches
and skins. Holes in their roofs allowed access and also
dispersed smoke
rising from a hearth. Windows served no purpose to the
ancients. They let in weather and spirits, permitted
enemy eyes to peer inside, and complicated dwellings
that had to be erected quickly, and torn down or abandoned
as the nomads moved.
Windows, though not as we know them, may have been developed
by Eskimos living in the far north of Canada. Living
on the edge of glaciers, Eskimos would set translucent,
fresh water ice blocks midway up the domes of their
igloos. These “windows” let in light but
still kept out the cold and roving prowlers of human,
animal, or divine origin. Eskimos living away from the
ice in branch homes, often used translucent animal gut,
bladders, or skins to the same effect.
As villages and small cities evolved in Mesopotamia
around 6,000 B.C.E., permanent rectangular houses began
to appear and windows became more important. Because
cities permitted a collective defense against enemies,
windows posed less danger that they did in nomadic times.
Moreover, large numbers of people living in small and
connected houses in warm climates required that more
air flow into homes. Wall paintings from Egypt and reliefs
from Assyria show openings in house walls covered with
matting that could be rolled up or down as the weather
required. In some places, thin slices of mica, selenite,
or other varieties of
gypsum provided a more permanent window barrier. Citizens
of Crete in 2,000 B.C. had large windows and used transoms
and mullions. Given the richness of Crete, the windows
were probably made from alabaster, but this, like so
many other parts of Cretan culture, remains lost to
modern research. While the Cretans were looking out
from their homes, the Greeks forswore windows to preserve
their privacy. They built their homes as a series of
single rooms with doors, but no windows, opening into
great courtyards. Neither were windows placed in the
outside walls of their homes. It is of no small cultural
significance that the Greeks
called the “eye” the “window to the
soul,” connoting the privacy of thought and revealing
the relationship of architecture to most aspects of
Greek life.
As they did with so many other architectural innovations,
the Romans improved on the windows they found in other
cultures. Glazed windows begin to appear in Imperial
times. Fragments of greenish-blue glass set in bronze
frames have been found in Pompeiian houses, and large
clerestory windows, filled with shell, marble, mica,
and perhaps glass, were used to retain heat in the Roman
baths. The Romans also built greenhouses to raise crops
in winter. Nonetheless, windows were not
essential to most early Romans until they developed
apartment buildings, some of which rose to six stories.
In modest apartments, windows were usually covered by
wood shutters, vellum, or oiled cloth. Better apartments
featured mica or gypsum in the frames. By the second
century C.E., glass was hardly a luxury. Bronze frames
with 9 by 12 inch panes of glass were in use throughout
the Empire and glass making became a major industry.
Windows appeared in the first century C.E., in China
but the use of glass was late in developing. Instead,
the Chinese made windows with wooden grills covered
by silk paper. Later they made the paper for the windows
from rags, tree bark, and plant stems. These windows
reached Japan in the seventh century, where they developed
into magnificent shoji screens, made with sliding wood
panels and paper windows. These simple yet elegant screens
still adorn homes in Japan today.
As the barbarians sacked the Roman Empire, they destroyed
its glass windows and glass industry along with everything
else. Europe returned to cloth, skin, and wooden window
coverings. Castles and keeps rejected large windows
and replaced them with slits in solid walls, large enough
to permit arrows to fly but small enough to protect
the archer. Nonetheless, windows did not completely
disappear in medieval Europe. They continued to adorn
both western and Byzantine churches. Hagia Sophia, built
in Constantinople in 532 C.E., uses pierced marble frames
with panes of glass. Islamic builders in Egypt and Syria
copied this technique but used cement instead of marble
to gain greater technical freedom and hence, richness,
in design. They added small pieces of colored glass
to produce brilliant light patterns. Because the climate
was warm and dry in those regions, frames were also
often left empty. The Islamic design patterns were subsequently
copied in Europe in the 12th and 13th century. Using
lead cames and stained glass inserted into frames and
mullions of stone instead of marble or cement, mediaeval
builders and bishops ushered in an architectural explosion
of Gothic cathedrals. Nobles, recognizing the richness
of glass, slowly abandoned their fortified castles.
Not until the 1500s, however, were England and France
safe enough to turn the castles into chateaus and manor
houses, built with proper windows for ventilation and
light. Large casement windows extending to the floor,
commonly known as French doors, developed in the late
Renaissance and became the standard window in Europe.
Ancient fears were falling away by the late Renaissance,
and the window became a permanent and welcome design
element for the modern world.
The window designs in the Hotung International Building
and the Sport and Fitness building reflect this history,
as well as the technological advances in theory and
materials that have occurred since then. I will speak
more about these technological advances in another Construction
Note.
Date: Tues, 9 September 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The E Street Warehouse
Welcome back to “Construction Notes,”
an architectural and historical reverie about the Georgetown
University Law Center. For those of you who are new
to the campus, “Construction Notes” appears
from time to time to keep the community abreast of the
progress of the Campus Completion Project and to place
the new buildings in the context of the Law Center’s
long and colorful history. If your interest is piqued
by this Note, you will find others written during the
last school year on the Campus Completion Website, http://www.law.georgetown.edu/ccp/,
on the Construction Notes page.
Although the seemingly endless rains of summer delayed
steel placement and masonry work on the Hotung International
Center and the Sport and Fitness Building, we made significant
progress not only on the new buildings but also on renovations
to McDonough Hall and to the Gewirz Residence Center.
The dazzling new cafeteria in McDonough is a feat of
architectural legerdemain. Not only have we transformed
a pedestrian and inefficient food venue into a veritable
work of art, we did so in one third the time ordinarily
expected for such a project. In Gewirz,
we turned our outdated Public Safety command post into
a high tech security communication center, without compromising
the architectural integrity of the Office of Student
Life. Last week, reconstruction of the Day Care Center
playground began.
At the Campus Completion project, face brick and precast
concrete sills have been installed up to the sixth floor
on the east side of Hotung. Scaffolding is up on the
west elevation and masonry work has begun on the south
side. Lintels and frames for the soaring arched windows
on the east and west elevations are now in place, and
the trusses for the east side cornice are being installed.
CMU masonry work is almost complete on the west and
south sides of Sport and Fitness, and ground face and
glazed blocks are being set in various pool and exercise
areas. Elevator shafts are being prepared, stairways
are being completed, and door frames and metal wall
studs are in place, awaiting the installation of drywall
some time in early 2004. HVAC and water piping continues
to rise while storm water piping and roof drains move
downward. Air handling units have been assembled and
sheet metal for boiler flues is being set. More than
120 workers are on the site each day; and although
weather continues to pose challenges to our schedule,
we are still expecting a June, 2004 completion date.
As we pause to assess our summer progress, thoughts
return to the Law Center’s history and to the
architectural achievements attained in our prior buildings.
For the first 21 years after its founding in 1870, the
law school lived a peripatetic existence, renting four
buildings during that time. In November of 1891, the
Law School dedicated it’s the fifth building,
the first one that Georgetown actually owned. At the
opening ceremony, Judge Martin Morris, the dean and
one of the founders of the
law school noted that “Our new building, which
we occupy for the first time this evening, will satisfactorily
accommodate upwards of 500 students; and we hope to
rest here for many years. And yet, in some opening twenty
years from this, our successors may smile at our limited
ideas when they welcome a thousand or two thousand students
to the study of law.”
Judge Morris’ words now seem prophetic as we contemplate
opening two new buildings on a six acre campus for more
than 2,000 J.D. and LL.M. students. Moreover, the founders’
ideas and dreams, fashioned by 21 years of financial
struggle and teaching experience, and many more years
of law practice, were far from limited. Indeed, they
provided a vision for the dynamic Georgetown Law Center
that we have inherited and now nurture.
Georgetown had originally decided to build its new school
at the corner of 6th and D Streets, N.W. When they failed
to acquire that property, they chose a parcel one block
to the north. Ownership of Georgetown’s new land
at 506 E Street, N.W. can be traced back to 1790 when
David Burns, an original proprietor in Washington City,
held it. He subsequently passed the land on to his wife,
Martha, at his death. In 1891, the once rural property
was at the edge of the emerging downtown. 7th and F
Street, near two of the law school previous homes, was
the
commercial hub of the City. Nearby were the courts and
the old Neo Classical City Hall (now one of the buildings
in the D.C. Court system), and the law offices of many
prominent lawyers. Even today, older D.C. lawyers fondly
remember the Fifth Streeters, lawyers who occupied offices
on Fifth Street between Indiana Avenue and F Street,
and who plied their trade in the local courts well into
the 20th century. The architecturally innovative Pension
Building at 5th and G Streets,
designed by Montgomery Meigs, had opened just four years
earlier. That building now houses the National Building
Museum. At 4th and D stood the First Presbyterian Church,
the church of Presidents Jackson, Polk, Pierce, and
Cleveland. Three blocks to the south stood the Baltimore
and Potomac Railroad station, where, only ten years
earlier, Charles Guiteau shot and mortally wounded President
Garfield. Notable citizens, residing in elegant Italianate
style residences, entertained just to the south at Blagden
Row on Indiana Avenue, and to the east, surrounding
Judiciary Square. Stretching along Sixth Street, between
Pennsylvania
Avenue and C Street, was the fashionable National Hotel.
The new Law School building, completed in 1891, was
designed by James F. Denson in an eclectic, turn of
the century, urban style. It was a three story, red
brick building, built of at a cost of $7,020. It is
likely that Denson’s work, like that of many architects
of the time, was influenced by Henry Hobson Richardson,
who gave his name to the “Richardsonian Romanesque”
style of architecture and to the
architectural firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson,
and Abbot, our current lead architects. As the photo
in the McDonough F Street hallway reveals, the building’s
entrance boasted the semi circular arched windows and
massive arched entrance distinctive of Romanesque architecture.
This entrance arch, and its lintel inscribed with the
words “Law Department,” are now preserved
in a wall in the G Street
green between McDonough Hall and the Williams Library.
Above its Romanesque entrance, however, was a Neo Classical
architrave and entablature, and above that a roof line
that revealed elements of the Georgian style. American
architecture of the mid to late 1800s is sometimes called
“picturesque eclecticism.” Although built
at the end of this period, Denson’s building retains
some elements of that motif.
