The Washington Monument: Honoring ‘an idea as much as a man’ – WTOP News

▶ Watch Video: Constructing the Washington Monument

In a city stuffed with monuments, there’s one which stands above all of them. Paul Goldberger, professor of design and structure on the New College in New York, calls the Washington Monument, in our nation’s capital, “the tallest, the best, essentially the most simple, essentially the most direct. It’s very very similar to Washington himself in that method really.”

The monument’s iconic design was not, in truth, by design.

“Robert Mills, who designed the Washington Monument, initially envisioned a classical colonnade going across the backside of columns, principally type of like a spherical, classical temple,” mentioned Goldberger. “They’d every kind of economic issues in addition to political issues. And so, solely the obelisk was constructed.”

Development started in 1848 and was painfully gradual as a result of problem of nineteenth century crowd-funding, based on Mike Litterst, spokesperson for the Nationwide Mall. “Nobody individual may give greater than a greenback to the Washington Monument, as a result of they needed it to be a monument of the folks,” Litterst mentioned. “However when everyone can solely give a greenback, and also you want 250,000-plus to complete the undertaking, that’s going to be an issue over time.”

Monetary troubles apart, the monument had no scarcity of teams who needed to be related to it. Litterst confirmed Salie a few of the stones, engraved by the monument’s supporters (Masons, locomotive makers, temperance societies) that got here from all corners of America, giving us a window into nineteenth century America – a time capsule of states that have been tenuously united.

That theme is illustrated no higher than by the Tennessee stone, on which is engraved the slogan, “Federal union, it have to be preserved.”

“We’re speaking mid-1850s right here,” mentioned Litterst. “It is a direct reference to the storm clouds gathering that can finally erupt in civil struggle in 1861.”

Even international international locations left their mark. After which there was a legendary stone from the Vatican. “Pope Pius IX despatched a stone from the ruins of the Temple of Harmony within the Discussion board in Rome,” Litterst mentioned. “And this outraged quite a few folks within the nation, particularly a political celebration referred to as the Know-Nothings. Their platform was decidedly anti-Catholic and anti-foreigners.”

The Know-Nothings threw the so-called Pope Stone into the Potomac, then staged a coup, taking on the society charged with constructing the monument, in 1855. Development floor to a halt.

For greater than twenty years the obelisk was a stump. Cows have been stored on the positioning throughout the Civil Conflict, nearly as if to represent the USA’ unrealized beliefs.

Litterst mentioned, “The centennial of American Independence is available in 1876. That’s the renewed curiosity, to not simply end it; we’re both going to complete it or we’re going to tear it down, as a result of this can be a full embarrassment.”

And it’s one of many causes that, in the event you look intently on the monument in the present day, you may see a distinction in its marble cladding.

When it was lastly completed in 1885, it stood at 555 toes and 5 1/8 inches tall, and was the world’s tallest construction.

Goldberger mentioned, “The Washington Monument is only a pure form, and it means that Washington is an concept as a lot as a person. An concept of singularity, an concept of readability and perfection and heading for the sky.”

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Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Remington Korper.