The Patrick Henry Building is a historic building located in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. Formerly designated simply as the Old State Library or the Virginia State Library and Archives and Virginia Supreme Court, it was renovated, then rededicated and renamed for the

Founding Father The following list of national founding figures is a record, by country, of people who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e. ...

and former Virginia Governor

Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first an ...

on June 13, 2005.

Description

The limestone-sheathed steel-core building was built in a modernist style for government buildings sometimes called

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

Stripped Classicism Stripped Classicism (or "Starved Classicism" or "Grecian Moderne") Jstor is primarily a 20th-century Classical architecture, classicist architectural style stripped of most or all Ornament (art), ornamentation, frequently employed by governmen ...

. Three teams of architects designed the building: Baskerville & Son; Carneal, Johnston and Wright; and consulting architects Githens & Keally. The minimal exterior ornamentation was intended to direct attention to the nearby

Virginia State Capitol The Virginia State Capitol is the seat of state government of the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in Richmond, the third capital city of the U.S. state of Virginia. (The first two were Jamestown and Williamsburg.) It houses the oldest elected ...

.Alfred Morten Githens and

Francis Keally Francis J. Keally (1889 - 1978) was an American architect and pioneering preservationist, based in New York City. Keally's design credits include the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Oregon in 1938, in a one-time association with Trowbridge & L ...

, "An Example in Library Design" Commonwealth (October, 1941) Vol. VIII No. 10, p.7 The two main entrances refer to its original two functions, as do the quotations from famous Virginians inscribed on the four sides (all-caps removed; periods for original colons): *The judicial department comes home in its effects to every mans fireside. It passes on his property his reputation his life his all.

John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longes ...

(north elevation) *Liberty and learning: both best supported when leaning on each other.

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...

(east elevation) *Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. They are the natural enemies of error and of error only.

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

(south elevation) *A knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

(west elevation) The extensive 2003-2005 renovation retained the original entrances and many inside details (such as wood paneling, marble features and copper light fixtures), but modernized the plumbing, HVAC and electrical systems (removing hazardous materials). It also replaced the library stacks which had served as supportive core for the steel-frame building with modern core amenities. Some elements of the building's expansion in 1970 were also removed.

History

Constructed by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

during the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

, the building served as the home of the

Supreme Court of Virginia The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative ...

(formerly known as the Supreme Court of Appeals per the inscription above the Broad Street entrance) until it moved to the renovated former Federal Reserve Building in 1978. The entrance facing the capitol refers to the Virginia State Library, now known as the

Library of Virginia The Library of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia, is the library agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It serves as the archival agency and the reference library for Virginia's seat of government. The Library moved into a new building in 1997 and i ...

, which moved to a new building at Ninth and Broad Streets (as well as an offsite storage annex) in 1996. The Supreme Court and Library had moved from the Virginia State Library-Oliver Hill Building in 1939. This building's former reading rooms also temporarily housed

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 161 ...

sessions in 2006 and 2007, during renovations to the capitol. The building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2005, under its former name.

Historical marker

In 2017, the

Virginia Department of Historic Resources The Virginia Department of Historic Resources is the State Historic Preservation Office for the Commonwealth of Virginia. The agency maintains the Virginia Landmarks Register (the first step for properties and districts in Virginia seeking listin ...

dedicated a state

historical marker A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other ...

outside the building. It tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 Supreme Court case ''

Loving v. Virginia ''Loving v. Virginia'', 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, laws ban ...

'' which overturned Virginia's law against

interracial marriage Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. In 19 ...

. The building was chosen as the site of the marker because it housed the Supreme Court of Appeals, where the Lovings' case was heard. The marker reads: :"''Loving v. Virginia'' :Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, defined under Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act as an interracial couple, married in June 1958 in Washington, D.C., and returned home to Caroline County. Arrested in July for violating Virginia's laws against interracial marriage, the Lovings were convicted and sentenced to one year in jail, suspended on the condition that they leave Virginia. In 1963 they obtained help from the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

, which unsuccessfully sought to reverse their convictions in the state courts of Virginia and then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in the case Loving v. Virginia (1967), overturned all state laws restricting marriage on the basis of race."

Current use

The building now houses the Governor's Working Office, offices of Cabinet Secretaries, Offices of the Department of Planning and Budget, and some DGS offices.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Buildings and structures in Richmond, Virginia Government buildings in Virginia Government buildings completed in 1941 Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Richmond, Virginia 1940s architecture in the United States Neoclassical architecture in Virginia PWA Moderne architecture Stripped Classical architecture in the United States Library buildings completed in 1941 1941 establishments in Virginia Patrick Henry