The Georgetown College Journal, in December of 1891,
called the building “a marvel of beauty, elegance,
and convenience.” Built for six hundred students,
it contained a reading room, a “spacious,”
20 ft. by 35 ft. library, lecture rooms “without
pillars or other obstructions,” a faculty room
and a coat and hat room for faculty, and a “magnificent
hall on the third floor capable of seating more than
400 students.” “The sanitary arrangements,
the heating, and the ventilation of the
building [were] complete in every particular ... [with]
the air renewed in the entire building every few minutes.”
268 students attended that year, matriculating from
37 states and paying $80 in tuition plus a $10 graduation
fee. Comfortable boarding arrangements could be had
for between 20 and 30 dollars. The cost of books was
another $30.
The growth that prompted the construction of the 506
E Street, however, did not abate. By 1909, over 600
students were attending the Law School and Georgetown
again considered new construction. In 1911, the building
expanded in the same architectural style towards 6th
Street, doubling in size. Two years later, an even larger
section was erected on 6th Street. This wing contained
a new auditorium and, from 1919 to 1934, the Georgetown
Foreign Service School. Between 1934 and 1937, the Law
School acquired several adjoining properties, including
the old Howard Law School on Fifth Street, and Rodman’s
Restaurant at Fifth and E Street. Rodman’s was
the defendant in Cushing v Rodman, the case which held
that restaurants serving defective food would be held
to strict
liability. (Thank goodness) By 1950, Georgetown had
acquired much of the property between Fifth and Sixth
and D and E Streets and the Law Center, as it would
become known in the late 1950s, looked forward to years
of prosperity and growth.
The years between 1891 and 1960 witnessed growth in
program as well as facilities. By 1921, the Law School
had created a day program and hired a full time faculty.
It had also become the largest law school in America.
By 1936, the library held 20,000 volumes. The Moot Court,
one of the first programs established at the Law School
in 1870, continued to thrive. Names of the “Best
Advocates” from 1929 on can be found on plaques
outside the Philip Hart Moot Court in McDonough Hall.
The Debate Society, formed in 1893 and reorganized in
1906, fielded teams that were virtually unbeatable.
Columbian Law School (later renamed
George Washington) refused, after four successive defeats,
to accept new challenges from Georgetown, charging “unfairness,
prejudice, and unjust discrimination.” The Law
Journal, and later the Student Bar Association, began
to thrive.
The Law School remained at 506 E Street until 1971.
The intervening years produced some of the giants in
Georgetown history -- George Hamilton, Hugh Fegan, Reverend
Francis Lucey, Frank Dugan, Walter “Doc”
Jaeger, and Paul Dean. But as the program and the personalities
gained renown, the building began to deteriorate. By
1963, the building once called “a marvel of beauty,
elegance, and convenience” was described by Dean
Paul Dean as “the least adequate of any of the
major law schools in the country,” and a “nightmare.”
At that time, the school consisted of the original Denson
building with its addition, and four adjoining
buildings used for library and faculty offices. “Five
other converted tenements comprised [the] dormitory
facilities.” The library occupied space in three
separate buildings and on thirteen different floors.
By 1965, over 1,300 students were occupying a building
originally designed for 500. Library books, now numbering
over 125,000, were kept on stairs going to the basement
because shelf space was lacking. The old downtown was
deteriorating, as people left the city for homes and
shopping centers in the suburbs. The dormitories were
closing because they failed to meet minimum standards.
Program growth and faculty expansion were stymied because
there was just no space. The exterior architecture was
considered passé and industrial. The interiors
had not changed in thirty five years.
A new breed of students was coming to the Law School
during the last years of the Denson building. They were
impatient with the status quo, politically attuned to
the civil rights movement and the anti Viet Nam war
movement, and challenging to the faculty and their more
traditional classmates. They came to class and then
left the building, since there was little room to socialize,
study, or organize. The space that did exist did not
invite one to stay. At some point during the sixties,
with a combination of fondness and disgust, the students
began to call the former “marvel of elegance”
the “E Street Warehouse.” Dean Paul Dean
saw the future of the Law Center further east, near
Union Station, and in 1971, Georgetown moved to McDonough
Hall. Shortly thereafter, the Denson Building and all
the annexes were demolished. Although Georgetown still
owns the historic property at 5th and E Streets, the
site is now the home of the S.E.C.
Date: Tues, 31 July 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Things you will never see
Despite delays caused by our rainy summer, our project
remains essentially on schedule. The roof deck has been
completed in the Sport and Fitness building, and we
have topped off the building. The yellow and blue air
barrier continues to be applied to the Hotung building,
and precast sills and face brick are being set on the
first floor of the east elevation. As the brick goes
up, one can begin to visualize the look of the building’s
exterior. Metal studs, framing the walls on several
floors inside the Hotung building, provide a visual
sense of the interior room layouts as well.
CMU continues to be laid at the Hotung penthouse and
inside both buildings. Glazed interior block has been
laid in the pool area of the Sport and Fitness Building
providing the first sense of inside color. All of the
steel beams and columns in the Sport and Fitness building,
except those associated with the roof, have been fireproofed.
Pipes, ducts, and wires, all the things you will never
see once the buildings are completed, are being run
throughout the project.
When most people consider great architecture, both
the mind and eye are usually drawn to a building’s
facade. It is what we see first and, if the building
is pleasing, we look at it again and again, noticing
features we had not noticed before. Beautifully designed
buildings enhance the experiences of our daily lives.
They inspire, they delight. They enliven neighborhoods,
lift people’s spirits, and occasionally become
part of the cultural vernacular of cities and nations.
Once beyond the front doors, eyes and minds again
consider appearance, this time of the interiors. Soon,
however, the beauty recedes and people begin to consider
how a building works. If the public spaces permit an
easy flow of patrons, if people work in offices that
are adjacent to colleagues whose work complements theirs,
and if natural light enhances the work space that one
inhabits, the building is deemed comfortable, the work
produced in it will be performed efficiently, and the
residents will be satisfied. When efficiency combines
with gracious style, the building adds to the grand
architectural spaces of great cities.
Of course, beautiful buildings do not always work.
Office buildings today are sometimes deemed sick, so
environmentally contaminated that work cannot be performed
within them. The beauty of those buildings is soon ignored
as the occupants begin to fall ill. Such a building
today stands empty in Northern Virginia. Structural
defects may also occur, as when the windows fell to
the street some years ago at the Hancock Building
in Boston. In some cases, floors or beams collapse,
even before the building is occupied. A combination
of unexpected wind and incomplete welding brought down
beams during the construction of the new D.C. Convention
Center. Mechanical systems may prove to be insufficient,
electrical circuits too small, plumbing ineffective.
These problems were discovered in our McDonough Building
after it was erected. We have been correcting them ever
since.
What permits us to concentrate on the splendor of
a beautiful building is not only its design and the
absence of major flaws, but also the continuous operation
of all the things we never see – the wires, the
conduit, the pipes, the ducts -- all hidden in the walls
and floors and even under the ground, all of which are
taken for granted as we use a building daily; all of
which must be designed perfectly and unobtrusively if
our eye is to continue to be drawn to the beauty of
our building.
Approximately 35% of the cost of a building goes to
MEP – mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems.
Much of the equipment covered by these costs will be
placed in one of the nine mechanical rooms located in
the lower levels or on the roof of the Hotung and Sport
and Fitness Buildings. Heating and cooling plants, air
handling equipment to distribute hot and/or cold air,
and water pumps to distribute hot and/or cold water
for air conditioning, toilets, sinks, and water coolers
all share these mechanical rooms. Other pumps, such
as those that distribute water to standpipes for fire
hoses, to ceiling sprinklers, and to swimming pool purification
systems are also found there.
Water literally surrounds a building. Engineers weave
intricate plumbing patterns that bring needed water
into a building while ensuring that unwanted water moves
out or is kept out. Waste water flows out of the building
though cast iron pipes into the city’s sewers,
and finally to treatment plants, while storm water collected
on the buildings’ roofs must be diverted away
from that treatment system to storm drains and sand
filters. Drain tiles collect water running down the
building’s facade and direct it to other filters
and storm drains. Foundations are waterproofed so that
ground water, or in our case, an emerging trickle from
the old Goose Creek, does not intrude to weaken the
foundation or produce mold. 15,000 feet of copper tubing
will bring water into our buildings and 8,000 feet of
cast iron pipe winds through the buildings to remove
it.
In modern buildings, we turn night into daylight with
the flip of a switch. For this magic to occur, electrical
wires move from ten feet deep vaults under the street,
through duct banks into a building, and then through
conduit to those switches, first to provide temporary
power for the cranes and other construction needs, and
then to illuminate and power the finished buildings.
Hundreds of circuit breakers check overloads and prevent
electrical fires. Moreover, no matter what the size
of the room, the light always seems appropriate for
the surroundings. All this is made possible by the 45,000
feet of conduit and the 43 miles of electrical wiring
that course through the buildings.
Again in modern buildings, we breath easily, never
too warm, never too cold, as we go about our business.
Chillers and boilers cool or heat the air, remove the
excess moisture, and move the air noiselessly through
the building to keep us comfortable, while pumps remove
and recycle the old air so we do not become ill or die.
Our chillers provide 700 tons of capacity for cooling.
A normal household unit is 3 tons. The boilers for both
buildings produce 8,280,000 BTUs for heating. A household
unit averages about 92,000 BTUs. 6,000 feet of steel
pipe moves the water throughout the buildings for heating
and cooling.
One of the more intriguing elements of the things
we will never see once the building is completed, is
now visible. Most of the east side of the Hotung Building
is covered with blue and yellow materials. The blue
material, called "Blue Skin," is a rubberized-asphalt
barrier that comes in self-adhering sheets. The yellow
material is a product called Air-Block 21S and is a
spray solvent type, synthetic rubber based insulation
adhesive. These materials act as vapor barrier, air
barrier, and damp proofing for the building. Vapor barriers
control the flow of humidity through a wall. When warmer
air hits cooler temperatures, the moisture in the air
can condense into water somewhere within the wall. The
water can then cause mold growth, rot, or in freezing
temperatures, ice, which can rip a wall apart little
by little. Based on a building’s inside design
temperatures, on historic outside temperatures of the
locality, and on the insulating values of all the wall
components, engineers and architects can calculate the
dew point and predict where condensation will occur.
Vapor barriers are placed on the warm side of the dew
point to slow the flow of moisture from the warmer moist
air to the colder air where moisture might condense.
In predominantly cold climates the vapor barrier goes
on the inside. In predominantly warm climates it goes
on the outside. In D.C., vapor barriers are placed on
the outside.
Air barriers prevent the flow of air through a wall.
