Associate
Dean Wally Mlyniec is chair of
the Law Center's Campus Completion Committee, which
chose the architects for the Hotung International Law
Building and the Georgetown Sport and Fitness Center,
and worked with them to design the complex. He is now
the Law Center's liaison to the construction team.
Dean Mlyniec has been a member of the faculty since
1973 and is Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic.
His emails keep the community up to date on the progress
of the construction project and try to place it in the
context of our neighborhood. This series of Construction
Notes is copyrighted by Wallace J. Mlyniec; 2002, 2003,
2004.
Date: Tue, 26 October 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Eric E. Hotung International Law Building
Tomorrow, we celebrate the opening of the Eric E. Hotung International Law Building. In doing so, the Georgetown Law Center completes a saga of academic excellence that is intertwined with the history of the Federal City. The Law Center began its educational mission in 1870 in a few simple rooms at the corner of 4 ½ Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
During the ensuing years, it maintained a peripatetic existence throughout downtown Washington, occupying buildings on five sites before it settled at New Jersey Avenue and F Street, N.W. At various times in its history, the Law Center’s stability, too often fragile, was tested; but on each occasion, its dreams were maintained and it emerged stronger than before. Today, it is a giant among academic institutions. Its faculty includes some of the best legal scholars and teachers in academia; its students are among the most talented law students in the nation; its programs in clinical education, international law, constitutional law are models for other schools to emulate. Now, after 134 years, it has a campus that retains its historic ties to the National City and is the equal of its academic aspirations.
It is fitting that the we complete this project this year. Fifty years ago, Paul Regis Dean became Georgetown’s dean. Often called the father of the modern Law Center, Dean initiated its march to academic greatness and foresaw its future emerging in the old East End neighborhood. So as we celebrate the generosity of Eric Hotung, we also celebrate the vision of Paul Dean and the dean’s who followed him: Adrian Fisher (1969 - 1975); David McCarthy (1975 - 1983); Robert Pitofsky (1983 - 1989); and Judith Areen (1989 - 2004). Each was the perfect choice for the time, and each contributed to the Georgetown we know today. As we begin a new era under the leadership of Dean Alex Aleinikoff, the story will continue with new vison, new directions, and new accomplishments.
It is also fitting that the Law Center’s newest building is dedicated to international, comparative, and transnational law. From its birth, Georgetown has welcomed students from foreign countries. Joseph I. Rodriguez, a resident of Cuba, was a member of the Law Center’s first class in 1870. Today, 298 students from 71 different countries are enrolled, comprising 12% of the student body. The design and construction process of the Hotung Building reflected this multi-cultural experience. It was designed and built by workers whose presence in America began with a migration from one of thirty-six separate nations located on six different continents.
The Hotung Building International Law Building was designed by Ralph Jackson, a partner at the architectural firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott. Shepley Bulfinch was founded in 1874, just four years after the Law Center’s birth. One of the oldest architectural firms in the country, Shepley Bulfinch designed buildings that are among the most admired in America. Trinity Church and the Ames Building in Boston, the Art Institute and the old Public Library in Chicago, the Allegheny County Court House in Pittsburgh, Stanford University, and Harvard Medical School all reveal a vision of design excellence that has permeated the firm since it founding. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the civic fabric of both Chicago and Boston owes much to the talent within this firm.
The very names of the firm’s partners give insight into the history of American architecture. Henry Hobson Richardson gave his name to a distinctly American style of architecture that “adapted historical European architectural forms to newly emerging American needs.” Called Richardson Romanesque, the style was emulated throughout the country. Two of Georgetown’s prior homes, the American Colonization Society and the building at 506 E Street, N.W., paid tribute to this style.
Richardson’s influence extended beyond his life. New York architects Charles McKim and Stanford White trained in his studio. Chicago architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright were influenced by his work. Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of Rock Creek Park, was a frequent collaborator. Edward Durrrell Stone, architect of McDonough Hall, studied there as well. Partner Francis Bulfinch is also well known and admired, especially by those who treasure American buildings that are closely related to the nation's history. He designed the Massachusetts State House and the Maine State House, and his renovation of Faneuil Hall gave us the building that we know today. The Shepleys, father and son, and Abbott, were not as renowned as Richardson or Bulfinch. Nonetheless, they also contributed to the firm’s reputation for design and engineering excellence.
The passage of time has not diminished the firm’s skills or influence. Subsequent generations of Shepley Bulfinch architects maintained its tradition of excellence in buildings created for Vanderbilt Medical School, Northeastern University, Brown, Wellesley, Cornell, and others. In the words of Vincent Scully, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Art History at Yale, the firm has “moved seamlessly from the late 19th century into the present.” These traditions of excellence and civic virtue continue today as a new century dawns. A new generation of architects at Shepley Bulfinch have redesigned an academic campus for a new generation of lawyers studying at Georgetown Law Center.
The International Law Building is named for Ambassador Eric E. Hotung, CBE, a world-renowned philanthropist and financier. Born in Hong Kong in 1926 and raised in Shanghai, he is the eldest grandson of Sir Robert Hotung -- the last of Hong Kong’s Merchant Princes and a prominent leader in the Chinese community. Ambassador Hotung came to the United States in 1947 and graduated from Georgetown University in 1951.
Following the passing of his grandfather and father in the late 1950s, he returned to Hong Kong to direct his family’s affairs. Ambassador Hotung’s humanitarian work has taken many forms and has touched the lives of people in need throughout the world. During the 1950s and 1960s, he provided low-cost housing to the thousands of displaced Chinese refugees who came to Hong Kong seeking shelter. In 1965, he founded the “Eric Hotung Trust Fund” to improve education in Hong Kong and to encourage young people to study abroad. During the 1970s Ambassador Hotung labored to create better relations between China and the United States. By organizing delegations to travel back and forth between the two countries, he helped arrange avenues of diplomatic communication that fostered a heightened level of mutual understanding and purpose between these two cultures.
Ambassador Hotung remains deeply invested in China’s development and social welfare. He is a Director of the Soong Qing Ling Foundation for Children and created a fund in Guangxi to teach safer childbirth practices, thereby significantly reducing the mortality rate of women and children in the region. Perhaps his greatest humanitarian achievement occurred in the nation of East Timor. In 1999, after learning about the plight of the East Timorese people following their newfound independence, he arranged the successful transportation of over 12,000 refugees from West Timor to East Timor by purchasing a vessel and supporting its operation for a two-year period. He also established free health clinics that have benefitted countless Timorese people. His dedication to the Timorese people and the newly forged nation of East Timor continues to this day, as he serves as Ambassador at Large and Economics Advisor for Timor-Leste. No building dedicated to transnational and international law and understanding could be more appropriately named.
The challenge facing the architects of the Hotung Building was to create a dramatic academic building in a traditional campus vernacular, while simultaneously creating a bold and modern architecture ensemble that opened the campus to the city and the world. Paraphrasing principle architect Ralph Jackson, Georgetown needed a building that exuded “restrained elegance.” He saw Georgetown at this moment in its history as wanting to proclaim its intention to pursue global academic excellence, but not wanting to appear aloof. He saw a school needing to nurture its own academic life, “but also wanting to contribute to life along the street -- to be part of the neighborhood, and indeed the world.”
The Hotung Building succeeds dramatically. Again paraphrasing Jackson, the Hotung Building is a statement about “civility and urbanity” reminiscent of other grand Washington buildings. It communicates the notion that the building is “about people, democracy, and accessibility” and not about the “sometimes rigid strictures of academic hierarchy.” Like its companion, the Sport and Fitness Center, the Hotung Building is contextual. It reflects the existing palette of textures and colors that distinguish the Law Center buildings from others in the neighborhood.
Existing campus cornice lines, podiums, and floor levels are key to the Hotung Building design. The building is similar in scale and exhibits the same quality of detail that is evident in the Williams Library and McDonough Hall. Although the inspiration for the Hotung Building’s form, material, and detail is drawn from existing campus buildings, it is clearly different from its predecessors. Unlike McDonough Hall, the Williams Library, and the Gewirz Residence Hall, the Hotung Building entrances are off center. Its cornice is bolder and suggests an Eastern rather than Occidental antecedent. The public’s first view of each of the Law Center’s buildings suggests its different function and marks a different period of time in the Law Center’s East End sojourn. McDonough Hall, the Williams Library, and the Gewirz Residence all look inward to our own community. Each presents a formal academic appearance and suggests a function that is protective and somewhat isolated from the surrounding neighborhood. The Sport and Fitness Center, while presenting a more casual approach to campus life, is sited in a way that also keeps it insulated from the outside world. The Hotung Building, however, has dual purposes. It presents a formal face that opens up to the city on the east and a somewhat softer campus orientation to the west. Although its rigorous and formal arrangement of windows and cornices suggest the rigorous and formal nature of the law, its windows are large and the glass is clear to connote the transparency and accessibility of the law and learning in America. The step pattern of the fenestration proclaims an elegant urban building that is part of the city and the world. Nonetheless, the Hotung Building retains the feel of an academic center, especially when viewed from the Tower Green.
