The Capitol Stones in Washington DC's Rock Creek Park were a delight for urban explorers, a curiosity for historians, and a tangible connection for descendants of enslaved laborers who quarried, transported, and shaped them into the United States Capitol. Banished from the East Front of the Capitol in 1958, they have spent the last third of their existence "not quite dumped, but not quite preserved either" (Banville 2009). To the National Park Service, they are a liability; to the Architect of the Capitol, a resource. At the time of writing, the stones are being relocated to a secure government storage facility where they will be permanently locked away from public view. This thesis proposes an alternative: relocate the Capitol Stones to an adaptively reused factory at the Navy Yard, where they can be stored, visited, and studied in a cavernous daylit atrium.
In addition to housing the stones, as part of this thesis the WWII era naval weapons factory features retail at ground level and residences on four stories above. To the north, the atrium recalls the park-like setting of the stones' recent past, while the southern end is a working space for masons training to preserve historic buildings constructed of the same Aquia Creek sandstone. Due to the Anacostia's shifting shoreline, the site of Building 202 is also a likely location of the wharf at which the Capitol Stones first arrived in the District after being floated upriver from their Stafford County quarry. This crucial moment is marked by a contemplative memorial which stands in memory of the enslaved laborers who, across various levels of skill, built the Capitol. On axis with the memorial, the Capitol's East Portico - the origin of the Capitol Stones - is remembered at full scale. / Master of Architecture / Seemingly abandoned behind a maintenance shed in Washington DC's Rock Creek Park was a large collection of intricately hand carved stones. Urban explorers, historians, and descendants of enslaved laborers knew them as the Capitol Stones, which formed the East Front of the United States Capitol from the 1820s to the 1950s. But much like they were evicted from the Capitol, the Stones are presently facing eviction from Rock Creek Park. At the time of writing, the stones are being relocated to a secure government storage facility where they will be permanently locked away from public view. But what if they could remain accessible?
This thesis proposes the relocation of the Capitol Stones into the light-filled atrium of a WWII era naval weapons factory, formerly part of the Washington Navy Yard. The atrium is enveloped by retail and residential space, as well as a training center for apprentice masons learning to use the Capitol Stones as a quarry. Stripped of their original purpose, the Capitol Stones have found new value as replacement stones at the other historic buildings. The factory, Building 202, occupies dredged and filled land which at the time of the Capitol's construction was part of the Anacostia River and the likely site of Commissioner's Wharf, the pier at which the Capitol Stones were delivered from the Aquia Creek Quarry in Stafford County, VA. Recalling this pivotal occasion, the stones surround a contemplative memorial to enslaved laborers who built the Capitol. To the east of the memorial stands a life sized representation of the East Front of the Capitol, the origin of the Capitol Stones.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115638 |
| Date | 03 July 2023 |
| Creators | Ashcraft, Andrew Eric |
| Contributors | Architecture, Emmons, Paul F., Feuerstein, Marcia F., Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
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