Air flow through a wall will decrease the energy efficiency
of a building. In addition, as warm air moves to colder
areas, condensation can accumulate in the form of puddles
of water on a floor in the summer or large dangerous
icicles in the winter, unless an air barrier is installed
and is effective. Any solid material devoid of cracks
or holes can be used as an air barrier. In our case,
it is the polyethylene.
Damp proofing requires a light duty material designed
to prevent water making incidental contact with a wall
from penetrating a building. As gravity moves rain water
down the face brick, the damp proofing prevents water
from seeping through the wall.
In a climate like DC, which is equally warm and cold,
a single material is used as the vapor barrier, air
barrier, and the damp proofing. This material is placed
between the wall, where you see it now, and the insulation
that will soon fill the brick cavity. The insulation,
2" of rigid extruded polystyrene, the same material
used in Styrofoam cups, is placed between the brick
and the wall. If condensation develops, it will occur
in the insulated area and be weeped out through the
brick
cavity.
None of these processes are left to chance. Engineers
spend days calculating air volume, square footage, intended
use, geographical climate, historic rainwater levels,
shading coefficients, and ratios of glass to solid wall.
Once they are all calculated, the requirements are increased
beyond recommended standards to ensure that the building
operates efficiently and consistently. Our project is
especially complex because two very different buildings,
containing multiple and non-compatible functions are
being engineered as essentially one structure. Libraries,
food service, classrooms, swimming pools, and gyms all
have different engineering needs. Yet all will work
together when construction is completed.
The buildings we are erecting promise to be pleasing
to the eye as well as efficient and comfortable. They
will enhance our neighborhood and the experiences of
the Georgetown community. They are beautifully designed
and engineered, with elegant systems hidden behind the
walls, a system of calculated complexity which you will
never see.
Date: Tues, 17 June 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Law Center's Third and Fourth Home
The first few weeks of summer break have brought both
progress and delay to the Campus Completion Project.
Because the steel walkers are not tethered when they
set steel and weld or rivet it together, the long and
many days of rain have delayed the rising of the Sport
and Fitness Center’s steel frame. Nonetheless,
the dramatic tree branch front columns are almost completely
set and the columns and beams up to the cardio/aerobic
level have been fireproofed. The fourth floor concrete
slab is in place, the metal deck for the mezzanine mechanical
room awaits a concrete slab, and the decking for the
roof begins this week. The wall separating Gewirz and
the Sport and Fitness Building at the parking level
has been breached, connecting all three buildings for
the first time.
The details of the Hotung Building are becoming more
visible. The steel for the floating library staircases
on the second and third floors have been set. The views
from the third floor stairway, overlooking the F Street
Green, will be inspiring. The yellow and blue air barrier
is being applied and the precast sills for the windows
are being installed to the lower levels of the east
side of Hotung, all in anticipation of the windows and
the facing brick. Inside, CMU walls are going up, and
air ducts, wiring, and plumbing continue to be installed.
And, if you haven’t noticed, the generator is
finally gone, only six months later than PEPCO had promised.
Several months ago, I related the history of the Law
Center’s second home in the old Washington Seminary/Gonzaga
building at 915 F Streets, N.W. When Gonzaga moved to
North Capitol and I Street, N.E. and consolidated its
operations, the Jesuits sold the seminary property to
help relieve their debt. The sale and subsequent demolition
of the Seminary building forced the Law School to seek
another home. Georgetown's third and fourth homes occupied
buildings that were sturdy, if somewhat common examples
of 19th century urban architecture. In 1882, the Law
School moved to the Lenman Building at 1425 New York
Avenue, N.W., near the U.S. Treasury Building. The photograph
of the building hanging on the wall at the McDonough
Hall F Street entrance shows a rather tall, mixed use
building with an Italianate cornice typical of that
era. More interesting, however, is the building next
to it on the corner, which eventually expanded to replace
the building thought to be the Lenman. The National
Safe Deposit Company and National Savings Bank, forebears
of the National Savings and Trust Bank, occupied the
site at the corner of 15th and New York Avenue, across
from the Treasury Building, since at least 1856. In
1888, they demolished the building and erected a new
bank in the eclectic commercial style of the late 19th
century. If one looks at the N.S. & T. building
today, the structure appears to be one large red brick
building stretching half way down New York Avenue. In
fact, it was erected in three separate stages. First
in 1916, and then in 1925, N.S. & T. expanded its
1888 building, matching brick, stone, and style with
such precision that the additions are hardly noticeable.
Even the passage of time has not diminished the work
of their master brick layers.
The building in our photograph that purports to be
the Lenman building would have been demolished for the
1925 addition. By then, Georgetown was long gone. I
have some doubt, however, that the building portrayed
in our photograph is the Lenman Building. Photos from
1883, one year after our move, do not show the building.
The property shown is more likely to be 1455 New York
Avenue, not 1425. Moreover, buildings similar to the
one in our photograph do appear in the 1883 photograph,
but they are closer to where 1425 might have been. But
addresses of that time do not always correlate with
present day numbering and more research is needed before
our photograph can be authenticated. Today, 1425 New
York Avenue is an office building, erected in the 1980s,
that houses parts of the Department of Justice.
Although the Lenman building may have held little
architectural distinction, Georgetown's brief stay there
marked the beginning of its journey to academic prominence.
In the 1882 term, Georgetown had an enrollment of 46
students who each paid $80 per year for tuition, and
who received an LL.B. degree after two years of study.
In 1881, the D.C. Bar had passed a rule that required
three years of legal education for admission to the
Bar. In response, Georgetown began offering a one year
Master of Laws program. Masters degree candidates paid
$40 per year for tuition. Because of a thriving economy,
its proximity to the courts, and a faculty that included
many judges and an occasional Supreme Court Justice,
enrollments began to grow. By 1890, a mere eight years
after the move to the Lenman Building, enrollment exceeded
250. Thus, the Law School had achieved financial and
academic security for the first time since its birth.
This rapid expansion prompted a writer in the November
1883 Georgetown College Journal to say, “it is
no longer
a matter of doubt that the Law School of Georgetown
is destined to stand head and shoulders above the dozens
or more similar institutions of which the National Capitol
can boast.”
The increase in enrollments quickly rendered the Lenman
building too small to conduct classes. In 1884, Georgetown
was forced to move again, this time to the southeast
corner of 6th and F Streets, N.W. The move downtown
again brought the Law School close to the courts and
the center of commercial life. The increasing revenue
permitted it to rent, and contemplate purchasing, this
home on the boundary between the emerging F Street businesses
and the remaining residential buildings that once dominated
this area.
The 1884 home was originally a family residence, renovated
to accommodate the “lecture and quiz” method
of education that predominated in law schools of the
era. The renovation was apparently successful. As the
students and faculty moved in, the Georgetown College
Journal reported that “The taste deployed and
the comfortableness attained in all the appointments
of the lecture rooms passed the [high] calculations
of everyone.” The photo of the building hanging
in the McDonough Hall F Street entrance shows a building
with features of many architectural styles. Because
of its mansard roof, however, it is considered to be
of the Second Empire style. During the 1860s and 1870s,
American architects borrowed the double pitched roof
with its steep lower slope and other features of Second
Empire style from France and made them popular in Washington
City. The Renwick Gallery, completed in 1861, is an
elegant and more complete example of Second Empire architecture
than is the law school building. Georgetown's building
was not pure. It incorporated values of Federal, Italianate,
Neoclassical, and Queen Anne architectural styles in
addition to the distinctive mansard roof. The mid 1800s
was an architectural era of “picturesque eclecticism,”
when designers freely combined elements of several different
styles. Today, the old “picturesque eclecticism”
of the house on the site has given way to ghastly governmental
modernism. Engine Company Number 2 of the D.C. Fire
Department now resides in a dreary bunker on the southeast
corner of 6th and F Streets.
Georgetown's residential neighbors of the era were
both illustrious and notorious. Mary Surratt, a conspirator
in the Lincoln assassination who was hanged (perhaps
unjustly) for her efforts, ran a boarding house at 604
H Street, N.W. before her death. Her house is still
standing. Supreme Court Justice Salmon Chase, and then
his daughter Kate and her husband Senator William Sprague
lived at 6th and E until their divorce. South of Pennsylvania
Avenue, however, the residents were more bawdy. In an
area near the new American Indian Museum on the Mall,
Mary Ann
Hall ran the most exclusive and expensive of Washington's
brothels. Perhaps the most interesting resident for
Georgetown's purposes was two time presidential candidate
Barbara Ann Lockwood who lived at 619 F Street for 40
years. Ms. Lockwood was also the first woman admitted
to the Supreme Court. She gained admittance after Congress
passed her bill permitting women to practice before
all the Courts of the United States. Earlier in her
life, Georgetown had refused to admit her to the Law
School because she was a woman. She went on to study
at National Law School and then the Columbian Law School
which ultimately became George Washington. Georgetown
would not change its policies regarding women students
until the early 1950s.
The years between 1884 and 1891 were prosperous ones
for Georgetown. Thus, the Law School’s $600 rent,
which was rather steep for the time, was easily payable
even in its first year of residence. During the seven
years that the Law School occupied the building at 6th
and F Streets, enrollment increased yearly, growing
to 253 in 1890. The prestige of the school increased
as well, prompting one writer to say that Georgetown
was “recognized as one of the foremost schools
of instruction in all essential branches of the law
in the United States, ...and that its diploma had come
to be recognized as a sure passport in all professional
circles in every state in the Federal Union.”
Although this building was once thought to be a final
home, the Law School’s academic and financial
success led to yet another home, one that would be built
and owned by Georgetown in 1891, and one destined to
be its home for the next 80 years.
Date: Tues, 13 May 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Concrete Towns and Steel Towns
Barring unforeseen delays, the tower crane will be dismantled
at the end of this week. This powerful work horse of
our project has become a familiar and friendly vision
to many of us. Before the buildings rose, it was the
symbol of the things to come. Now, its job is finished
and we move on to other tasks. Its departure signals
the end of major concrete work and reminds us how close
we are to completing this project. If we stay on schedule,
we will be finished in just over one year.
The current work on Hotung is essential but not enticing
to the eye. The last remaining post shores are being
removed, the backfill on the south side is nearly complete,
and the backing brick called CMU is slowly rising up
the Hotung facade. On our visits to the top floors,
we now use a recently completed stairway rather than
the rickety construction stairway we used before.
At the Sport and Fitness Building, however, the dramatic
dangling steel beams continue to draw our attention.