The interior finishes of the 100,000 square foot building suggest the formality of international organizations along with the traditions of academia. Cherry anigre walls surround the second floor, the elevator lobbies, and the John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library, providing a rich and stately sense of place. The furniture in the lobby is formal though comfortable, encouraging study and diplomatic conversation. The Wolff Library is the central feature of the Hotung International Building. It occupies the third and fourth floor of the Hotung Building and contains 103,250 volumes and volume-equivalents. The tables and carrels are gracefully designed and possess a dignified and cultured style that blends harmoniously with the architecture. Visiting international scholars and student study groups will find five scholar studies, eight scholar carrels, and four group study rooms available for their use. This comfortable setting accommodates the research efforts of two hundred patrons at one time. Reference and circulation desks, on-line search stations, a computer training laboratory, and administrative offices for the International Law Librarian and her staff support the work of these students and scholars.
Professor John Wolff, for whom the library is named, has served the Georgetown community since 1961. For the past 43 years, he has taught numerous courses in international and comparative law in both the J.D. and the LL.M. programs. In addition, he has published many articles in numerous American and German legal publications. Professor Wolff graduated with a LL.D. from the University of Heidelberg and later received his LL.M. from Columbia University. In his long and illustrious career, he has served as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, as a deputy to the U.S. representative to the United Nations War Crimes Commission, as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Justice on issues of international and foreign law, and as the deputy chairman of the Federal Bar Association’s Council on International Law.
Professor Wolff has also lectured at the universities of Munich and Muenster, Germany, and at the Law Society of Berlin. Now in his 98th year, he continues to teach International and Comparative Law to grateful students at the Georgetown Law Center.
Changes in the way legal education is delivered and the growth of the scholarly and teaching activities of the Georgetown faculty guided the interior design of the Hotung Building’s twelve new class rooms. State-of-the-art, medium-sized classrooms are located on each of the first and second floors. They are horseshoe-shaped to encourage serious conversation and debate. Their modern and varied lighting patterns visually suggest the energy that we expect from the discussions that occur within them. A smart-podium with touch-screen controls enables faculty members to integrate on-line and audiovisual materials into their teaching. Professors can introduce physical evidence and printed documents to the class using high-definition evidence presenters. A sophisticated sound system and optimized room acoustics create an ideal environment for class discussions. An advanced fiber optic cable infrastructure combines with wireless connectivity to allow students to tap into internet resources while in class.
In addition to the two larger classrooms, nine new combination seminar/conference rooms are placed throughout the building. These rooms are equipped with an advanced infrastructure for audio and video recording, web casting, and video conferencing. Large monitors can be used to display audio-visual materials. As they can in the larger classrooms, students in the seminar rooms are able to connect wirelessly to the internet. These smaller classrooms permit students to apply the theory they have learned through traditional lecture methods by engaging in simulated litigation exercises, small group discussions, and collaborative problem solving.
The Supreme Court Institute Moot Courtroom is located on the second floor. More than 60% of all United States Supreme Court cases are now mooted at Georgetown’s Supreme Court Institute. To better prepare the advocates, the Moot Court is designed to evoke the interior of Supreme Court courtroom. Though not an exact replica, it does provide advocates the opportunity for a dress rehearsal in an environment strongly resembling the actual Supreme Court chamber. The wood finishes, the leather furniture, and the design and color of the carpet are strikingly similar to that of the real Court chamber. Doric pilasters line the walls in a manner reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s imposing marble Ionic columns. Round ceiling light fixtures set within coffers suggest the medallions in the Court’s coffered ceiling, while molded elliptical designs on the face of the Moot Court bench and rail are reminiscent of circular patterns on those of the Supreme Court.
One of the more unusual characteristics of the Supreme Court is the intimate nature of the Court chamber. Advocates stand in close proximity to the nine Justices and the Court’s well seems small in comparison to the building’s imposing facade and public halls. Our designers replicated the unique spatial relationship between the litigant’s podium and the Justices’ bench to help lawyers gain comfort with the intimate yet overpowering nature of the Court. The shape of the bench and its proximity to the advocate’s podium reproduce the tension of an actual argument. White and red lights on the lectern warn of, and then command, the end of each argument just as they do in the Supreme Court. Red curtains and an ornate clock, which paradoxically is not to be watched by advocates during an oral argument, hang behind the bench, adding yet another touch of reality to the rehearsal experience.
Because the Moot Court will also serve the needs of our trial advocacy program, it can be quickly transformed from an appellate court to a trial court. It contains the same complex technology now used in modern Federal District courts. Sophisticated audio and video recording systems, document cameras, annotation monitors, and plasma screens allow students to perfect their electronic trial skills by reviewing their courtroom performances with faculty members as they occur.
The Hotung Building also provides fifteen new faculty offices on the sixth floor. The Law Center’s various institutes and its renowned Continuing Legal Education Program are located on the fifth floor. Two of Georgetown’s eight law journals, the International Environmental Law Review and the International Law Journal, and various student organizations are located on the first floor. In keeping with the international theme of the Hotung Building, the Associate and Assistant Deans, the professional staff, and the support staff for our Office of International and Graduate Programs occupy the Yoshiyuki Takada Suite on the sixth floor. Mr. Takada is the president of the SMC Corporation, a progressive manufacturing company located in Tokyo, Japan. In 1997, Mr.
Takada helped establish a chair in Asian Legal Studies at the Law Center in honor of James Morita, L'40, H'95, whose work with the Japanese community in Hawaii is instrumental to its welfare. Offices for the staff of the Law Center’s International Summer School Programs in Florence and London and a resource library are also located in the suite. Finally, a graduate student lounge and information center are adjacent to the Takada Suite.
The Timothy and Linda O’Neill Alumni Welcome Center was created on the second floor of the Hotung Building overlooking the Tower Green to acknowledge the importance of the Law Center’s alumni to its mission and to the success of the Campus Completion Project. The Welcome Center includes a library and business center for alumni visitors. The Alumni, Development, and Public Relations staff, along with reception areas, exhibit spaces, work spaces, and conference rooms are located both on the first floor and in the Welcome Center. The O’Neills are 1977 graduates of Georgetown, he from the Law Center and she from the School of Nursing. Mr. O’Neill practiced law as an associate at Donovan, Leisure, and Irvine in New York before joining Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in 1988. Mrs. O’Neill volunteers full-time at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and is a trustee, along with her husband, of the Timothy J. and Linda D. O’Neill Foundation. Placing the Alumni Center on the campus brings together for the first time all segments of the Law Center community and offers students unparalleled access to the alumni. We hope that the Alumni Center will connect the students of today with the students of the past in ways that will encourage an understanding of the Law Center’s history and permit alumni to guide students who are contemplating their future life and work.
The celebration tomorrow ties together our past, our present, and our future. It marks the end of a half century of academic achievement and physical expansion, and summons dreams of greater challenges and achievement. Georgetown’s initial investment in the East End thirty-five years ago was the catalyst for the vibrant neighborhood that grows around us today. Since our arrival in 1971, hotels, residences, restaurants, and retailers have joined the Law Center to completely transform our neighborhood. By leading this East End renaissance, Georgetown reaffirmed the commitment it made to Washington, D.C. in 1870, when it chose to locate its law school in the city’s downtown rather than on the Georgetown University hilltop.
As we contemplate the reinvigorated campus today, we are reminded of that commitment and our history. The Tower Green that now encompasses the old F Street, reminds us that our prior buildings were located on various streets in the original L’Enfant plan. Looking north from the Hotung Building, we see Gonzaga High School’s first building in the East End, still standing on I Street, N.W., but now surrounded by other buildings that provide a testament to their own history of growth. Doing so, we are reminded that a century ago, Gonzaga vacated the old Washington Seminary at 9th and F Streets, N.W., and offered the building to the Law Center for its second home. Looking east, Union Station reminds us of Washington D.C.’s post Civil War rebirth and of the McMillan Commission’s revitalization plan that married the Beaux Arts movement to the L’Enfant plan at the beginning of the twentieth century.
To the west we see the Holy Rosary Church and hear the bells ringing from its campanile, reminding us of the immigrants and former slaves who occupied our East End neighborhood between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the disastrous era of urban renewal. When we look south, we see the majestic U.S. Capitol Dome, reminding us that the city of Pierre L’Enfant and George Washington is a tribute to the great democratic experiment of the 18th century philosophers and patriots, and a monument to the rule of law which we study every day. Each day into the future, the vistas we see from this Hotung International Law Building will remind us anew of our history in Washington and of our enduring commitment to this city and to the world.
The old East End, a neighborhood once teeming with life and then abandoned, is now restored. Together, we and our neighbors look to the future; we await stories yet to be told and dreams yet to be fulfilled. Dreams of academic excellence and civic virtue dance in the minds of our Georgetown Law Center community, while dreams of hope and prosperity linger in the air of the old East End. Our past and our pursuit of global understanding and justice link us to this neighborhood and to the rest of the world. It is our duty to remember those who once lived here, and to hold the land and our aspirations in trust for those who will follow us.
