These are photographs I took this month of the interiors of two notable buildings in Washington, DC — the grand halls and ceilings of the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building (Great Hall, 1897) and the U.S. Institute of Peace Headquarters (Jacqueline and Marc Leland Atrium, 2011).
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View from the floor of the Great Hall, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building
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Six large skylights above the Great Hall, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building
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Ceiling decoration of the Great Hall, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building
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View from the Great Hall’s second floor west corridor, June 15, 2015
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U.S. Institute of Peace, Leland Atrium, which one critic lambasted for its “lazy glass wing dangling rather drunkenly over the main atrium.”)
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The space, regimented with chairs, is chilling. It reminded me of the assembly hall filled with gray seated prisoners featured in Apple Computer’s notorious “1984” TV ad.
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Yet there’s no denying the ceiling is intriguing optically and as a feat of engineering.
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