The largest trusses will be mounted this week and next.
The bowed front of the Sport and Fitness Building, rising
up the second and third floor facade, is now visible.
Its design complements the slight bow in the Hotung
north end and the rotundas of our other buildings. At
the fourth floor, the Sport and Fitness facade steps
back, providing an accessible mezzanine that will overlook
the F Street Green. Inside the bow, in a two story atrium,
students will study and relax in a lounge area that
opens to a terrace on the green.
The concrete work winds down, but it is not quite
complete. As steel continues to rise, we are pumping
concrete onto the metal decks of the Sport and Fitness
Building. The relationship between concrete and steel
is an interesting one. In the construction trades, America
cities are considered either concrete towns or steel
towns, depending on the building material typically
used to create their skylines. Baltimore, for example,
is a steel town. Washington, on the other hand, is a
concrete town. As you might imagine, the cost and availability
of material and local labor are the biggest drivers
of the concrete/steel decision. Structural depth also
plays a role, especially in D.C.Concrete, you may remember,
is made from inexpensive sand and rocks that are found
almost everywhere; steel, however, is expensive to fabricate
relative to concrete, and often has a volatile pricing
structure. Large numbers of concrete workers are needed
to build the forms, bundle the reinforcing steel, and
guide the pour. Steel requires fewer worker to rivet
or weld the beams. Moreover, steel structures take far
less time to erect. You can see, for example, how quickly
the steel structural frame of the Sport and Fitness
Center is going up compared to the time it took to erect
the concrete structure of Hotung.
In every construction project, contractors and owners
balance these variable costs to determine which type
of building will be more cost effective. Still other
factors may make a pure cost calculation incomplete.
For example, the height limitation imposed on buildings
in the District of Columbia is the major reason why
Washington is a concrete town. When the Territory of
Columbia was created, both
Jefferson and Washington favored height limitations.
Jefferson’s experience in Paris convinced him
that buildings should be “low and convenient,
and the streets light and airy.” George Washington
also wanted to preserve clear views of the heroic public
buildings he planned to commission in Washington City,
but he also had more practical concerns. He worried
about structural and fire safety in addition to esthetic
delights. The concerns of both men easily found their
way into Pierre L’Enfant’s original “grand
plan.”
Although many people think that either the Washington
Monument or the Capitol Dome is the reference point
for D.C.’s height limitation, the Cairo Apartments,
built in 1894 at 1615 Q Street, N.W., was the cause
of the statutory limitation. The design of the Cairo
is a mere architectural curiosity today, but it sparked
an esthetic outrage among architects and civic leaders
at the turn of the century. Then, as now, it was the
tallest apartment building in Washington, D.C., visibly
taller if one takes the time to study it. Towering high
above its neighboring churches and residences, the Cairo
was viewed as “arrogant” by the citizens
of that day. Its Egyptian Revival facade, derived from
buildings at the 1890 Chicago Exposition, did nothing
to lessen the anger of its critics. In response to this
civic outrage, Congress
passed legislation, still in effect today, that limits
the height of buildings to 160 feet, the height of the
Cairo. For over 100 years, this height limitation has
preserved the horizontal nature of Washington that Pierre
L’Enfant originally envisioned. It is why the
soaring skyscrapers of Chicago and New York are absent
from our skyline and why, ultimately, D.C. remains a
concrete town.
When the cost of construction is calculated in D.C.,
the more floors one can construct in a building’s
height, the quicker one will recover an investment and
increase the project’s profit. Because concrete
permits a significantly shallower depth between floors
and ceilings than does steel, concrete buildings can
have more stories and thus, more usable space than steel
buildings of the same height. Our two
buildings, for example, are essentially the same height
and yet Hotung has one more story than the Sport and
Fitness Building (well, actually two more in function
since the basketball gym is double height).Given the
fact that both of our buildings are well below the city’s
height limitation, one must wonder why Hotung is built
with concrete while steel forms the structural frame
of the Sport and Fitness Building. Hotung was built
of concrete for both space and cost reasons. We wanted
to maximize the amount of usable space we could build
within our budget. We could not use the same formula
when planning the Sport and Fitness Building, however,
because of constructability issues. You may recall that
the reinforcing steel rods within concrete increase
its tensile strength. Nonetheless, there are limits.
Even reinforced steel and elegant arches cannot easily
span very large spaces. Concrete beams will eventually
collapse of their own weight as the distance between
columns gets larger. Even when spanning long distances
with concrete is technically possible, it is often economically
not practical. Thus, steel is typically used for long
spans. There are some exceptions to this formula. The
ribbed thin shell concrete structure of the Seattle
Kingdome and the precast posttensioned concrete structure
of the Sydney Opera House are notable examples.
The GULC Sport and Fitness building has two large
spans, one over the lap pool and one over the basketball
court. Only steel can economically connect its columns
and support the weight above these large spans. The
beams covering these two spans are substantial. Those
running north and south across the pool weigh 6,000
pounds each. The major trusses, soon to be set in place
above the basket ball court, extend for over 100 feet
and weigh 22,000 pounds each. To gain the same strength
from concrete, one might need ten to twelve times that
weight to support the same load. Thus, our buildings
are constructed differently for specific
reason, although they will be complementary in external
design.
In my last Construction Note, I wrote about the remarkable
range of products made from steel. My “pins to
skyscrapers” statement prompted a reader to tell
me that the Bessemer process not only rejuvenated interest
in skyscrapers, but also revolutionized women’s
fashion. She relates that into the late 1850's, women's
bell shaped skirts were supported by crinoline petticoats
that were stiffened by
whalebone/baleen. Due to the size of whalebone/baleen,
the largest skirts could be only 4 feet wide. Bessemer's
innovation allowed for the low cost production of flexible
steel bands or strapping. The steel bands were then
turned into hoops held together by cloth tapes which
then supported the famous hoop skirts of the Civil War
era. Bessemer’s process permitted the skirts to
be sold at a cost that was affordable for the general
public. Some of these hoop skirts were over 8 feet
wide, “producing much fodder for cartoonists of
the day.”
I also wrote last time that the steel industry was
becoming leaner and that the behemoth furnaces of the
past were being replaced by mini mills. Bethlehem steel,
giant of the industry, creator of the flange beam, and
producer of the steel that built the Golden Gate Bridge,
closed its doors at the end of April.
As the semester comes to an end, I thought it would
be a good time to answer the recurring question “how
do you come up with this stuff?” In truth, I know
much of it because of my love for D.C. history and a
penchant for collecting strange and strangely related
bits of information that most people would find useless.
I find them entertaining and from time to time, others
do also. I have also learned a great deal from the wonderful
architects and engineers who are working on this project.
Several other people have helped me from time to time
as these originally unplanned reports became more extensive.
My sources and friends thus far are:
Architects & Engineers
Margie Axtell
Kathy Alberding
Andrew Easter
Ron Finiw
Dana Hunter
Carlos Lizama
Buddy Mear
Jon Olsen
Rob Pearce
Shahriar Teymourian
Librarians
Laura Bedard
Erin Kidwell
The Librarians of the D.C. Public Library, Washingtoniana
Division
Patricia Tobin
Abby Yochelson
Geologists
Ellis Yochelson
Friends
Peter Brown
Sherman Cohn
Abi Cruce
Paul Dickson
Matt Mantich
Tim Veith
Books and articles
1870 to 1995; The First 125 Years -- An Illustrated
History of
Georgetown Law Center
A Parish for the Federal City, by Morris MacGregor
Capitol Losses, by James M. Goode
The Federal City: Plans and Realities, by Frederick
Gutheim
History of Gonzaga College, Published by the College
On This Spot, by Paul Dickson
Washington -- A History of the Capitol 1800 - 1950,
by Constance
McLaughlin Green
Washington in Maps, by Iris Miller
Washington D.C., Then and Now, by Charles Suddarth Kelly
“High Times: A Brief History of 17th Street’s
Tallest Resident,” by
Will Doig “Testing the Upper Limits of D.C. Building
Height Act,” by Roger K.
LewisModern Steel Construction Magazine; October 1995;
December 2000
The Ironworker; December 1984; December 1974
Encyclopedia Britannica
Various Web Pages
I intend to continue these notes during the summer.
I hope you continue to enjoy them.
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Steel
It is a rare treat to watch two buildings with different
structural frames go up side by side. With the completion
of the concrete work in the Hotung building, the yellow
deck supports are being removed and the internal work
begins in earnest. The swimming pool pan is in place
and the pool deck will soon be poured. Ducts are being
installed to carry heated and cooled air throughout
the building and the boilers and chillers have actually
been delivered. Conduit for the electrical wire and
pipe for the plumbing are also being connected. Stairways
are being installed, interior walls are being built
in the lower levels, and the back up cinder block for
the facing brick is being set.
Steel columns and beams form the structure of the
Sport and Fitness Center. The third and fourth floor
metal decks that will support the concrete floor are
being installed and the columns to the roof are being
erected. After the beams are lifted into place by heavy
cranes, iron workers walk the beams to weld or torque
the pieces together, just as they did a century ago.
In case you have been wondering, the beams connecting
the Sport and Fitness Building to Gewirz are correctly
set at
an angle. The roof at this section will drain to the
east. When the building is completed, the parapet on
the front at this section will extend above the roof,
thus hiding the sloping condition. The same engineering
will occur where Sport and Fitness connects to the Hotung
Building.
The importance of iron and steel to the modern world
cannot be denied. Iron production, the forerunner of
steel production, began in Anatolia about 2000 B.C.E.
and spread widely throughout the inhabited world. By
1000 B.C.E., the Iron Age was well established. The
technology for iron production reached into western
Europe by 500 B.C.E., and by 400 B.C.E. it had reached
China. Africa also lays claim to early iron production.
The ancients were not able to produce liquid iron because
their furnaces were not capable of reaching the high
temperatures necessary to do so. According to the Encyclopedia
Britannica, “early iron was produced in small
shaft furnaces as [soft but] solid lumps of iron oxide,
slag and charcoal, called blooms. The blooms were then
hot forged into bars of
wrought iron, a malleable material containing bits of
slag and charcoal. The carbon contents of the early
irons ranged from very low (0.07 percent) to high (0.8
percent), the latter constituting a genuine steel.”