As the Campus Completion Project comes to its end, so do these Construction Notes. For those of you who are new to the Law Center, you can find the earlier stories on the Law Center web page. To those of you who have wandered with me during these last two years through Georgetown’s history and architectural achievements, I hope you have enjoyed reading the Notes as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you.
Date: Thu, 9 September 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Georgetown Sport and Fitness Center
Tomorrow we celebrate the opening of the Georgetown University Law Center Sport and Fitness facility. Designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbot, with the assistance of Ellerbe Becket and Group Goetz, this stunning athletic center with its welcoming Tower Green has transformed both the Law Center and our old East End neighborhood. The architectural goals for the site were to develop a formal, urban, architectural experience that strengthened the existing character of the campus and to provide a sequence and variety of spaces using form, mass, and materials that complemented and completed the existing buildings on the Law Center campus. Our goals have been met. The arrangement and design of the new buildings complete the evolution of the campus as an urban academic center, strengthen its sense of identity, and provide that variety of activities and experiences that are consistent with the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis, caring for the whole person.
The 100,000 square foot Sport and Fitness Center is contextual, and thus, its detailing and scale reflect the other buildings on the campus.
Its height is approximately the same as McDonough Hall and the Williams Library. Its brick color blends with that of McDonough Hall and the Gewirz Residence, yet it is not identical. There is a range of brick colors that add subtle variations and a vitality to the walls. As in other buildings on campus, the Sport and Fitness Center has architectural reveals set in the masonry to break the plane of the large wall surfaces, making them more human in scale. Set back between the more formal Hotung International Law Building and Gewirz Residence, the Sport and Fitness Center uses its great expanse of glass to welcome and protect its visitors. Indeed, the building is open and transparent at all levels to clearly indicate its informal functions and to permit patrons to see in and out. Its north facade celebrates this principle with a four-story glass curtain wall, articulated by four elegant branching columns that reach the roof. The support for the roof, also visible from both the inside and the outside, is an intricate system of trusses that is as much a piece of art as it is a roof support.
The non-academic character of the Sport and Fitness Building is reflected in a physical presence that is different from its companion and from the other campus buildings. Though physically connected to the Gewirz Residence and to Hotung, the Sport and Fitness Center is designed to function differently from its neighbors. As one enters the Sport and Fitness Center, there is no doubt about its separate design and purpose.
The Café and dining spaces on the second floor display a modern, almost European design that is at once playful and relaxed, but strong and sleek. The upper and lower floors clearly define the building’s character as a recreation center.
The building’s playful purpose surrounds patrons as they enter the second floor from the Tower Green. Once inside, they may choose to dine at the Courtside Café, purchase items from the Recess Express, or choose from a wide array of athletic activities. A two-story high atrium lounge, a double fireplace, and a double-pool fountain signal areas for quiet thought and conversation in a building designed primarily for active enjoyment. The Recess Express will supply the retail needs of both Fitness Center visitors and Gewirz residents. The Café, serving traditional student fare, overlooks the lap pool to the south and the Green to the north. A juice and coffee bar, also serving wine and beer in the evening, adds to the casual nature of the room. Both modern dining furniture as well as comfortable, casual chairs and sofas are available for more relaxed camaraderie. The Courtside Café and lounge, like the entire campus, has wireless internet connectivity so that patrons can access legal research and web-based course materials, read their e mail, and peruse their student accounts while they eat, play, study, or relax.
Those choosing to exercise will register at the desk opposite the main door. There they will be directed to the locker rooms and pool below, or to the sports equipment desk, exercise rooms, and game courts above. The four-lane, twenty five meter lap pool on the first floor is in a naturally lit, high-ceilinged space with windows that open above to the dining area on the north and to the exterior on the south. One hundred and fifty day lockers and a whirlpool are located in each locker room.
Staff offices, a towel service and laundry, massage rooms, and rooms for health and fitness counseling and music and art practice are also located on the first floor.
The third floor of the Sport and Fitness Center contains a weight training and exercise room overlooking the atrium and the Green. Over 60 pieces of equipment, some with computer, video, and audio enhancements are available to achieve one’s fitness goals. There are 32 separate cardio machines, 3 nautilus chest machines, 3 Cybex and 3 Nautilus back machines, 3 Nautilus shoulder machines, 2 Nautilus arm machines, 5 Nautilus and 2 Cybex leg machines, 2 Nautilus abdominal machines, and 5 Nautilus XPlode Machines for a complete circuit training experience.
Many of the treadmills overlook the Tower Green and McDonough Hall. In addition, there is an assortment of free weights, presses, benches, and cross overs to turn anyone in Arnold Schwarzenegger. Two aerobics rooms and a spinning room with 28 bikes are located to the south side of the third floor. Those unsure of their physical capacity may employ personal trainers for a fee.
The fourth floor contains two glass-backed racquetball courts, and a double-height, maple-floored basketball court that converts into two volleyball courts or two basketball half-courts for intramural competition. The Tower Green is visible from the courts through tall glass windows. Classes in dance, racquetball, cardio, kick boxing, spinning, pilates, self defense, yoga, swimming, bosu, and sports conditioning will be available. When the workout is over, patrons will cool down in Adirondack deck chairs on a fourth-floor balcony overlooking the Tower Green.
The stone plaza in front of the Sport and Fitness Building and the Tower Green are designed to be experienced by passers-by as well as users.
They serve to connect McDonough Hall to the Sport and Fitness Center and to the Hotung Building and provide a grand entrance to the new buildings. The entrance to Sport and Fitness relates to the McDonough Hall entrances and to the pedestrian routes through the campus.
Moreover, the combination of the Green, the plaza, and the glass curtain wall create an inside/outside experience that enlivens the area and makes it feel safe and pleasant. This inside/outside experience is further enhanced because the plaza’s fan-shape design mimics the curve of the building’s facade. The pattern of the plaza’s stone pavers also reflects the deliberately off-center orientation of the interior floors and walls. They also resemble the pattern of the Cafe’s terrazzo floors.
Stone benches on the plaza, the soon to be added tables and chairs, and the glass curtain wall reinforce the integrated indoor/outdoor experience whether one is dining, studying, or engaging in conversation.
The edge of the stone plaza flows seamlessly into the Tower Green. The main area of the Green follows the natural downward slope of the land between 2nd and 1st Streets. Despite this eastern-sloping grade, the Green is flat enough to allow an impromptu touch football game in the Fall or a frisbee tournament in the spring. Trees and shrubs are modest to allow for such activities; yet when the trees mature and additional benches are placed, there will be ample quiet areas for dreaming and contemplating one’s future and past.
Rising above the Tower Green is our elegant brick and precast campanile, topped by a copper roof. Though built in context, it is a structure unto itself. It commands attention from both inside and outside the campus, yet does so with grace and charm. It reflects our past, but also suggests our permanence. Tomorrow the clock will begin to mark the flow of our lives, pleasantly chiming the hour to add to the ambiance, and reminding our neighbors that we are a place of academic reflection and a potent partner in the future of our city and our world.
None of this would have been possible without the vision of former Dean Judy Areen and the generosity of Dallas business leader and 1978 Law Center graduate, Scott K. Ginsburg. As a child in Sioux City, Iowa., Mr Ginsburg was fascinated with television cameras and courtroom lawyers, two interests he has retained throughout his life. After graduation, he served as Staff Director for the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Poverty, and Migratory Labor and the Senate Subcommittee on Social Security. He also worked on several Senatorial campaigns, including that of former Senator John Culver of Iowa, before moving to Dallas to embark on a career in media ownership. Mr. Ginsburg was the founder of Evergreen Media Corp, Statewide Broadcasting, Inc., and H&G Communications, Inc. He is currently chairman of Digital Generation Systems. His cumulative experiences in law, politics, business, and philanthropy have been the foundation for a string of notable achievements in both the Dallas and Georgetown communities.
Athletics have always been an important part of Mr. Ginsburg’s life.
Remembering his own experiences at the Law Center, he wanted to contribute to the quality of the Georgetown students' lives. He hopes his gift will remind our community that “recreation and fitness are important parts of law school life, and that it will inspire other alumni to support the Center's facilities.”
The partnership of Mr. Ginsburg and Dean Areen have produced an extraordinary Sport and Fitness Center. No free standing law school in America, and few university-based law schools, provide a recreation center as magnificent as ours. A hundred years ago, a thriving neighborhood with homes, churches, and businesses occupied this site. A mere three years ago, nothing remained but a parking lot and the Tobishima Company’s shattered dreams of a flagship commercial property.
Today, the Georgetown Sport and Fitness Center and its companion Hotung International Law Building form a quadrangle with McDonough Hall and the Gewirz Residence that will bring new activity, new conversation, and new academic inquiry to our community. The neighborhood will once more reverberate with energy, laughter, and purpose. Vitality and vibrancy, silenced for so many years, has finally returned to the old East End neighborhood.
