April 23,2001 THE NEW FEDERALIST Page 9

The Capitol Dome:

A Renaissance Project for the Nation's Capital

by Bonnie James

THE CAPITOL DOME: The cast-iron dome overwhelms and transforms—recreates—

the original building, in this 1859 ink-and-watercolor sketch by architect Thomas U
Walter.

The great dome that crowns the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.—
immediately recognized around the world as the symbol of our nation's
capital—was designed by Philadelphia architect Thomas Ustick Walter
(1804-1887), and built during the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, through
the years of the Civil War. Walter, the son of a bricklayer, became a profes-
sor of architecture at the famous Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and
president of the American Institute of Architects (1876- 87), of which he was
a founder. His patron in Philadelphia was the influential financier Nicholas
Biddle, the Hamiltonian economist and president of the Second Bank of the
United States.

Thomas U. Walter, architect, Architect Walter's 1859 cross-section

in a photograph taken at the drawing of the U.S. Capitol Dome
Mathew Brady Studio. and Rotunda.

In 1833, Walter was chosen by Biddle to design the main building of the
Girard College for Orphans in Philadelphia, considered today to be a leading
example of Classical Greek revival architecture. Walter also built Biddle's
private estate, Andalusia, another masterpiece of the neo-Classical style,
based on the Theseion, an Athenian temple dedicated to Hephaistos, the
blacksmith among the gods, and the goddess Athena. Walter's architectural
mentor William Strickland designed Biddle's Second National Bank, consid-
ered by many to be the leading Greek neo-Classical building in the United
States. All in all, Walter had designed over 350 buildings, and was the
preeminent neo-Classical architect of his time, before winning the competi-
tion for the design of the expansion of the Capitol Building in 1851.
Already, in 1843, Walter's international reputation was such that he was
invited by the government of Venezuela to visit La Guaira and examine its
port, to determine the feasibility of constructing a breakwater. After con-
ducting extensive engineering studies on site, Walter successfully carried out
the demanding project.
During Walter's 14 years as Architect of the Capitol, he also executed nu-
merous other commissions, including the reconstruction of the Library of
Congress, and the design of St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Insane, a govern-
ment institution still located today in the Southeast quadrant of the city.
War and Peace
In 1851, the Whig President Millard Fillmore appointed Walter to design
two new wings for the Capitol Building, to serve as new quarters for the
House and Senate—a project which, when completed in 1859, more than
doubled the size of the building. Walter's design for the dome or cupola was
selected as well. However, with the election as President of pro-Confederate
Democrat Franklin Pierce (maternal forebear of President George W. Bush),
Walter's role was, for a time, subordinated to (and undermined by) the chief
military engineer, Capt. Montgomery C. Meigs, whose patron was Pierce's
Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis—the man who would soon become the
President of the Confederate States of America.
The great dome was under construction as the Civil War broke out in 1861,
but President Abraham Lincoln insisted the work continue, understanding
that, as the great dome rose above the capital city of the Union, its power to
convey the idea of victory—and of a great purpose worth fighting for—
would have a tremendously moralizing effect on the citizenry.
Walter's design for the dome was based on his on-site studies of many of the
great domes of Europe, including St. Peter's in Rome. Although he did not
visit Florence to see the revolutionary cupola built by the Renaissance
genius Filippo Brunelleschi for the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del
Fiore (completed 1446), which became the model for all future such struc-
tures, those Walter studied were based on Brunelleschi's. They shared
common features pioneered by Filippo, including a double shell, a ribbed
cupola, and a crowning element, such as a lantern, like that which Brunel-
leschi used.
For the Capitol Dome, an allegorical figure, the bronze statue "Freedom
Triumphant in War or Peace," created by the sculptor Thomas Crawford,
stands at the apex, on a cast-iron globe, encircled with the motto of the
United States, "E Pluribus Unum." (After the traitorous Secretary of War
Davis objected to Crawford's plan to include a "liberty cap," the symbol of
freed slaves, the sculptor was forced to replace it with a crested Roman
helmet.)
Among the most outstanding features of the Capitol Building are the
Renaissance-style frescoes which decorate its interior, contributed by the
Italian-born painter Constantino Brumidi, who based his paintings on those
of Raphael.
Following the completion of his work on the Capitol Dome, which stands
today as the singular symbol of the United States, and the most famous of
Washington's monuments, Walter spent his last years as an architect in
Philadelphia, where, among other commissions, he worked as the leading
consultant in the Philadelphia City Hall project.