Iron was so highly prized in Egypt that a small iron
dagger was buried with King Tut. The Egyptians improved
their production process by 900 B.C.E., and were able
to temper their steel to reduce its brittleness. They
and others used it to produce a material that was ideally
suited to the fabrication of swords and knives. There
is also some evidence that the Chinese could produce
heat-treated steel during the early Han dynasty (206
B.C.E.– 25 A.D.). These early smiths probably
didn’t understand the importance of carbon in
the production of steel. They
did know, however, that if they heated their iron over
charcoal fires, and prayed or uttered magic incantations,
sturdy weapons would result. Those prayers and incantations
may have measured the proper time to heat the iron to
absorb the carbon from the charcoal. Whatever their
theory, the ancient smiths were able to make fine tempered
weapons that were far superior to the bronze weapons
of their enemies. The Romans, prodigious users of such
weaponry, helped to spread the knowledge of iron making;
but after their decline, centuries passed without significant
improvements to the production of steel.
Iron, and its derivative steel, are not easy to produce
without high temperatures and controlled heat. Although
ancient civilizations were able to extract iron from
its ore and create fine weapons, the process was largely
misunderstood until modern times. In the 15th century,
smiths began to use waterpower with large bellows to
blow air into the furnaces, thereby increasing the temperature
within. The increased heat reduced the metal to a liquid
rich in carbon. The liquid iron was much easier to shape
than the solid iron blooms. The technology continued
to improve for the next few hundred years, permitting
ever increasing temperatures to be attained in the furnaces.
The large open hearth furnace was developed by William
and Friedrich Siemens in 1860, achieving temperatures
of 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, and a load capacity of
300 tons of steel. In 1855, Henry Bessemer developed
a process that
would boost steel mill productivity more than any other
single development in the twentieth century, and ultimately
lead to the replacement most of the open hearths with
basic oxygen furnaces. In 1907, Bethlehem Steel installed
a mill capable of processing giant 48 inch wide flange
beams. These beams, which allowed builders to employ
longer spans and design simpler columns, led to a renewed
interest in
skyscraper and steel bridge construction at the turn
of the century. Structural steel remained the primary
material for skyscrapers until the 1960s when designers
began to use steel/concrete composite frames.
Again according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “steel
is a hard, strong, durable, and malleable alloy of iron
and carbon, in which the carbon content ranges up to
2 percent.” It often contains other constituents
such as manganese, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, copper,
tungsten, cobalt, or silicon, depending on the desired
alloy
properties. It is the most widely used material for
building the world's infrastructure. With it, one can
make everything, from pins to skyscrapers and from toasters
to aircraft carriers. Moreover, the tools required to
fabricate these items are made from the same alloys,
suggesting a magic similar to that relied on by the
early fabricators. Our need for steel seems virtually
limitless. The world's steel production a few years
ago “was about 795 million tons, while production
of the next most important engineering metal, aluminum,
was only about 21 million tons. The main reasons for
the popularity of steel [over other metals] are its
relatively low fabrication, forming, and processing
costs, the abundance of its two raw materials (iron
ore and scrap), and its unparalleled range of mechanical
properties.”
The modern history of steel is the history of the
industrial revolution itself. The names Krupp and Siemens,
Carnegie, Morgan, and Weir conjure visions of the massive,
fiery, open hearth furnaces of Pittsburgh, Germany,
and England, of the unimaginable wealth of the steel
barons, and of the dangerous and dependent lives of
iron and steel workers. Today, steel production is cleaner,
safer, and leaner, and remains on the edge of modern
technology. Electric arc furnaces now produce steel,
but still operate alongside the basic oxygen furnace
and the ever dwindling number of open hearths. Mini-mills
are rapidly replacing the behemoths of the past. New
alloys yield strengths greater than conventional steel.
The technology improves so rapidly that half of today’s
steel grades didn’t exist ten years ago. Once
on the site, however, the technology recedes and the
steel walkers connect beam to
column, performing their timeless industrial dance against
the skyline.
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Topping Off
The warm spring weather has allowed us to quicken
the pace of our many tasks. On some days, over 100 men
and women are working on the site. We have begun to
remove the yellow post shores from the lower levels
of Hotung, a signal that the concrete floors have cured
long enough to support themselves. The interior work
has begun, as the block walls on the parking level begin
to take form. Backfill operations should be concluded
by the end of next week, sealing from view, perhaps
forever, the various strata of subsurface soil, rock,
and sand. The lap pool has now been framed and the drainage
system is set and buried. Next week, the shotcrete will
be powered into place and the pool will become visible.
The two townhouses south of Gewirz have been demolished,
setting in motion dreams for future buildings.
As the steel frame of the Sport and Fitness Building
continues to rise, we reach a major milestone in our
construction. In the construction trades, topping off
a building signifies that it has reached its ultimate
height. On Monday, April 7, the final sections of concrete
roofing will be poured and we will top off the Hotung
Building. Although the penthouses for HVAC and utilities
will be built on the roof, the infrastructure of the
Hotung International Law Building will be complete.
You will then look upon its final height. Our crews
will celebrate this event with a special lunch, a simple
ceremony in comparison to some celebrations in the past.
Topping off ceremonies have existed for centuries
and take many forms. The roots of these ceremonies are
steeped in magic. They conjure up the blessings of the
gods as well as survival of the mortals. Their origins
may be lost in time but writers in magazines such as
Modern Steel Construction and The Ironworker speculate
on their foundations and I borrow from them for this
note. We know that when the Romans completed the Pons
Sublicus across the Tiber River in 621 B.C.E., they
threw people into the river as a sacrifice to the water
gods for disturbing its flow. The ancient Chinese, perhaps
more solicitous of their workers, tried to trick their
gods into sending good joss by smearing chicken blood
as a substitute for the human life force on the ridge
poles of new structures. Some gods were fooled while
others, perhaps those of the wind and fire, angrily
destroyed the buildings and their scheming crews. When
the river gods destroyed a bridge built by Xerxes, he
ordered the river, and thus the gods, to be punished
with 3,000 lashes of a whip.
Because of the relationship between building materials,
nature gods, and human habitats, trees were often part
of ancient topping off ceremonies. The first known ceremony
to use plant branches to top off a structure occurred
in Egypt’s Third Dynasty (2700 B.C.E.) when the
slaves of King Zoer placed a live plant on the top of
the first stone pyramid built at Sakkara. In doing so,
they hoped to insure that the
eternal life secured for Zoer by his tomb would be shared
by the slaves who built it. By 700 A.D., Scandinavians
were placing evergreens on ridge poles to signal the
start of construction, while Teutonic tribes used them
to signal completion. The practice also became prominent
in the ceremonies celebrating the completion of Gothic
Cathedrals, and then spread throughout France, Spain,
Italy, and England during the Renaissance. Saplings,
flowers, and sheaves of corn continue to adorn European
homes to bring good luck to their owners. Even the practical
and cosmopolitan Swiss lay a claim to the fir tree as
a topping off symbol.
Although the late 19th century European immigration
brought many of these traditions to the emerging industrial
America, Native Americans also lay claim to the tree
tradition in topping off ceremonies. Some believe the
people of the Mohawk Nation brought it to the American
steel industry. The Mohawk men, seemingly immune to
the vertigo of heights, performed much of the steel
construction on New York skyscrapers. According to some
stories, the Indians believed man-made structures should
never be taller than the trees. In symbolic appeasement
for this breach of the natural order, or to trick the
gods like the Chinese of old, they brought a tree to
the top of a building when it reached its structural
summit. Notwithstanding the importance of the tree,
most early twentieth century photos show an American
flag rather than a tree in the topping off ceremonies
of that era. The flag joined or replaced the tree when
steel workers began using it as a patriotic protest
against the so called "American Plan," launched
in 1919 to destroy the union movement. We expect the
American flag to have a prominent place in our ceremony
Ceremonies to appease the gods have always existed.
Perhaps to evoke our own primal memory, many continue
in some form today. Indian corn adorns our homes at
Thanksgiving and mistletoe and trees complement our
Christmas, each harkening back to ceremonies that at
one time appeased and celebrated the nature gods. Houses
are often blessed by holy men and some are built according
to the Eastern principles of Feng Shui. Indeed, in recognition
of Mr. Hotung’s ancestry, we consulted Feng Shui
designers to ensure that his gift to the Law Center
would be consistent with the principles of energy or
“life breath” associated with this tradition.
Abe Polin, a friend of the Law Center, gave us a coin
to toss into our concrete foundations, a ritual he performs
in all of his buildings and one we continued in ours.
American labor issues and the gods of old have both
evolved, but trees and flags continue to be part of
many American topping off celebrations. Ours celebration
today will be much more simple than those of the past,
but our wish for good joss, and our thankfulness for
the absence of fatal injuries on our project will be
just as real.
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Second Home
We continue to pour concrete as we await the arrival
of structural steel for the Sport and Fitness Building.
The fifth floor of Hotung will be completed on Monday
and the column forms for the sixth and final floor are
now being poured. We begin several new phases of construction
this coming week. The last section of the foundation
wall is poured, the subsurface walls are waterproofed,
and the pit is backfilled, all preliminary to framing
and pouring the lap pool. Moreover, leveling plates
are set at the column anchor bolt locations in the Sport
and Fitness building, anticipating the arrival of the
steel which will form its structural frame. We will
also begin demolition of the two town houses behind
Gewirz. We have placed a second web cam on the Gewirz
building to give a more complete look at the project.
It can be found as a link on the Construction
Website or directly at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/ccp/camera2.html.
As new construction continues, we continue the architectural
story of the former, and now lost, buildings of the
Law Center. When the Territory of Columbia was founded,
Washington City, Georgetown, and Alexandria were separate
cities within the Territory. As the first two decades
of the 1800s unfolded, citizens in Washington City lived
mainly around Pennsylvania Avenue west of the Capitol,
seldom residing north of F Street. Maps of our current
neighborhood, bounded by North Capitol Street, 2nd Street,
D Street and Massachusetts Avenue, show few buildings
before 1850. Even when the Law School was founded in
1870, the land to the east and north of our present
site remained rural and sparsely settled, due in part
to the swamps surrounding the Tiber Creek. Between the
1870 and 1900, however, development began and people
could be found living and working here. Nevertheless,
a century would pass before Georgetown Law Center would
leave the old downtown and migrate to this neighborhood.
The law school’s second home was again in rented
space, this time in the Old Washington Seminary. Like
that of its first home, this site evokes architectural
and historical reverie. In 1792, St. Patrick's became
the first Catholic congregation in Washington City.