Date: Mon, 16 August 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: The Law Center Expansion Years
The final weeks of any construction project create tension,
stress, and anxiety. Hundreds of details must be addressed.
Tempers flare, voices are raised, and friendships begin
to strain. Inspectors discover flaws where none were
thought to exist, and demand changes that delay the
building's opening. Furniture installers wait at the
lower floor hoping that inspectors will certify an elevator's
operability. Inaccurate shop drawings show square columns
where round ones exist, forcing slight relocations of
furniture and the redrilling of concrete slabs for new
electrical and data outlets. Ceiling designs become
more difficult to install than originally anticipated,
requiring hours of overtime. Future users of the buildings
survey their spaces and find fault, forgetting that
theirs is but one of hundreds of electrical outlets
and dozens of bookcases that have been placed according
to standard use patterns rather than individual preferences.
Late deliveries bring complaints, ill will, and bad
behavior from future users. They ignore the immense
amount of coordination required to complete a $61 million
project as they demand solutions for personal idiosyncracies.
Through it all, the work systematically continues. As
the lighting and electrical contractors finish their
work, Go Card swipes and closed circuit television (CCTV)
cameras must be tied into the security system. After
optical fiber is blown into the conduit, network engineers
must install servers and tie in the data outlets so
that telephones and computers work when the offices
are occupied. A.V. engineers install and connect cable
access television (CATV) systems, plasma screens, and
televisions. Painters touch up previously painted walls
and ceilings, while wood workers erase nicks from anigre
paneled walls. Masons clean bricks and blocks, and buff
down rough edges on stone walls, while window washers
provide spotless views from the offices within. Fitness
equipment arrives, the pool is filled, and mirrors and
curtains are hung in the locker rooms, showers, and
bathrooms. Basketball hoops are erected, the court is
striped, and the glass walls of the racquetball courts
are polished. The aerobic floors are redone because
they do not meet our satisfaction. Crews scurry around
daily, cleaning each area and recleaning as inspectors
require additional work. Ceiling tiles are replaced
as previously unnoticed leaks are repaired. Retail shelves
are installed, kitchen equipment is tested, and stone
for the fireplace is finally released by U.S. customs.
Damaged sprinkler heads are replaced just ahead of an
inspector's visit.
Outside, pathway and sidewalk pavers are set and street
lights are installed. Landscapers set the grass pavers,
fill them with soil, and then watch as hurricane induced
rains wash the top soil away. This week we begin again,
replacing the top soil and adding sod to the surface
of a simple yet clever planting system that will provide
a beautiful lawn and yet be strong enough to support
a moving fire engine. Dying trees are cut down as new
trees and shrubs are planted. Watering systems are installed,
and F Street is prepared for a new guard station and
garage entry system.
All the while, the Georgetown Law/Whiting Turner team perseveres,
trapped between self imposed deadlines and city inspection
schedules. And then, on Friday the 13th, with the specter
of hurricane winds and rain ahead of us, the final inspector
releases his stickers and a certificate of occupancy
is granted for the buildings. The Campus Completion
Project, the culmination of almost 50 years of plans
and dreams, is ready for occupancy.
Although the Campus Completion Project is nearing its
end, one chapter remains to be told in the architectural
history of the Law Center campus. McDonough Hall was
barely completed in 1971, when growth and progress created
new strains on the building. By 1977, the Law Center
was seriously considering enlarging McDonough Hall,
renting office space, and erecting another building.
The library stacks were nearly filled, the building
was crowded, and the space did not match the Law Center's
ambition. In 1982, the Law Center's Planning Committee
reported that the library in McDonough Hall exceeded
it design capacity of 275,000 volume equivalents. 2,500
students occupied the single building that served the
Law Center's entire academic and administrative program.
Students were demanding even more services, more Law
Journals, and more elective courses, all of which required
more space. Since no Law Center housing existed, all
students were commuters and campus life was nonexistent.
In truth, the Law Center had no campus. Moreover, our
neighborhood was virtually deserted and not very safe.
Architectural critic Ben Forgey, when later recalling
the neighborhood around New Jersey Avenue and F Streets,
N.W., wrote that for most of the 1970s, "there was no
there there."
The full time faculty was growing. In 1978, 54 full
time faculty taught at the Law Center. By 1984, the
faculty was to grow to 63, all of whom were expected
to produce more scholarship, forge links with other
scholars and policy analysts, and create institutes
that would further the Law Center's goals for interdisciplinary
learning. The growing Clinic Educational program was
housed in rented space, some on the other side of G
Street in the Levy Building, some downtown at 605 G
Street, N.W., and some at 25 E Street, N.W. Classrooms
for seminars and small sections were lacking since McDonough
was designed with large lecture halls, the predominant
venue for classroom instruction in most American law
schools at that time.
In 1977, a committee appointed by Dean David McCarthy
and chaired by Professor Frank Flegal, began considering
the challenges posed by the Law Center's ambitions in
relation to its reality. Georgetown had purchased most
of the few remaining houses and parcels of land on the
Williams Library site. One of the buildings on the site,
a restaurant called the Chancery, was once owned by
a group of Georgetown faculty members. By then, however,
it had become a topless bar whose owners held out until
late in our planning process. At one point, the University's
lawyer, Al Ledgard, reminded the bar owner that Georgetown
had been in Washington for almost 200 hundred years
and was likely to remain here for at least another 200.
Citing the power of permanency, Al advised him that
Georgetown would one day own his property, and would
own it on our own terms. Because of the hold-out, the
original library plan was drawn to literally surround
the restaurant. Over time, Georgetown sued the restaurant
for operating a sexually oriented business near a church
(our chapel), the topless bar business declined, and
the owner died. Georgetown then bought the property,
and the south east corner of the library was redesigned.
The Building Committee chose the firm of Hartman and
Cox to design a building that could hold the library,
the law journals, and the clinics. Established in 1965,
Hartman and Cox had broken from the modernist trends
of 20th century architecture and established a style
that was contextual, that is, sensitive to a building's
location and surroundings, and one which recalled the
classicist school of architecture. Hartman and Cox became
leaders of the so called "Washington School" of architecture
which was, in some sense, part of the post modernist/contextual
wave of architecture occurring in the 1970s. Old facades
on Washington buildings began to be preserved as new
construction rose behind them. Innovation in materials
was explored. Architectural elements from older buildings
were reassessed and reused with modern adaptation.
Warren Cox has stated that Washington is "more than
a place; it is a state of mind." Such thinking permeates
his work and that of Mario Boiardi, a Hartman Cox partner
who helped design four projects for the Law Center.
The Edward Bennett Williams Library, named for a legendary
Washington lawyer and 1944 Law Center graduate, is a
grand building in the Washington vernacular. Its rotunda
and curved east end suggest the neo classical buildings
of the Federal Triangle, while its overall look has
been called "greco-deco." Its three story atrium with
a central, top lit, interior court is reminiscent of
the Corcoran Gallery. Its reading room recalls the Folger
Shakespeare Library which Hartman and Cox remodeled
between 1976 and 1983. Yet it is built in context with
and sensitive to Edward Durrell Stone's McDonough Hall.
Like McDonough Hall, the Williams Library is "placed
on a podium and has a repetitive ordering of facades.
It also emulates Stone's building in height. But, it
is not the same. Unlike McDonough Hall, it has no roof
slab cornice. Three sides of the building are placed
on the street line whereas McDonough Hall sits entirely
on the podium. The Williams Library was one of the first
Washington buildings to use decorative precast concrete,
often mistaken for limestone, whereas Stone used brick
and poured concrete for McDonough Hall. This combination
of old and new, context and contrast, and invention
and emulation can be seen in Hartman Cox buildings throughout
the city. 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Sumner School
complex, Market Square, and others all incorporate the
Hartman Cox design philosophy.
The $25 million Williams Library, completed in1989 under
the leadership of Dean Robert Pitofsky, was to be only
the first of the Hartman Cox projects at the Law Center.
During the course of the library project, the original
plans were changed. The later Boiardi and Cox design
moved the clinics and a new cafeteria into an underground
expansion to the west side of McDonough Hall. Renovations
to the old library spaces on the third and fourth floor
of the building avoided the labyrinthian passages of
the original and brought light to the building's interior.
Many of the interior concrete block walls were covered
over, painted, and decorated to eliminate the industrial
feeling that permeated the building.
In the 1980s, Georgetown partnered with the Tobishima
Company of Japan to co-develop the parcel of land south
of the Law Center. A little fish restaurant and the
Salvation Army offices and book store made way for a
project that envisioned Georgetown building a residence
hall on the west side of the site and Tobishima erecting
a $150 million office building on the east side. A shared
urban park would have joined the two buildings. The
vagaries of the Japanese economy, however, ended Tobishima's
plans for its flagship American development, and eventually
caused the demise of Tobishima itself. Georgetown, however,
continued to move forward.
