The U.S. Department of Agriculture South Building is an office building located at 14th Street and Independence Avenue,

Southwest, Washington, D.C. Southwest (SW or S.W.) is the southwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and is located south of the National Mall and west of South Capitol Street. It is the smallest quadrant of the city, and contains a small ...

History

It was built beginning in 1930, to house the expanded offices of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Construction was completed on the U.S. Department of Agriculture Administration Building to the north of Independence Avenue in 1930, but Depression-era agriculture programs demanded far more office space than the main building could provide. The phased construction was completed in 1936. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Completed in 1936, the South Building was the largest office building in the world until the completion of the

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

, with dimensions of by in seven stories with 4500 rooms. The building's design is credited to Louis A. Simon of the Federal Office of the Supervising Architect. The South Building was joined to the Administration Building by two enclosed

pedestrian bridges A pedestrian separation structure is any structure that removes pedestrians from a roadway, street or railway track. This creates a road junction where vehicles and pedestrians do not interact. This can be considered a type of grade separatio ...

spanning Independence Avenue, thus consolidating USDA operations into one complex. The new building contained laboratory space as well as offices. It was originally referred to as the "Extensible Building", which could be expanded in a phased fashion. Phasing was necessary due to the time required to acquire such a large parcel of land. The architecture of the South Building is a stripped-down example of Classicism, with plain detailing that borrows from Classical form and proportion without using a great deal of expensive and time-consuming detail. The style became popular for government buildings until the advent of the Modern style in government architecture, reaching its apex at the Pentagon. In the case of the South Building, the lesser level of detail indicated its subordinate position vis-à-vis the Administration Building. The interior is based on a rigidly-enforced network of corridors; only the departmental auditorium and library deviate from the corridor grid. Interiors are even more plain than the exterior. The building is arranged in seven north-south wings, connected at the ends by the Headhouse (facing Independence Avenue) and Tailhouse (facing C Street). The 12th and 14th Street elevations were planned to be seen from the

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institut ...

and so were sheathed in limestone. The C Street and Independence Avenue elevations, which are not visible from the National Mall, used brick as the primary material, with limestone and terra cotta detailing. The 14th Street elevation also features a monumental entrance with sixteen Corinthian columns. Elsewhere, relief panels between windows feature depictions of animals native to the United States by sculptor Edwin Morris. Since the relocation of laboratory space to the

Beltsville Agricultural Research Center The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), also known as the National Agricultural Research Center, is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It is located in unincorporat ...

, the South Building has been occupied exclusively by offices.

References

External links

Agriculture South Building
at the General Services Administration
History of the Washington USDA complex with links to construction pictures
{{National Register of Historic Places Government buildings completed in 1936 Department of Agriculture South Building Department of Agriculture South Building Department of Agriculture South Building Department of Agriculture South Building Department of Agriculture South Building South Building

History

See also

References

External links