Within St. Patrick's little wooden church at 9th and
F Street, N.W. worshiped the Irish stone masons who
came to America to build the Federal City, as well as
all the prominent Catholics in the city, including Pierre
L’Enfant. By 1809, the congregation had outgrown
its first church and a second one was built on the southwest
portion of the same block. James Hoban, the Irish born
architect and Church parishioner who designed the President’s
House may have also designed St. Patrick's second church
but there is no certainty to that claim. St. Patrick's
second church was the first building in Washington City
erected in the Gothic Revival style, a style popular
in England at the time. As can be seen at the left side
of the photograph hanging in the F Street corridor of
McDonough Hall, the architect designed a simple brick
building with arched peaks and slender lancet windows
and doors characteristic Gothic Revival architecture.
If Hoban built the church, he may also have designed
the building next to it, a building destined to become
the Washington Catholic Seminary and, ultimately, the
Georgetown Law School’s second home. The building
appears to be connected to St. Patrick's and was built
with the same brick. Its foundation stone bore the date
of 1815, only a year before St. Patrick's completed
an addition to the east side of the church. It is noteworthy
also that Hoban owned the Seminary land prior to construction.
In a maneuver common to the time in Washington and still
common today, he purchased the land for 5 pounds sterling
(about $125) and sold it 90 days later to St. Patrick's
for $500, a considerable profit in those days. St. Patrick's
then sold the land to the Jesuits for $1.00.
Although connected to St. Patrick's Church, the Washington
Seminary building was not constructed in the Gothic
Revival style. It is rectangular in shape, has three
stories and an attic, alternating 6 pane over 6 pane
and 9 pane over 9 pane windows, and a low hipped roof
with dormers, all of which place it clearly in the Federal
style that supplanted Georgian architecture in America
after the Revolutionary War. It does not, however, have
the decorative elements of high Federal architecture
and was essentially a utilitarian building.
Gothic Revival architecture did not achieve much popularity
in America except in religious buildings. Some say the
democratic impulses of the new nation rebelled against
both English and clerical motifs. St. Patrick's and
the Washington Seminary, however, did have lasting legacies.
The priests of St. Patrick's were friends of Presidents
and of the founding families of the old Maryland and
Virginia colonies. They were active in the civic affairs
of the new nation and prodigious purveyors of education
and charity. In addition to the Washington Seminary,
they were involved in the founding of St. Vincent's
Orphanage and day school, St. Joseph's School for Women
which became the Convent and Academy of the Visitation,
St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum and day school, and
St. Johns College High School.
By 1865, the Gothic Revival church began to deteriorate,
due to the several springs and streams that ran beneath
the property. After a last mass was said there in 1870,
St. Patrick's demolished the church, developed the land
for commercial purposes, and collected rent. Some of
those building still stand. Construction began on a
third church at the corner of 10th and G Streets, N.W.
in 1872. Despite financial setbacks caused by the depression
of 1873, the church was completed in 1884. Designed
by New York architect Lawrence J. O'Connor in the Victorian
Gothic Revival style, it remains today in its original
location. St. Patrick's continues to function as a parish
and is considered to be the “Mother Church”
of Catholic Washington.
The Washington Catholic Seminary, founded by Reverend
Anthony Kohlman in 1821, was one of the first educational
institutions in the old Washington City. The Jesuits
originally planned to use the building as a House for
Novices. They quickly abandoned that idea and briefly
leased the building to the Washington Literary Institute,
a private school for boys. When the Jesuits noticed
that the many distractions in Georgetown City were interfering
with the training of its young seminarians, it evicted
the Literary Institute and opened a House of Philosophy
in the building for Jesuit Scholastics, chartered under
the auspices of Georgetown College. To make the enterprise
self supporting, they started a day school for lay students
using the Seminary's theology and philosophy students
as faculty. The school was an immediate success, enrolling
children from the best Catholic and non-Catholic families
in Washington City.
From the beginning, the Seminary ran afoul of its
own clerical restrictions. In the early 1800s, the regulations
of the Society of Jesus forbade the collection of tuition.
Interestingly, Georgetown College itself was exempt
from this rule. For several years, a unique money laundering
scheme existed between St. Patrick's and the local Jesuits
whereby the church pastor collected the Seminary tuition
while paying the Jesuits to teach. Ultimately, however,
orthodoxy prevailed and the Jesuit teachers were forced
to depart the school in 1827. St. Patrick's continued
educating young men in a smaller school, first in the
old U.S. Capitol and then back at the Washington Seminary
Building, until the tuition restrictions were suspended
and the Jesuits returned in 1848. As the enrollment
of the Washington Seminary grew, its ties to Georgetown
College diminished. It received its own charter, signed
by President Buchanan in 1858, as Gonzaga College.
In 1871, as the F Street neighborhood transformed
from a simple village to a bustling commercial area,
Gonzaga College moved into an unused orphanage on I
Street, between North Capitol Street and First Street,
N.W. This building, still standing and visible from
our McDonough Hall podium, is around the corner from
St. Aloysius Church, consecrated by the Jesuits in 1859.
When Gonzaga left the old Washington Seminary, the College
rented the building to Georgetown Law School which would
remain there for ten years. The College struggled and
flourished several times during the next hundred years,
serving the Irish boys who moved into Swampoodle after
the Civil War. It still occupies the old orphanage,
as
well as several other buildings on I Street, and is
still authorized to grant degrees in the Arts and Sciences,
although the higher education program has long been
abandoned. Today it is known as Gonzaga High School
and is one of the premier private high schools in the
region. Moreover, it is remembered as a pioneer in our
neighborhood.
The corner parcel of the original Washington Seminary
land was sold by Gonzaga to the Free Masons in 1865.
Their Grand Lodge was built by Joseph W. von Kammerhueber
and Adolf Cluss, the dominant architect in Washington
from the mid-1860s until his retirement in 1890. The
Masonic Hall, built in the Italian Renaissance style,
was the first large building erected in Washington after
the Civil War. Completed as a mixed use building in
1868, Cluss used polychrome stone and cast-iron veneers
on the brick walls, making it then and now one of the
more interesting facades in the City. At one time, it
was a most sought after ball venue for debutante's,
dignitaries, and visiting royalty. Gonzaga commencements
were also held there for some time. The Masons abandoned
the Hall for larger quarters in 1908, but the building
stands today, still an architectural gem but less than
a memory of its former glory. True to its mixed use
heritage, the first floor now houses Angelo and Maxie’s
Restaurant. Gonzaga, straddled with huge debt sold the
rest of the Seminary property at 9th and F in 1882 and
Georgetown Law School, still financially shaky but poised
for expansion, was forced to move to another site. The
old Washington Seminary was demolished and replaced
by a block of several commercial buildings. Those too
were torn down some thirty years later when the Galluadet
family sold the land. Two banks were subsequently built
on the Seminary site adjacent to the Masonic Hall. The
Equitable Bank, chartered in 1879 as the Equitable Cooperative
Building Association, was one of the city’s oldest
and most successful Savings and Loans before it moved
to Maryland in 1970. Its building, designed in 1911
by Frederick Pyle and Arthur Heaton, has, as described
in the National Register of Historic Buildings, colossal
white marble Ionic columns and an interior banking hall
modeled on a Greek Temple plan. It is an extraordinary
example of Classical Revival Bank architecture. The
old bank now houses the nightclub, Platinum, and carries
the 915 F Street address of the old Washington Seminary
and the Law School. The adjacent Columbia National Bank,
also on the Seminary site at 911 F Street, houses another
night club called Home. I am told that many Georgetown
undergraduate and law students are familiar with both
clubs. I wonder if they know that they are dancing on
a part of Georgetown Law Center history.
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Concrete Redux
The Blizzard of February, 2003, though magnificent
and mighty, was an
unwelcome surprise for our project. We had hoped to
get a little ahead
of schedule during the President’s Day break.
Instead, our crews were idle on Monday and spent most
of Tuesday and Wednesday digging equipment and tools
out from under the snow, and clearing forms so that
the concrete pours could continue. When creating a construction
schedule, we expect that a number of snow and rain days
will occur during the life of a project, and extend
the completion date to account for the losses. So, despite
this and the other weather delays we have experienced
during this unusual Washington winter, the completion
date remains the same.
When the site is viewed from the 12th floor of Gewirz,
one can see that the concrete slab on the third floor
of the Hotung building is now complete, and that columns
are rising to support the fourth floor. One small section
of the Sport and Fitness Center’s south foundation
wall remains unfinished, but we have begun to pour the
single concrete largest slab of the project, the second
floor of the Sport and Fitness building. We will pour
570 cubic yards of concrete into the 2nd floor
forms.
Given the storm and the cold weather, several people
have asked how we can continue to pour concrete. As
I mentioned in a previous note, the chemical reaction
within the concrete generates heat. On very large projects,
such as the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac
River, the internal temperature of the concrete foundations
will rise to 145 degrees Fahrenheit while curing. Although
the heat in our concrete will be much lower, we must
still prevent the its internal heat from escaping too
rapidly when the cold or freezing temperatures surround
the outer edges of the slabs and columns. If the core
and outer temperatures of the concrete cannot be maintained
within 35 degrees of each other, the concrete will crack
and weaken.
To ensure the structural integrity of the building,
the concrete arrives at the site bearing a temperature
of about 65 degrees. For about three hours before the
pour, 8 to 10 propane heaters are set beneath the forms
upon which the concrete will be poured. These heaters
produce about 250,000 BTU’s of energy and raise
the temperature under the slab to about 75 or 80 degrees.
The heaters also warm the reinforcing steel rods so
that the concrete does not freeze immediately when it
comes in contact with the rebar. After the pour, insulated
blankets are placed over the slab or around the column
while the heaters continue to fire for at least 72 hours,
the critical period for curing the concrete. During
the cure, thermometers are kept between the blankets
and the concrete slab to monitor the temperature and
keep it constant.
The day after the pour, a core is drilled into the
slab itself and a thermometer is inserted. If the temperature
of the concrete drops below or rises above about 60
degrees, the heaters are adjusted. Finally, a sample
of each pour is saved in a separate testing core. Those
cores are tested by the construction company and also
by our own independent testing company to ensure that
the concrete is maintained at a proper temperature and
that the structural integrity of the building is
preserved.
Concrete is truly an amazing substance. It is simple
yet complex; rugged yet elegant. Its place in architectural
history and in the rise urban culture is subtle but
also dominant. It is the tool of an engineer, for highways,
bridges, flyovers, and foundations; it is the art of
the architect, both in itself or as an element of design.