The $23 million Bernard and Sara Gewirz Center, named
for a local developer and philanthropist who attended
Georgetown Law Center and his wife, was completed in
1993 under the leadership of Dean Judy Areen. Warren
Cox and Mario Boiardi again combined context and contrast
when designing a 12 story residence hall that had a
child care center below grade and a ceremonial dining
room and balcony at the top. Interior and exterior columns
and pilasters reflect the grandeur of Washington. A
series of projections and recessions create a rhythm
on the long east and west facades. The decorative Union
Jack railings, pilasters, and half columns distinguish
the building from the mundane and suggest a first class
apartment building. According to critic Ben Forgy, "playful
little triglyphs ...[on the curtain wall are a] sign
of the design's distinct origins in the classical Doric
order." The building, however, remains contextual. The
cylindrical drum rising from the fifth to the eleventh
floor echos the rotunda of the Williams Library, while
the fourth floor cornice over the door denotes the lower
heights of the other Law Center buildings. Repetitive
ordering of the facades recall both McDonough Hall and
the Williams Library, and the arcades on all three buildings
unite them. The brick color resembles, but is not identical
to, the color of McDonough Hall, while precast cornices
and lintels recall the Williams Library. Again, according
to Forgy, "it is a quietly distinguished building that
literally and figuratively helps transform things around
it." Finally, the arch over the door connects the building
to Georgetown's history. Its shape resembles the entry
arch at the Law Center's prior building at 5th and E
Streets, N.W. built by James Denson. That arch now decorates
a wall at the east end of the Library Quad.
The last project Hartman Cox designed for the Law Center
was the East Wing of McDonough Hall. Completed in 1997
under the leadership of Dean Judy Areen, the East Wing
houses classrooms, offices, and conference rooms. Built
at a cost of $12 million, the new wing improves the
east facade of McDonough without looking like a last
minute fix. Stone's unwieldy podium is shortened, thus
making it more inviting. The color of the bricks is
identical but their shape is slightly concave, bringing
"new interest" to the curtain walls. The wing's height
lines up with McDonough Hall and retains Stone's signature
flat protruding eave. The rotunda and precast concrete
recall the Williams Library and the Gewirz Center. The
architects reproduced Stone's vertical piers and windows
but introduced architectural hierarchy to the facade.
In addition, the piers are fluted rather than flat.
In sum, like all Hartman Cox/Boiardi projects, the East
Wing is contextual but contrasts with and improves on
the original.
The engineering for the East Wing is equally impressive.
Because it is built over the Hart Auditorium, essentially
a large cavern incapable of holding the weight of a
building, the wing had to be hung rather than set on
the surface. Mining equipment was brought into the McDonough
Hall garage to dig fifty-foot deep holes under the garage
in which supports were set to hang the building. Hartman
and Cox had performed a similar feat when remodeling
the Folger Library. In both cases, the architects provided
a sophisticated solution to a complicated engineering
problem.
The concepts of context and innovation and the blend
of old and new architectural elements introduced by
Hartman, Cox and Boiardi resonated in our planning for
the Hotung Building and the Sport and Fitness Center.
Architects from Shepley, Bullfinch, Richardson and Abbot
and from Ellerbe and Becket studied our campus and borrowed
design elements from the earlier buildings. Both new
buildings recall elements of earlier Law Center buildings
and treat them with respect without replicating their
essential nature. Nonetheless, the Shepley architects
have created two new striking architectural ensembles
that break from earlier motifs while respecting their
integrity. As we begin to occupy the new buildings this
week, their design reminds us of both our venerable
past and our limitless future.
Date: Fri, 2 July 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: F Street and the Highway to Nowhere
So many activities are occurring at the construction
site that it is difficult to recount them all. New sidewalks
have been set along First Street; concrete pavers are
being set along F Street; and the alley behind the buildings
is ready for repaving. New sewer lines are going in.
Every day, another mechanical system or air handling
system is being tested.
Inside the Sport and Fitness Center, floors have been
laid in the aerobics rooms, the cardio and weight areas,
and the spinning room. Glass walls are standing and
the floors have been finished in the racquet ball courts
anticipating the first serve. Concrete pavers now rest
on the third floor terrace, awaiting Adirondack furniture
and weary athletes. Lockers have been installed on the
first floor, and an intricate ceiling above the swimming
pool will soon be visible. Fireplace boxes, metal column
covers, and stone wall coverings are being installed
on the second floor, completing the interior design
of the cyber café, the juice and coffee bar,
and the lounge area.
In the Hotung International Building, anigre millwork,
stone column covers, and custom shelving grace the library.
Terrazzo risers are being set in the staircases. Lighting,
wall paneling, desks, and blackboards give hints of
the coming student-faculty discussions in the classrooms.
Offices have carpets and bookshelves, data and electrical
outlets. The Moot Court judges' bench, coffered ceiling,
walls, and pilasters reflect the elegance of the United
States Supreme Court, upon which our courtroom is modeled.
On the Tower Green, decorative louver grilles and an
elegant Roman-numeraled clock face now command the Tower.
Soon they will be joined by chimes to mark the passing
of time. Landscaping preparation has begun on the Tower
Green itself. Concrete sub-base has been poured for
the Sport and Fitness terrace and the walkways. Soon
their pavers will delineate the flow of pedestrians.
Whiting-Turner construction trailers are being dismantled,
a sure sign that the site is almost ready. Watering
systems will soon be installed, followed by grass, trees,
shrubs, and flowers that will add texture to the Tower
Green. F Street as a thoroughfare will disappear, replaced
by landscaping all the way to the north curb line.
According to the D.C. Historic Preservation Board, F
Street ranks as one of the most important lettered streets
in the original city plan drawn by Pierre L'Enfant.
Although L'Enfant sited most public buildings on the
wider diagonal streets that were to be named for the
states, F street, like 8th and G Streets, served to
connect the original Appropriations, that is, the lots
on which major buildings, parks, and memorials were
to be sited. As originally designed, F Street connected
the Appropriation for the Executive Grounds (the President's
House) with the Appropriation for the National Church
(the idea of a National Church was later replaced by
the Patent Office), and with the Appropriation for Judiciary
Square. Moreover, L'Enfant used F Street as part of
a Baroque triangulation device that reappears throughout
his city plan. Instead of showing important vistas as
"simple views down a street from one building to another,"
L'Enfant created oblique views of significant buildings
and "an interlocking geometric composition" to display
the grandeur of the City. For example, when one looks
at the Capitol while standing on Pennsylvania Avenue,
one sees the building as it relates to the Mall (originally
L'Enfant's Grand Avenue) even though the Mall itself
is not visible. L'Enfant also wanted someone standing
on F Street to see the National Church (or later the
Patent Office) jutting out slightly into the street
at the intersection of 8th Street to mark the cross-axis
of his plan. As the cross axis, 8th Street was placed
midway between the President's House and the Congress
House, and ran from the Potomac River, across the Mall,
into the residential area of the City, and then out
to the boundary of the Territory of Columbia. In addition,
the Executive grounds were sited so that George Washington
and his successors could look down F Street from a window
in the President's House and see clear across the Anacostia
River.
Notwithstanding the importance of F Street and its vistas
to the L'Enfant plan, the Street has suffered several
indignities which contributed to our ability to close
it to traffic. President Andrew Jackson initiated its
spoliation. After the second Treasury Building burned
down in 1833 (the first burned down also), Congress
debated the site of the new building for three years.
Unable to reach an agreement, they left the decision
up to the President. According to a story that persists
today, Jackson, in a pique, walked out of his office
and planted his cane at a spot which would block his
view of "the Capitol and its stiff necked occupants."
He chose Robert Mills, architect of the Patent Office
and many other public buildings, to design the Treasury
Building. Mills' magnificent neoclassical building,
with its towering one-piece Ionic columns, succeeded
in blocking Jackson's views of the Capitol. Sadly, it
also blocked his view down F Street, compromising the
original L'Enfant plan. Residents decried the destruction
of the Pennsylvania Avenue vistas. Indeed, a movement
began to destroy and relocate the Treasury Building.
Mills and his defenders rallied in an attempt to save
the building. In the end, the proposed cost of tearing
it down and rebuilding it ultimately silenced the critics.
Today, even though it stands in the middle of F Street,
Mills' Treasury Building with its later additions remains
one of the most admired public buildings in the Capital.
In the early 1900's, the F Street vista was again interrupted
by the construction of Union Station. Given the importance
of unifying the railroads into one station, and given
the general decrepitness of the old Swampoodle neighborhood,
there was no outcry when Daniel Burnham sited his beautiful
Beaux Arts train station in the middle of F Street at
First Street, N.E. Although the building is clearly
an architectural delight, the once sweeping view along
F Street to the Anacostia River was lost forever because
of its siting.
The final depredation to L'Enfant's plan for F Street
was the Center Leg Freeway, which runs in a ditch west
of the Law Center. America's post-World War II love
affair with the automobile coincided with or created
a passion among American urban planners for highways.
The District of Columbia was not immune. Despite the
departure of many government employees who supported
the war effort, the population of Washington had soared
to over 900,000 by 1950. In that same year, the population
in the metropolitan area exceeded 1 ½ million.
