Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/884685
PRESIDEnT lInColn Like many Americans, I believed that President Lincoln had been determined to continue construction of the Capitol as a powerful symbol that the Union would be preserved despite the tremendous costs of the ongoing war. This was compatible with my sense of patriotism and image of Lincoln as a far-sighted and thoughtful leader. The reality is that, as Bill Allen discusses, at the start of the Civil War in 1861 the construction of the new cast-iron Dome had already reached the level above the 36-column colonnade, almost completing the drum that was to serve as the Dome's base (fig. 2). When the New York foundry of Janes, Fowler, Kirtland and Co. was contacted by the secretary of war, "advising the firm not to expect payment for any further work on the Dome until the country's financial outlook improved . . . Charles Fowler and his partners determined that there was no choice but to continue to hoist and bolt ironwork on the Dome. They had 1.3 million pounds of iron stockpiled on the site, and walking away from such valuable material would be irresponsible and costly. Instead the firm decided to continue building the Dome, trusting the government to pay when times were better." 3 This therefore was a unilateral business decision by the foundry, rather than a far-sighted one by President Lincoln. began, but a free man when the statue was unveiled. He is the best known of the many African Americans to have made important contributions to the construction of the Capitol itself. On 2 December 2008, precisely 145 years after the Dome's dedication, the original plaster cast of Freedom, sculpted by Thomas Crawford, stood proudly as the focal point of Emancipation Hall, looking out over the formal dedication of the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC). The CVC represents the largest addition to the Capitol since 1793, when President George Washington selected the winning design proposal by Dr. William Thornton, the 1st Architect of the Capitol. PASSInG THE BATon Many important architectural changes were proposed and implemented at the Capitol between these two events, as they had been ever since Thornton's design was first submitted. With this constant flow of change, the baton has been passed from Architect to Architect, each a dedicated steward of the Capitol, each working to maintain its integrity, while from time to time weav- ing in his own aesthetic philosophy. These changes were necessitated by the physical needs of our aging structures, as well as by the imperative for additional congressional space as our nation continued to grow, adding more senators, representatives, and their sup- porting staffs. The most recent of these efforts has been the com- prehensive, multi-phased Capitol Dome Restoration Project that was completed in 2016 and celebrated on 2 December of that year in the CVC's Congressional Auditorium. An earlier program of major Dome repairs dates back some 57 years to 1959-1960, under J. George Stewart, the Eighth Architect of the Capitol. Cracked cast iron was patched with metal straps that soon snapped with the pressure of the expanding plates. Joints were caulked, and a finish of "Dome White" paint was applied over a new coating of red lead-based primer, creating an environmental problem for future architects (fig. 3). My direct predecessor, George White, had begun ini- tial investigations of Dome deficiencies after a major 1990 storm caused multiple leaks that created puddles on the Rotunda floor and damaged Constantino Brumidi's frieze at the top of the Rotunda wall. The next year White commissioned a study of the problems and received a report from his consultants, Hoffman Archi- tects of Connecticut, that the water drainage problems 14 THE CAPITOL DOME