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: First Home
The Hotung Building continues to rise. The second floor
deck is completely poured and columns are now being
erected to support the third floor. Most of the second
floor deck of the Sport and Fitness Center has also
been poured. To the rear, we await the slabs for the
swimming pool.
Some of you have asked about the large concrete pipe
along the edge of the pool area. The complexity of erecting
two completely different buildings which connect, and
then connect again to a third building, Gewirz, cannot
be underestimated. Given the ceiling height restrictions
in the garage, and our design for the whirlpools in
the locker rooms, it is not possible to hang exhaust
ductwork for the garage from its ceiling. Thus, the
reinforced concrete pipe serves as the exhaust ductwork
for the garage. The pipe is 48 inches in diameter and
weighs about 80,000 pounds. The size is necessary to
handle the large volume of air that must be removed
from the parking areas of the two buildings. The strength
and resulting weight are necessary to support the weight
of the backfill and pool deck directly above it.
With the completion of the Hotung Building and the
Sport and Fitness Center, the Law Center campus will
have five buildings on 6.7 acres of land. When the law
school was founded in 1870, few people could have anticipated
such a campus. Indeed, when the national government
moved to the District in 1800, many people believed
that the city would be nothing more than an unpleasant
backwater, where leaders of the states would have to
go periodically to do the business of the Federal government.
Although there were high hopes for economic development,
it was slow in coming to the city due to shortages of
skilled labor. Political strife between the Democrats
and Federalists still threatened the very existence
of the Union. Moreover, relocation of the Capital to
another city was actively on House of Representatives’
agenda until 1810, returned to it after the War of 1812,
and returned yet again after the Civil War. Nonetheless,
the District grew in fits and starts, with poverty,
filth, and violence living alongside great wealth, grand
and elegant homes, and an increasing number of noble
public buildings.
The real transformation of Washington from a swampy,
southern town into what would become a city of classic
urban design and proportion began in 1870. For the next
three years, until the nationwide depression of 1873,
Alexander “Boss” Shepherd (thus the Shepherd
Park neighborhood) directed a massive public works project
to turn the miles of dirt roads into brick, wooden,
and paved streets and sidewalks, lined with trees and
gas lamps, and to transform the fetid, disease filled
swamps, creeks, and canals into a modern sewer system.
Unfortunately, he had no money to pay the bill, a sad
fact discovered only after the depression took hold.
Shepherd was ultimately driven out of town by his political
enemies in 1876 and moved to Mexico; but he returned
to a triumphant parade in his honor in 1887.
In that same decade Georgetown Law School took its
bold, yet tentative, first steps to becoming an institution
of academic and professional excellence, worthy of its
place in our now vibrant and powerful National city.
The law school’s founding in 1870 was bold because
only 31 other law schools existed at that time, only
one of which, Notre Dame, was affiliated with a Catholic
university. In fact, only nine states even required
a period of study as a precursor to the practice of
law. The school’s founding was tentative because
its success was far from guaranteed. It had to compete
for students with Columbian University (now George Washington).
Four years after its founding, the entire faculty either
resigned or was restructured.”
While the reasons remain hidden to history, the parting
was not pleasant. oreover, the city’s economic
downturn in 1873 caused enrollment to drop to 24 by
1877.
The Georgetown Law Department’s first home during
this turbulent decade was located in the heart of the
city at 4½ Street and Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.,
midway between the Capitol Building and the President’s
House. 4½ Street ran south from the old city
hall (now 451 Indiana Avenue, N.W.). 4½ street
was later renamed John Marshall Place, and more recently
became the plaza of John Marshall Park. Had Pierre L’Enfant
witnessed the architectural activity between the Capitol
and the President’s House at that time, he might
have been amazed. Lore suggests that L’Enfant
had envisioned the Federal District growing eastward
from Jenkins Hill, the site of the Capitol, rather than
westward. There the land was higher and thus, less swampy.
Moreover, the ports at the confluence of the Anacostia
and Potomac Rivers were deeper than those between old
Georgetown and the Capitol. Nonetheless, by 1870, the
commercial and residential areas of the city were firmly
entrenched between the White House and the Capitol;
and although there was ample land on the main campus
to house the new law school, Georgetown chose, for reasons
that remain compelling today, to locate its first home
amidst the people, the courts, the Congress, and the
other pillars of the then preserved Union.
The law school rented space in a building designed
in 1860 by I. Cranford Nielson and owned by the American
Colonization Society. This building exhibits brick masonry,
concentric semi-circular arches set within one another,
deeply recessed windows, a classic revival base and
cornice, and a beltcourse, all characteristic of Romanesque
Revival architecture. (A picture of this building is
on the wall at the F
Street entrance to the Law Center.) Interesting for
our modern purposes, is that it anticipates the architectural
era of “Richardson Romanesque” that began
ten years later. “Richardson Romanesque”
is named for Henry H. Richardson, a founding partner
of our current design firm, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson
and Abbott.
The American Colonization Society, founded in 1817
by Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington, was dedicated
to resettling free blacks in Africa. Beginning during
the Presidency of James Monroe in 1822, the Society
eventually transported more than 6,000 African American
men and women, along with missionaries and teachers,
to Liberia and to an adjacent colony on the West African
coast called Maryland, where they developed towns and
trades and founded the first democracy on the African
continent. Rents from the tenants in the Society Hall,
Georgetown included, help support those activities.
The law school remained a tenant until 1872, when it
moved to the Old Washington Seminary. The olonization
Society Hall remained standing until around 1930, when
it was demolished as Constitution Avenue was cut through
from 6th Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. The land
remained vacant until the National Gallery of Art, designed
by John Russel Pope, was built between 1937 and 1941.
If my eye serves well, the building would have stood
in the gardens at the east end of the Art Gallery’s
West Wing, stretching into the plaza between the Pope
building and I.M Pei designed, East Wing.
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Concrete
Welcome back. While you were celebrating your holidays
our construction crews were very busy. We have finished
pouring most of the foundation walls for both buildings
so their outlines are now completely discernible when
viewed from the 12th floor of Gewirz. We have poured
the entire garage deck and much of the first floor deck.
The mound of dirt in the rear center of the Sport and
Fitness Center marks the pool area; the rising columns
in the front show the curve of a two story glass curtain
wall. From the east door of Gewirz, you can now see
how the slope of the land gives us a first floor entrance
to the Hotung building and a second floor entrance to
the Sport and Fitness Center. Columns are now rising
and forms are being built to pour the second floor.
The Hotung Building will be constructed entirely from
concrete and masonry while the Sport and Fitness building
will have a steel frame and a masonry and glass exterior.
All of the foundations and columns for both buildings,
however, are built from reinforced concrete. Concrete
is simply a mixture of gravel, pebbles, broken stone,
sand, water, and cement, which hardens into a water-
and fire- resistant solid of great compressive strength.
Despite its simplicity, concrete’s development
significantly altered the way large buildings and major
public structures are built. Clay was one of the earliest
bonding substances. The Assyrians and Babylonians used
it to erect their buildings, but it was not very durable
and they were lost in antiquity. The ancient Egyptians
developed a bonding material more closely resembling
modern concrete using lime and gypsum as binders and
used it extensively. It was the Romans, however, who
dramatically expanded architectural methods by using
a stronger concrete made from volcanic ash cement. With
this concrete, and a greater understanding of compression,
Roman architects were able to develop domes, arches,
and vaults to cover large spaces, and sturdy foundations
for large public buildings, bridges, and sewers. Some
of the earliest surviving examples of Roman buildings
made with concrete are the Temple of Sybil, built at
Tivoli in the first century BCE, and the walls of the
Camp of the Praetorian Guard, built in Rome in 21 CE.
The Emperor Nero also used concrete to build an octagonal
domed vault in the Golden House, built in 68 CE. Perhaps
if he had used more concrete, less of Rome would have
burned while he fiddled.
The use of concrete declined in the Middle Ages but
was revived in 1824 with the development of Portland
cement by Joseph Aspdin. Portland cement is made by
heating a combination of limestone and clay containing
oxides of calcium, iron, aluminum, and silicon, and
then pulverizing the resultant fused matter. Concrete
made with Portland cement (named after the stone found
on the Isle of Portland of the coast of Britain) produced
stronger bonds than former concretes, thus permitting
the construction of larger buildings. In 1867, Joseph
Monier, a French gardener, patented a method of strengthening
thin concrete flower pots by embedding iron wire into
the concrete, leading ultimately to the development
of reinforced concrete. By the end of the century, the
notion of reinforcing concrete with iron bars, to create
a great tensile strength to complement its compressive
strength, had become common. As a result, the stone
edifice gave way to the less expensive reinforced concrete
and brick building.
The architectural value of reinforced concrete cannot
be underestimated. It is inexpensive and easy to obtain
when compared to the quarried stone that was used for
foundations and structures through the early 19th century.
It has great load carrying capacity and thus can support
large structures. For example, in our buildings, we
are pouring the concrete to a compressive strength of
3,000 pounds per square inch in the footings and 4,000
pounds per square inch in the floors and columns. That
means a 6 inch by 12 inch test cylinder will withstand
over 100,000 pounds of pressure without crumbling. While
the calculations become complicated for standing buildings
because of floor spans and tensile strength ratios,
the floors in our buildings are built to support 250
pounds of weight per square foot. Finally, because concrete
is applied in a liquid form, it allows for greater architectural
expression than some other materials. The rotundas of
the Williams Library, the Gewirz Residence Hall, and
the East Wing of McDonough were all formed with precast
concrete. The curved foundation in the north end of
the Hotung building was poured into forms on site. While
these architectural features could be obtained with
other substances, they are easier to form with concrete.
To obtain all of these advantages, however, concrete
must be poured carefully and in good weather. Excess
water in the mixture and cold and hot weather during
the curing period affect the strength and drying time
of concrete. Although you may see men walking on the
surface of a concrete floor within a couple of hours
after it is poured, it continues to cure at high but
decreasing internal temperatures for several days. For
many months after that, the concrete remains chemically
active inside, growing stronger with the passage of
time.
Some interesting facts: By the time we are finished,
we will have poured 11,600 cubic yards (1300 truckloads)
of concrete. If the trucks were lined up end to end,
they would stretch six and one half miles. The concrete
is reinforced by 1,350,000 linear feet of rebar. Lined
up end to end, the rebar would stretch over 250 miles.
We have added an architectural tour to the construction
web page accessible from the Law Center Home Page. You
might enjoy looking at it.