Although retailers saw their customers abandoning the
inner city for the far reaches of the District and for
the newly emerging suburbs, the demand for downtown
office space accelerated as trade associations, educational
societies, and national planning groups recognized that
the Federal government was not about to give up its
primacy in the affairs of the nation or the world. In
1950, there were over 600,000 civilian jobs in Washington,
D.C., twice the number there had been in 1940. Suburbanites
driving into the city to work congested the streets,
causing the police to complain that the overwhelming
number of cars interfered with crime fighting activities.
The National Capitol Park and Planning Commission, authorized
in 1945 by Congress to rebuild Washington's deteriorated
neighborhoods, was beset by lobbyists from many special
interest groups, each with a grand plan to end the blight
and revitalize the city. Among the more powerful were
the officials of the local departments of transportation
and the sellers of beautiful and affordable automobiles
who demanded that City transportation be improved. At
first they were extremely successful. In 1947, the Whitehurst
Freeway began to move commuters around the congested
lower Georgetown area. In 1948, century old elm trees
were destroyed to build the Dupont Circle Underpass
to ease automobile traffic and serve the city's busiest
trolley line. The Capital Beltway, originally called
the Circumferential Highway, was also designed in the
mid-1950s. Its first segment, which included the Woodrow
Wilson Bridge, was completed in 1961. The entire 64
mile highway was completed in 1964 at a cost of $190
million.
The Center Leg Freeway was part of a larger project
called the Inner Loop, which itself was part of an even
larger scheme to reroute traffic along several corridors
through the city and then out to the developing Capital
Beltway. The Inner Loop had several iterations. The
South Leg was designed to run along the Potomac River,
connecting the Southeast Freeway, the 14th Street Bridge,
and the new Theodore Roosevelt Bridge before turning
towards Georgetown, where it would connect with the
Potomac River Expressway, a new highway to be paved
over the C & O Canal. The last part of this plan
was eliminated after Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas challenged highway proponents to walk the entire
length of the Canal with him to discover and then preserve
its natural beauty. The East Leg was to have begun at
the new Anacostia Freeway, cross the 11th Street bridge,
and proceed along 11th Street near Lincoln Park to Florida
Avenue. It would have destroyed a beautiful group of
row houses on 11th Street built by Charles Guessford
between 1865 and 1867 now called Philadelphia Row. At
Florida Avenue, the loop turned west and followed along
T Street until it turned south above Dupont Circle to
join up in lower Georgetown with the Potomac River Expressway.
Another proposed highway, called the Northeast Freeway,
would have commenced on the East Leg at Florida Avenue,
and then continued along the railroad tracks to Silver
Spring. Other features proposed at one time or another
were a North Leg going up K Street from the East Leg
to Georgetown, and a bridge over the Potomac River at
the Three Sisters Islands. Planners also proposed an
expressway along Missouri Avenue and another, called
the Industrial Parkway, that would have run along New
York Avenue and then to Baltimore via the new Baltimore
Washington Parkway.
Fearful that the highways would diminish the grand views
contemplated by L'Enfant, the planners intended to depress
the highways below the surface of the city. The Mall
would be spared by a tunnel running under the Lincoln
Memorial. Each Leg of the Inner Loop would be built
below the streetscape and bridged at strategic points.
Remnants of the depressed highway system exist today
at the E Street Expressway and at Virginia Avenue in
Foggy Bottom, and at the Center Leg Freeway west of
the Law Center. Obviously, such a system would have
cut the city into several enclaves isolated by highways.
Old Capitol Hill provides an example of how this plan
would have degraded the city. The original Capitol Hill
neighborhood began at the Navy Yard created on the Anacostia
River by President John Adams and grew to the north.
The Eastern Market, a Capitol Hill landmark located
today at 7th and C Streets, S.E., was originally sited
at about 5th and K Streets, S.E., between the Navy Yard
and the emerging Capitol Hill residential neighborhood.
Today, the Southeast Freeway, elevated rather than depressed,
divides the Capitol Hill neighborhood at about Virginia
Avenue, hampering efforts to unify and enhance the old
8th Street commercial district and the neighborhood
south of the highway.
The Center Leg Freeway, approved in 1964, was also a
companion of the urban renewal project developed for
our East End neighborhood in the 1950s. By the time
it was completed in 1966, over 400 dwellings had been
demolished displacing 1600 people and more than 100
businesses. One of those buildings was the Standard
Oil Company Building at the northeast corner of Constitution
Avenue and 3rd Street, N.W. Erected in 1931, it was
commonly known as the Esso Building and was reputed
to be the largest and grandest service station in America.
The building stood 300 feet long and 6 stories high,
and was clad in limestone. Given today's gas station
architecture, it is difficult to comprehend the grandeur
of this dignified neoclassical structure. America's
post-war love affair with the automobile carried over
to the architecture of automobile showrooms and service
stations. Early automobile service station design often
included elements of Colonial, Georgian, Gothic, or
other architectural motifs. None, however, surpassed
the dignity of this building or its volume of business.
The service station occupied the basement, first floor,
and sixth floor of the building, moving cars between
floors by elevator. Major businesses like Ford, Prudential
and the General Electric Credit Corporation leased space
in the rest of the building, as did the Territory of
Alaska and the United States District Court. Like so
many handsome residential and commercial buildings,
the Esso Building could not hide from the "progress"
of the 1950s and 1960s. The building was razed in 1964.
It is commemorated in Capital Losses, a book recounting
the destruction of Washington's architectural treasures
during the 20th Century.
Several prominent churches along the proposed Center
Leg route avoided the wrecking ball. All were spared
after years of haggling with the government. The Center
Leg was originally designed to follow a path between
2nd and 3rd Streets, a path that would have caused the
demolition of four churches - Bible Way, Mt. Carmel,
McKinley Baptist, and our neighbor, Holy Rosary. Fortunately
for some of their congregations, Congressman Sam Rayburn
thought the highway interchange at the Southeast Freeway
was too close to the new House of Representatives building
that would one day bear his name. As such, the highway
was rerouted in a way that brought it closer to 2nd
Street, thus sparing the churches. Holy Rosary lost
its rectory which was located at the rear of the church.
In exchange, it was given the opportunity to build a
new rectory in the middle of what used to be F Street,
thereby again compromising the L'Enfant vista.
Notwithstanding the approval of the Center Leg Freeway,
it was never completed. The portion of the Center Leg
that was completed in 1972 ran a mere 1.4 miles from
the Southeast Freeway interchange to Massachusetts Avenue.
It was 22 feet below sea level, with a tunnel under
the Mall that ran 3,500 feet. The tunnel was 66 feet
wide from wall to wall and ran seven blocks of the sixteen
block highway. It had 41 emergency phones, 30 cameras,
64 lane controls, 3,865 fluorescent lights, and 28 fans
to remove carbon monoxide from the tunnel. Costing $81
million, it was reputed to be the most expensive highway
ever built at the time. It was also the most technically
complex. Despite its technological complexity, it became
a highway to nowhere. Beyond Massachusetts Avenue, the
highway became a pit that remained a parking lot until
1982 when it was extended to K Street. The extension
did nothing to change its fate as a highway to nowhere.
Most of the Inner Loop plan was scrapped after years
of controversy. Law suits by the Committee of 100, the
D.C. Federation of Civic Associations, and other civic
groups, protests by activists like Sammy Abbot and Peter
Craig, the demand for a new subway system, and the obvious
racial discrimination associated with the plan ultimately
resulted in its demise. Still, remnants remain. The
Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, the South East Freeway, the
Anacostia Freeway, and the depressed Virginia Avenue
in Foggy Bottom are a few parts of the original plan
that still exist. The Drive along the Potomac River
and around the Lincoln Memorial that connects Independence
Avenue with the Rock Creek Parkway and the E Street
Expressway was built as a compromise. Old arguments
about parts of the plan resurface from time to time.
Debates continue about the existence of an interchange
at Barney Circle on Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E., and Virginia
legislators still dream of a Three Sister's Bridge.
Nonetheless, the highway plan is dead. The intense and
prolonged resistance to the Inner Loop ultimately saved
the L'Enfant plan. Saving it turned out to be critical
to the urban renaissance that we are experiencing in
Washington today.
The history of local Washington is written on F Street.
As conceived by L'Enfant, the Street was a major design
element for graceful living in nation's capital. It
was the center of an early residential area, populated
by some of the most influential people of the newly
founded republic. As the city grew after the Civil War,
F Street became its most important commercial thoroughfare
and the scene of fashionable balls attended by national
and world leaders. When the city sought to redefine
itself after World War II, F Street came to signify
all that was wrong with that definition. Neighborhoods
adjoining F Street suffered while L'Enfant's plan was
cast upon a scrap heap. Today, as the old downtown thrives
anew, F Street has reawakened from its nightmare.
