The Computer Graphic Capitol

Dazzling light

When Thomas Jefferson hired Benjamin Henry Latrobe to design and build the south wing of the United States Capitol in 1803, he was inspired by a moment of reverie from two decades before in Paris.

In 1786, while serving as the United States minister to France, Jefferson visited the Halle aux bleds. The Paris grain exchange had been built twenty years before, and very recently had had a glazed dome built over its circular central space. This dome bathed the central space with a dazzling light that Jefferson would never forget. It was one of the preeminent industrial buildings in all of Europe, primarily due to its prodigious light and its brilliant circulation.

The most beautiful room in the world?

Decades later, in 1804, President Jefferson instructed Latrobe to use a similar dome design in the new American Capitol's South Wing. Jefferson wrote that if Latrobe followed this course, the skylit Hall of Representatives would be, "... the handsomest room in the world, without a single exception... ".

Latrobe and Jefferson debated the nature of the design for the next two years, on both philosophical as well as technical grounds. Their opinions differed.

Latrobe found himself in an odd position. He deeply respected and admired his client as
the " ... planter of the Arts in (America)... " and a visionary politician, but Latrobe also was a visionary of the Enlightenment, and had his own educated and willful opinion as to the nature of art, politics and the quality of light required for such a chamber. A showdown ensued, and Latrobe acceded.

Latrobe eventually built the skylit chamber as Jefferson desired and the Hall of Representatives was ready for business in 1808. Many contemporary accounts attest to the room's great beauty and its modern simplicity and restraint in surface and material. The chamber was also home to the first figure of Liberty, a monumental sitting Liberty replete with allegorical accoutrements and a fashionable Greek costume.

No topographical image exists of this masterpiece of American architecture nor of the Sitting Liberty. My images here are based on a very careful forensic reconstruction from known facts from letters and drawings.