The Most Beautiful Room in the World
Analysis and digital reconstruction of lost architectural masterpieces
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Welcome!
Overview of this site
This site is dedicated to my digital forensic reconstructions of several neoclassical architectural masterpieces within the nation's Capitol that are now lost to time. My careful research and my reconstructive methods change the way architectural history can now be explored.
The first project I've focussed on is the Capitol's famous Hall of Representatives, a chamber that embodied the nation's ambitious goals and one that Thomas Jefferson suggested might be one of the world's most magnificent rooms; yet no topographical record of it exists as it was destroyed by fire in 1814. With the use of computer imaging programs, I have recreated the Hall from thousands of bits of design and construction information culled from letters and drawings between the principals.
I'm available for design consultation, architectural analysis, and visualization. Please contact me with your specific needs. The methods I've developed here would be applicable to analysis and visualization in other professions, such as engineering, archaeology and law.
Click on the above menu item "Design Chapters" to see some finished images... and check back often as I'll continually be adding images.
Read my articles in the research journal Le Libellio d'AEGIS. These are pdf versions:
News and progress
2-23-2013
Read my Guest Blog (23 Feb) at CastingArchitecture, a cool Blog that
discusses how architecture is portrayed in film.
Basically, I was disappointed by how diligent Spielberg was in getting certain "Lincoln" details
perfect, but allowed the U.S. Capitol to be woefully misrepresented.
Check out my diagram.
I wish they had hired me to advise on the Capitol shots. Let me know, Mr. Spielberg, when I can help you out with
the Director's Cut!
1-22-2013
Take a look at my short movie trailer posted here. The struggle to build the Capitol
during Jefferson's administration is an incredible tale of perseverance and brilliant design and construction.
I will be reposting my
project on Kickstarter soon to raise funds to develop my script and my book idea. This is a ground-breaking architectural
history, both in content and the methods.
6-14-2012
My interview made the cover of the Daily Single. Here's the pdf version.
6-1-2012
My article about our very first Miss Liberty (1807-1814) in the research journal at the Ecole Polytechnique. The pdf version is posted above. The link here will take you to the entire journal. She was destroyed when the Capitol burned. Scroll to page 67.
5-8-2012
My Kickstarter Launch! Go now and help make this movie a reality! It's a major contribution to architectural history and to the American experience. Take me to Kickstarter so I can contribute.
11-16-2011
Lecture at the Jewish Center of Princeton.
9-15-2011
See Richard's recent article and his ground-breaking images in Le Libellio d'Aegis, published at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.
4-22-2011
Profile of Richard Chenoweth in Vanderbilt Magazine.
5-13-2010
Chenoweth was awarded a second U.S. Capitol Historical Society Fellowship for research on the Capitol.
The funeral of Hiram Cronk and your place in the space-time continuum
In 1905, a funeral parade was held in New York City for the last surviving veteran of the War of 1812, Hiram Cronk (1800-1905).
If you're about my age, your grandfather could have watched Cronk's procession. That potentially links your grandfather's life, through Cronk, with the lives and times of Latrobe, Jefferson, Dolley Madison and Andrew Jackson.
Cronk served from August-November, 1814, and it's not known that he ever left the State of New York.
But it's fascinating to think that if he had marched through Washington, may have climbed to the roof of the Capitol for a better view of the city, as many visitors did, and then stopped to see the Hall and the Sitting Liberty... the story we now want to tell.