Little can be done now to fix the damage done to the
L'Enfant Plan by the Center Leg Freeway. Plans to create
housing or offices over the highway arise from time
to time, but the money and the technology necessary
to develop the site are elusive. Our plan for F Street
seeks to revive what is salvageable of L'Enfant's plan
in the East End. The site lines along F Street will
remain open, leaving the vistas intact. Once the Tower
Green is completed, we will be able to look east and
see the grandeur of Burnham's Union Station. Our imagination
can take us all the way to the Anacostia, the first
great river of Washington, cleaner now because of the
efforts of our own Institute For Public Representation.
When we look west on F Street, Holy Rosary's Rectory
will impede but not obliterate the view. We know that
the axis at 8th Street, where the old Patent Building
juts out, remains, and that the Treasury Building and
the White House stand beyond. The Tower Green will complement
a great center of learning, so necessary to L'Enfant's
conception of a great city. The Tower itself will be
the kind of public monument that he envisioned to liven
the urban landscape, while the Green will bring the
tranquility that he knew would be necessary in the capital
of a great and busy nation.
Georgetown University was founded as our nation was
born. The Law Center began as our nation redefined itself
after a terrible Civil War. We are and always have been
a part of this city, and it is part of us as well. No
city planner on this continent ever conceived a more
perfect urban design than Pierre L'Enfant. Our conception
of the Tower Green and F Street pays homage to Pierre
L'Enfant's vision, brilliance, and creativity, and is
Georgetown's gift back to the city in which we live.
Date: Thurs, 27 May 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: Clock Towers
As construction trailers begin to disappear, the installation
of the interior elements of our buildings proceeds at
a dizzying rate. Over 100 workers are on the site almost
every day installing dry wall, millwork, lighting, and
tile. The curved walls and domed ceiling that form the
entrance to the Hotung Building have been framed. The
glass railings and walls that surround the library entrance
are being set. Carpet has been laid on the fourth floor
and cherry millwork surrounds the elevator lobbies,
bringing new hints of color to the Hotung Building.
Cabinets have been hung in some of the library staff
areas. Book cases are being installed in faculty offices.
One elevator is on line.
The terrazzo floor has been poured in the Sport and
Fitness Building and grinders are bringing its multi-hued
stone patterns to the surface. The walls of the basketball
court and the intricate ceiling trusses have been painted.
The branching outside trusses have been primed and the
columns are being wrapped. The pool has been tiled and
grouted, showing off the racing lanes in blue and white.
Tile on the pool deck and in the pool offices has also
been set. Ceiling grids, coffers, and lighting coves
have been installed, suggesting the final appearances
of some of the interior spaces. Fire alarm and security
features are being mounted, air handling units are being
tested, and kitchen equipment is arriving.
On the Green, footings for the patio that surrounds
the front of the Sport and Fitness Building are being
poured. The most visible progress outside the buildings,
however, is at the clock tower. All of the brick and
precast concrete is in place. The GFRC (glass fibre
reinforced concrete) cladding which will surround the
clock face has been installed. The roof has been covered
by its brilliant blue-green copper sheeting. Atop the
tower rises a six foot finial. Soon, the clock itself
will be mounted and the passing of time will be marked
by chimes.
Time always intrigues. To Byron's Don Juan, "Time is,
time was, time's past." Augustine differentiated among
three times, time past, time present, and time future.
To Einstein and to all of us in the modern world, time
is no longer absolute. Unlike the ancients whose measure
of time always seemed the same, scientists have revealed
what poets always knew -- that time flows are variable
and elusive, dependent upon where one stands in the
vast universe and on the speed, no matter how imperceptible,
one travels.
Man's preoccupation with time began over 20,000 years
ago. Archeologists have found sticks and bones with
scratched lines or carefully gouged holes that seem
to be ancient calendars used to mark days between phases
of the moon. Five thousand years ago, Sumerians living
in the Tigris-Euphrates valley developed a system that
divided the year into 30 day months and a 12 "hour"
day. Babylonians and Celts measured time 4,000 years
ago with lunar cycles and star movements. The Babylonian
cycle was 364 days. The Egyptians, using Sirius or the
Dog Star in the constellation of Canis Major, first
measured the 365 day cycle in 4236 B.C.E. Julius Caesar
brought the 365 1/4 day calendar from Egypt to Rome.
The Julian calendar, however, proved slightly incorrect,
and so it was modified by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
It is the calendar we use today.
All ancient civilizations of which we know sought to
measure time to mark plantings and harvests, signal
the commencement of war, and to honor their gods with
celebration. The need to measure time, so elusive in
the mind of a poet, remains a constant in the evolution
of science, commerce, and philosophy. Measuring months
and years did not suffice as human knowledge increased.
Understanding ever smaller units of time preoccupied
at least Western thought since the Middle Ages and continues
to do so today.
True clock-making began to appear in the Middle East
and North Africa between 5000 and 6000 years ago. Around
3500 B.C.E., Egyptians began to use obelisks to cast
shadows that marked portions of the day. As early as
1500 B.C.E., they used sundials to measure the passage
of time. These horological instruments were not precise
because of seasonal changes, but they served their agrarian
populations and warring kings well enough. Merkhets,
measured "hours" at night by marking the movements of
stars crossing a median. Charts used to measure such
movements are pictured in the tombs of Ramses VI and
Ramses IX at Luxor, dating them to 1150 and 1120 B.C.E.
Amenhotep III owned water clocks, sometimes called clepsydrae
or "water thieves" in 1400 B.C.E., although the tomb
of the craftsman Amenemhet suggests that he created
water clocks with floating statues to mark the Egyptian
hours as early as 1550 B.C.E. Clepsydrae arrived in
Greece by the 5th century B.C.E. The great astronomical
water clock of Su Sung stood in a 37 foot tower in the
Chinese Emperor's court in 1088 C.E. In 1126, it was
carried away and destroyed by Chin invaders who could
not make it work. Despite the Chinese preoccupation
with calendars and astronomy, the clock then disappeared
from China until the Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, reintroduced
it to the Chinese Court in 1605.
The Egyptians notion of a 24 variable-hour day and the
sun dial that measured it passed to Greece during the
time of Alexander the Great and then to Rome about 293
B.C.E. By 30 B.C.E., sundials were used throughout the
"civilized" world. They remained in use almost to the
end of the Middle Ages. Minutes, however, had no meaning
to the ancients. Short intervals were often referred
to with simile and metaphor such as, "in the blink of
the eye." Arabic astronomers may have been the first
to use minutes although the true source remains unknown.
Minutes did not arrive in Europe, however, until the
end of the Middle Ages.
Early notions of time were far different from those
of modern man. To the ancients, the notion of being
"late" could only be determined by the rising and setting
of the sun, the passage of water from a bowl, or the
movement of the stars. Sometime between the 13th century
and the 16th century, the need to understand ever smaller
units of time began to preoccupy Western thought. Time
consciousness also began to change. Although sun dials
and water horologias measured time for monks and astronomers,
time for common people was usually marked by periods
of prayer, for example, matins, terce, and vespers.
Indeed, our word noon come from the None prayer period,
which began shortly after the sun reached its peak.
Bells usually tolled church time. Legend tells that
church bells may have been invented in the Italian town
of Nola in Compania, but that story may merely be a
Latin play on words (small bell). Sabinianus is said
to be the first Pope to order the ringing of church
bells to signal the hours of the day. The practice expanded
with the proliferation of church architecture during
the Middle Ages. By the 13th century, church bells signaled
the hour throughout all Christendom.
During the course of the Middle Ages, the notions of
Church time and secular time began to diverge as peasants
moved to the cities and industry moved out of the monasteries.
By the 13th century, clocks were in daily use. Like
bells and relics, they were part of the church's and
the monastery's ornamentation. Indeed, churches and
monasteries competed with each other based on the grandeur
of their clocks. Writers and artists were very conscious
of time. Petrarch wrote about the "incalculable value
of time." Dante refers to clocks in the Divine Comedy.
14th century art portrays various subjects in the presence
of a sand glass which replaced the small water clock
during the late medieval period.
No one knows who invented the mechanical or wheeled
clock, and historians can date it no better than the
late 13th or early 14th century. Nor do we know whether
the Europeans invented it or merely adopted it from
China or the Arab world. One school of thought holds
that the mechanical clock was merely a step-child of
other commonly used astronomical instruments. Galileo's
need to measure velocity and acceleration led to an
understanding of the uniformity of nature and of mechanical
laws that made the prediction of astronomical events
fairly accurate. His proofs, however, depended on the
accurate measurement of time. The invention of the mechanical
clock made Galileo's theories verifiable; but, it did
more. As described by Robert Andrews Millikan in 1932,
these new scientific notions "transformed this world
from one that is at the bottom capricious and animistic,
as was in fact both the ancient world and the medieval
one, to a world that is dependent and in part, at least,
knowable and controllable by man..."
The essence of the mechanical clock was the verge and
foliot escapement. This mechanism, consisting of an
escape wheel and weights mounted on an axle, provided
an oscillating movement that controlled the periodic
movement of the hand on the clock. The speed of the
wheel's movement was affected by adjusting the weights.
