The Capitol Rotunda
Before getting started, I would like to thank the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies for creating and sponsoring the Passion Project Program. I can create this blog because of the Passion Project Program, and I am extremely excited to share the US Capitol’s unique features and history. In this post, I will go through the Rotunda’s history of construction, the Rotunda’s unique features, and how Congress currently uses the Rotunda.
The Capitol Rotunda has always been central to the US Capitol Building. When there was a contest in 1793 to decide who to hire to design the new US Capitol Building, Doctor William Thornton won the competition with no formal architectural training. His design’s centerpiece was a Rotunda that anchored both sides of Congress. While William Thornton won the competition in 1793, the construction of the Rotunda itself did not start until 1818 due to a lack of materials and funding, along with the burning of the Capitol during the War of 1812.
The second person who contributed to the design and construction of the modern-day Capitol Rotunda was Charles Bulfinch. Charles Bulfinch was the individual who oversaw the construction and completion of the original sandstone Capitol Rotunda in 1824. The completion of the original sandstone Rotunda in 1824 was significant because Marquis de Lafayette, the French noble who helped America win its independence from the British, visited the Capitol Building that year. The original sandstone Rotunda is a great example of neoclassical architecture. Thornton and Bulfinch meant the Rotunda to resemble the Roman Pantheon and ground the building in classical civilization. The walls of the original Rotunda were sandstone, and polished sandstone tiles made up the floor, and it was forty-eight feet tall.
The third architect who influenced and completed the modern-day Capitol Rotunda is Thomas U. Walter. Walter had expanded both sides of the Capitol Building, so Congress hired him to expand the Rotunda so that its size matched the expanded sides of the Capitol Building. Construction occurred between 1855 and 1866, and the construction expanded the Capitol Building by creating a cast-iron dome as the fire-proof dome was important after the burning of the Capitol during the War of 1812. Walter created the new Capitol dome out of two domes: one scaled for the Rotunda and one scaled for the Capitol Building as a whole. European buildings such as Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London influenced Walter’s dome, and its scale was massive. It is one hundred and eighty feet from the floor to the top of the inner dome, and it is around two hundred and eighty feet from the ground to the top of the outer dome.
While Walter’s dome itself represented a significant change to the Capitol Rotunda, the works of art contained on its walls add additional dimensions to the Capitol Rotunda. The Capitol Rotunda dome contains the Apotheosis of George Washington and the Frieze, which add different stories to the Capitol Rotunda.
The Apotheosis of George Washington is entirely the work of Constantino Brumidi. He completed the fresco in 1865, and it covers the eye of the interior dome. Apotheosis’ definition means becoming a divine figure, and the fresco portrays George Washington rising to the rank of god. In the fresco, Washington is next to two females who symbolize liberty and triumph, and thirteen other women who complete a circle represent the original thirteen states. Around the boundary of the fresco, there are six groups of individuals who represent war, science, marine technology, commerce, mechanics, and agriculture, which were all fields of innovation at the time. The work gives the nation’s founding a divine and spiritual quality by showing our first President becoming a divine being.
The other major piece of art in the Capitol dome is the Frieze. The Frieze is a series of paintings at the start of Walter’s dome that shows one portrait of America’s history going from Columbus arriving in the Americas to aviation’s invention. Like the Capitol Rotunda itself, the Frieze is the product of three different individuals. Constantino Brumidi was the original painter of the Frieze, and his contributions go from Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas to the gold rush in California. Sadly, he could not finish the Frieze after he nearly died when his chair tipped on the scaffolding and died soon after in February of 1880. Congress hired Filippo Costaggini to complete the rest of the Frieze based on Brumidi’s designs. He completed the remaining Brumidi designs, but he messed up his calculations on the Frieze’s size, so there were over thirty feet remaining when he completed his work in 1889. He proposed some designs to fill the rest of the leftover space, but Congress never approved the designs before he died in 1904. Allyn Cox is the third and final person who contributed to the Frieze. Congress hired him in 1951 to fill up the remaining space of the Frieze with three paintings that cover the country’s history from the Civil War to the invention of Aviation. He completed his work in 1953 to fully complete the Frieze, and there has been some restoration work since then.
There are also eight paintings in the original sandstone parts of the Rotunda. These eight paintings are from two distinct periods. John Trumbull painted the first four paintings, which show scenes from the signing of the Declaration, General Burgoyne’s surrender at the Battle of Saratoga, General Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown, and George Washington resigning his commission as commander-in-chief, respectively. The second group of paintings went into the Rotunda between 1840 and 1855. Four different artists created these paintings — John Vanderlyn, William Powell, John Chapman, and Robert Weir— and they portray the Landing of Columbus, the Discovery of the Mississippi, the Baptism of Pocahontas, and the Embarkation of the Pilgrims, respectively.
While it is the literal center of the Capitol Building, no legislative activity occurs in the Capitol Rotunda. Congress largely uses the Rotunda for ceremonial events authorized by a concurrent resolution passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The most common ceremonial event is for the lying in state of exceptional Americans. Recent examples of people who have lain in state include Senator Bob Dole, Congressman John Lewis, President George Herbert Walker Bush, and many more.
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