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 17:44:45
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Future of the Neighborhood
Foundation work for both buildings continues. All
columns and wall footings for the Hotung Building are
complete. We have begun to lay theconcrete slab on grade
that will become the garage floor and an elevated slab
that will become the first floor. Construction of foundation
walls and columns will soon be completed for the Sport
and Fitness Center as well. You can begin to see the
outline of the building, and the hill tothe rear of
the lot marks the site of the lap pool. Tons of concrete
have been poured into the site and through it all, the
Tower Crane hasbeen the workhorse of our efforts.
The view from the top of the Tower Crane, three stories
higher than Gewirz, is both impressive and instructive.
To the north, one can see the fall line of the Piedmont,
running through Meridian Park. To the East, train lines
emanate from Union Station which was built in the early
1900s to consolidate the railroad terminals in D.C.
Built as part of the City Beautiful movement at the
turn of the century, Union Station eliminated the train
tracks and station from the base of the Capitol, permitting
the construction of what is now the Mall. To the South,
the gently rising banks of the Anacostia River, and
the Potomac River watershed mark the edge of the Coastal
Plain as it runs down to the Chesapeake Bay. In between,
is the marvelous federal city laid out by Pierre L’Enfant
in the early 1800s.
From this high vantage point, the future of Washington,
D.C. appears along with its past. No fewer than 23 other
tower cranes are visible from the top of ours. They
are building the modern city envisioned by the District’s
Downtown Action Agenda. The Agenda calls for 3,500 new
housing units, 330,000 square feet of new retail space,
850 new theater seats, 14 new movie screens, and 3 new
museums, all to be opened by December, 2004. Much of
this construction will occur in or near our neighborhood
and will transform life at the Law Center. For example,
apartments are now under construction at three locations
between the Law Center and Fifth Street, N.W., along
Massachusetts Avenue. 405 additional apartments and
town houses, a grocery store, other retail outlets,
and a multi-screen movie theater are planned for the
corner of Fifth and K, N.W. Across the street from us
at the triangle park, the National Real Estate Association
plans to build a dramatically designed, all glass office
building. It is scheduled to open around the same time
as our buildings in 2004. This vibrant cityscape will
fulfill dreams of former Georgetown Dean, Paul Dean,
and others in 1971, when McDonough Hall opened and Georgetown
became a development pioneer in this
neighborhood. While relations between towns and educational
institutions are often rocky, D.C. has always recognized
that our continued commitment to and investment in this
neighborhood has been a critical factor to its now emerging
renaissance.
If you haven’t visited the Construction website
yet, please do so. It is accessible from the Law Center
Home Page. In addition, a display showing the designs
of the building and describing their highlights will
be placed on the second floor of McDonough on Monday.
Fri, 15 Nov 2002 17:08:34
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Dinosaurs and Indians
We have reached the point in our construction
project where one can begin to see the outlines of the
Hotung Building. Viewed from the top of Gewirz, the
foundation walls give a sense of the Hotung buildings
perimeter. On the F Street side, you can see the gentle
curve of the north wall, an architectural lagniappe
that beckons to, but does not replicate, the rotundas
of our other buildings. To the west, you can see where
the wall will open to permit access at the parking level
into the Sport and Fitness Center. To the north again,
we have poured the floor slab to one of the mechanical
rooms. The top of the columns throughout the excavation
pit show where the slab for the first floor will begin.
We have essentially completed the excavation. The dimensions
of the excavation are quite impressive. The pit is 280
feet long and 232 feet wide. Its deepest point is 23
feet below the street. We removed 945,000 cubic feet
of dirt. Since each cubic foot of dirt weighs about
133 pounds, we removed 125,685,000 pounds of soil.
Recognizing that we were removing a large amount of
dirt, several people have asked me whether we discovered
any Native American artifacts or fossils on the site.
The answer is no. Nonetheless, both Native Americans
and dinosaurs inhabited this area at one time. The earliest
sighting of Native Americans by Europeans occurred in
1608 when Capt. John Smith saw members of the Powhatan
band on the Potomac River just north of what is now
Georgetown. Many of the Nacosin Indians, of Algonquin
lineage, lived on the banks of the Anacostia River in
a large village called Nacotchtank. The village stretched
from near Bladensburg, Maryland, to the confluence of
the Anacostia and Potomac rivers. Another band lived
in a smaller village called Tahoga (now you know where
the restaurant got its name) in what in now Georgetown.
The closest village to the Law Center was at 2nd and
Duddington Streets, S.E., just south of the House office
buildings and near Garfield Park. These bands were farmers
and fishermen, but they also hunted along the Tiber
and Goose Creeks and in the swamps that covered our
land. Nacotchtank disappears from European records in
the early 1630s as the villagers moved further down
river to a spot near Nanjemoy, Maryland. It was among
the bands living along the Potomac that the Jesuit missionaries
began their work in 1639.
As for dinosaurs, they too inhabited this area but
little evidence remains in the Coastal Plain because
of the floods during the glacial era. Nonetheless, D.C.
Code 1-161 designates the Capitalsaurus as the official
dinosaur of the District of Columbia. Fossil remains
from this dinosaur were discovered in 1898 at 1st and
F Streets, S.E., near the site of that old Native American
village. The dinosaur was 110 million years old and
may have been an ancestor of T Rex. Like so many other
things in D.C., it is unique, in that no other fossil
like it has ever
been found in the world.
Fri, 01 Nov 2002 16:43:52
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Geology
For the past few weeks, we have been pouring concrete
foundations and forming and pouring columns. Wall forms
and reinforcing steel are being set to pour the perimeter
foundation wall. In fact, one section of the wall has
already been poured.
If you look into the excavation pit, you can get some
sense of the geology of this area. Geologically speaking,
the Law Center is in the Coastal Plain, sweeping down
from a mountainous region called the Piedmont. Three
layers of deposits appear in the excavation site: a
thin upper layer of soil, broken bricks, and other evidence
of human occupation; a middle layer, pink to brown in
color, composed of mostly clay that is evidence of a
swamp that covered much of this area into the 1800;
and then sand, of a quality usually found around moving
water. The last layer, of course, raises the question
of how this sand came to be here.
A clue comes from some of the rocks and pebbles one
finds mixed in with the sand. The smaller rounded quartz
pebbles suggest moving water. Their roundness suggests
that they were formed by a river rather than by the
ebb and flow of ocean waves. The larger cobbles are
of a kind usually found around Hancock, Maryland, which
suggests that they were brought here by a powerful moving
force.
During the period when the glaciers covered southern
Pennsylvania, this region endured much rain. Many swift-moving
rivers, caused by the rain and the melting glaciers,
covered the land that is now D.C. Remnants of those
rivers remain, some flowing like the Potomac and the
Anacostia, some merely hidden meanders or trickling
streams like Goose Creek and Tiber Creek, which flowed
in this area until the 1900s. After the glaciers melted,
the rivers slowed and their power diminished, and the
area slowly turned into the swamp. The swamp remained
late into the 1800s and gave rise to this neighborhood's
nickname, Swampoodle.
But, back to the sand! It is difficult to actually
date a piece of sand, but since it was deposited during
the era of the glaciers, one can guess it is between
10,000 and 1 million years old, although some of it
may even be older. This may seem an imprecise measurement,
but in geologic time it is less than a heartbeat. The
earliest evidence of preserved life in the D.C. area
is about 100 million years old, and the rocky Piedmont
began to form at least 400 million years ago.
By the way, we have lost a few workdays, and probably
a few grains of sand because of the rain. As a result,
we will need to catch up. Crews will be arriving at
seven and working later than 3:30 for a while. You may
also see workmen here on Saturdays. Noise levels will
remain the same for the next few weeks.
Fri, 18 Oct 2002 16:42:29
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Tower Crane
As you can see, the construction crews have begun
to lay the cement footings for the foundation. In case
you are curious about the tower crane, it is 200 feet
tall and has a boom that is 220 feet long. At the tip,
it can lift 12,000 pounds. At a position close to the
cab, it can lift 35,000 pounds. It sits in 140 cubic
yards of concrete and carries a 30,000 pound counterweight
to keep it from tipping when it lifts and moves loads.
It will be used to pour concrete (2 cubic yards per
bucket is typical), to lift formwork, plywood, and framing
lumber, set reinforcing steel, unload material from
trucks, and to get that material to the decks as the
decks are being formed and poured. It may also be used
to set some of the structural steel and, of course,
to fly the flag.
Thu, 03 Oct 2002 15:06:02
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Lagging Boards
Thank you for your cooperation as we went through
one of the noisier parts of our construction project.
There are 4 more piles to drive. Barring some unforeseen
problem, we should finish tomorrow.
Tomorrow will also mark two milestones in our construction
plan. All of the lagging boards and tiebacks will be
in place. These hold back the walls of the excavated
site so that they do not collapse as we move into the
next phase of construction. We will also complete the
mass excavation. Although small parts of the site may
continue to be excavated, we will have reached sub?grade.
The next exciting part of the project will be the construction
of a tower crane that will rise higher than the Gewirz
building. If you loved playing with tinker toys or erector
sets as a kid (or still do), you will love this stage.
The foundation forms for the crane are almost in place.
The crane itself will begin to rise on Tuesday.
During the month of October we will be putting in cement
footings for the buildings and preparing to erect the
foundation walls. We will hear the sound of trucks and
a generator, but nothing involving high decibels or
pounding.
Thanks again for your cooperation.
Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:09:30
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Pile Driving
We are scheduled to begin driving piles adjacent
to the Gewirz Building starting Tuesday, September 24.
We are expecting this operation to continue through
Thursday, September 26. We will start driving at 8:00
a.m. each day and will continue until 4:00 p.m. This
effort will complete our pile driving. We will soon
be laying foundations.
Although our last round of pile driving seemed minimally
disruptive, it does result in noise that is louder than
that which we have been experiencing. It will have its
greatest effect on the south side of McDonough and the
east side of Gewirz.
We are trying to accommodate some events that are taking
place at the Law Center that week. The faculty research
workshop on Tuesday is scheduled for the faculty lounge.
We will let the faculty know in the morning if we have
to change rooms. We will discontinue pile driving during
lunch on Wednesday to accommodate the lecture by the
chief judge of Norway. Barring any difficulties, we
will be done by Friday and thus, will not interfere
with the meeting of the Board of Visitors. We realize
that classes on the south side of McDonough may be affected.
Unfortunately, budget restraints prevent us from totally
working around those classes.
Thank you for your tolerance and cooperation. If there
are any other events occurring that I have not accounted
for, please let me know.