These mechanical clocks were made of iron or, in the
case of royalty, silver. Though they employed only an
hour hand, they were more accurate and efficient than
water clocks. Thus, mechanical clocks replaced large
water clocks in Central Europe by the late 13th century.
The water clocks completely disappeared from Europe
by the end of the 14th century.
Horological innovation continued throughout the Middle
Ages. Clocks became portable when spring drives replaced
weights at the end of the 15th century. The minute hand
was invented by Jost Burgi in 1577. Clocks became even
more accurate when the pendulum, a time keeping concept
first noted by Galileo, was developed for a clock by
astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1657. This mechanical
innovation affected all manner of thought. Newton's
postulates required accurate time measurements for their
proofs. Descartes, Hobbes, and Kant all relied on time
and on clock analogies as they expounded their philosophies.
In time, even God was compared to a clock maker.
One of the first references to clock housings comes
from Villard de Honnecourt in northern France. His sketch
drawn in 1235 C.E. shows a wooden Gothic case with four
floors and a gable. It claims to house a mechanical
clock but he drew no description. The relationship between
bells, clocks, and towers spread during the late 13th
century and thereafter. St. Paul's in London and the
clock tower in Genoa were built in the mid 14th century.
Rouen had one in 1385. The oldest preserved clock tower,
built in 1386, is at the Cathedral of Salisbury in England.
Artists depicted playable carillons in the early 1300s.
Controlled by weights and pulleys and connected to the
clock's escapement, these striking clocks were more
far complicated than the clock itself. They became the
pride of the emerging cities of Europe. Mechanical figures
soon joined the bells atop the towers. Often accompanied
by melodic chimes, these figures moved in and out of
the tower as the clock stuck the hour. Moscow's first
striking clock appeared in 1404, Dubrovnik's in 1389.
The Cathedral at Norwich (1325) had a procession of
monks. The three Magi walked around the tower of St.
Jacques Hospital (1326) in Paris. An angel "flew" around
St. Paul's. These astonishing inventions were intended
to be more than mere entertainment. As Gerhard Dohrn
van Rossum reminds us, the cathedral protocol from 1407
in Chartre states that the "purpose of these contraptions
was, right up to the nineteenth century, ...to lure
people into church, to astound them, and to strengthen
the authority of the Church."
In Milan (1322), Orvieto (1307), and Westminster (1369),
clock towers were also used to strengthen the political
control of their patrons and to regulate the ever increasing
mercantilism of the era. By the 15th century, life in
the cities centered on their clock towers. Again in
the words of van Rossum, "the striking clock was born
in fact from the needs of urban life." By the 16th century,
even life in the villages and towns of the slightly
backward German Empire kept tempo with the public clock.
Clockmakers' guilds were formed in Paris in 1544, in
Nuremberg in 1565, and in Geneve in 1601. Bells had
names, and chimes became recognizable and famous. The
Westminster chime, probably composed by William Crotch
or his master Reverend Joseph Jowett in the late 1700s,
was based on a Handel aria. Originally installed in
the Cambridge tower, it was later used at Westminster
and now carries that name.
Time had taken on a new meaning for Europeans, one that
was far different from the world view of pre-mechanical
man. Social complexity had arrived; and, it was time
driven. In the words of Ben Franklin, "time was money."
By the early 1800s,120,000 watches were being manufactured
each year by 20,000 workers in Great Britain, a fact
that escaped neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx. Once
"time" was reinvented, the need for greater accuracy
produced better and better clocks and watches. In 1721,
George Graham improved the pendulum clock's accuracy
to an error margin of one second per day. Today, simple
quartz clocks with neither gears nor escapements provide
anyone with amazingly accurate time measurement at little
cost. Modern atomic clocks are now accurate to within
one-millionth of a second per year.
Clock towers, like fireplaces and academic robes, are
no longer necessary in the modern world. Wrist chronometers,
furnaces, and down jackets make them all unnecessary.
Yet we continue to use them because they bring comfort
and evoke traditions associated with human enlightenment
and progress. Clock towers also bring a sense of place
and purpose. Our tower has a traditional design reminiscent
of clock towers on campuses around the western world.
It reminds our neighborhood that we are, at heart and
purpose, a center of learning with roots that reach
back to the first colleges of the Middle Ages. Nonetheless,
our clock tower is distinctly modern as well. The movement
of its clock is electronic rather than weight driven;
its settings are controlled by a G.P.S. system. The
tower employs no bell pullers; its chimes are programmed
by computer. It will toll the familiar Westminster chime,
but will also play a hundred other tunes at the turn
of a switch. Like towers of old, it will combine invention
and awe. As our tower signals the time to our community
and to our neighborhood, it will mark not only the time
of the poets and scientists, but also the time of the
ancients who strove to understand it and to understand
their place in the vast universe where time has both
relative meaning and no meaning at all.
Date: Fri, 23 April 2004
From: Wally Mlyniec
To: Law Center All
Subject: McDonough Hall
The last of the exterior elements of the Hotung International Law Building and Georgetown Sport and Fitness Building are being set into place. The east entrance of Hotung and the north entrance of Sport and Fitness are nearly complete. The last of the windows have been installed on the south walls, and spandrel glass covers most of the otherwise visible beams. Mullion covers are being installed on both buildings and louvers hide the air shafts and mechanical rooms.
The interiors change daily. Most of the door frames
are set in their dry wall partitions. Blocking and plywood
are being installed in the servery of the cyber café,
and vanity tops and millwork are starting to appear
throughout the buildings. Interior architectural motifs
are emerging. The first section of the terrazzo floor,
angled towards the curve of the facade and the main
entrance, has been poured on the second floor of Sport
and Fitness. Design walls have also been erected, similarly
oriented towards the door. The decorative millworked
walls of Hotung's moot court offer glimpses of our intention
to mimic the interior of the Supreme Court. Gleaming
stainless steel elevator doors peek through their protective
coverings, and the cherry-finished library circulation
desk gives hints of the rich textures of Hotung's interior
palette. Ceiling grids and light fixtures are being
mounted and are visible from the outside. Walls on several
floors of the Sport and Fitness Building are already
painted, and tile floors are being grouted in the bathrooms.
Air handling units, gas lines, and plumbing fixtures
are being tested throughout both buildings, all working
as intended.
On the F Street Green, concrete support walls have
been poured for the clock tower, showing the cut out
for the four-sided clock. The tower's pre cast concrete
base has been attached, and the first course of bricks
has been laid. This steady but accelerating pace of
work reminds us that the campus completion is nearly
at hand.
It has taken almost 40 years to build this campus,
and to fulfill the dreams of former Dean Paul R. Dean
and his colleagues. In 1962, Dean described the old
"E Street Warehouse," the Law Center's complex
of buildings at 5th and E, Streets N.W. as "unquestioningly...the
least adequate of any of the major law schools in the
country." The library was housed on 13 floors of
three separate buildings; the dormitories no longer
met minimum standards for safety, and the expansion
of the evening and graduate curricula was hampered by
a lack of space. Dean realized that the Law Center's
future could not be assured without a new facility.
In 1965, he announced that he had purchased, for $2.3
million, 82,000 square feet of land six blocks from
the United States Capitol and four blocks from the judicial
center of Washington. Although the old arguments about
moving to the Georgetown main campus arose anew, the
Law Center's historic commitment to the center city
remained intact. Dean retained a world class architect,
Edward Durrrell Stone, to design a building that would
accommodate 1,675 students, 75 faculty, 21,000 square
feet of classroom space, a moot court, and 50,000 square
feet of library space. Dean reported that "the
new building [would] liberate the Law Center from the
physical and academic inefficiencies [of the] present
maze of buildings which grew in a casual unintegrated
manner, and which have constituted in the past obstacles
of crippling proportions to student and faculty research."
Paying for the building was not a simple matter. The budget for the building was projected to be $11,000,000. Alumni donors and federal grants and loans were needed to finance the building. At that time, fund raising for the Law Center was not a major University priority and the Law Center itself had no separate development staff. Indeed, before 1965, no one had ever made a one million dollar gift to the University let alone to the Law Center. But dreams are often fulfilled in surprising ways. Help came from two remarkable men who had experienced Georgetown in very different ways. Nonetheless, they shared a belief in the Law Center’s educational mission that was pivotal to the emerging campus we see today.
In 1934, Lyndon Bains Johnson, while working for a
Congressman on Capitol Hill, entered Georgetown Law
School as an evening student. He wanted to study law
"to better [his] mental processes, to prepare [him]
to earn an honest and respectable living, and possibly
qualify [him] to make some contribution to society."
Although the pace of his work on the Hill and his recent
marriage to Lady Bird forced him to withdraw even before
he sat for his first examinations, he retained ties
to his "almost alma mater." That was fortunate.
When a funding freeze threatened a loss of federal funds
for Georgetown's new building project, then President
Lyndon Johnson told an aide to "call them up down
there and tell them to take the damn freeze off the
grant to my alma mater."
The other man, like Johnson, sparked both admiration
and controversy during his career. Bernard P. McDonough
never boasted about his academic work at Georgetown
