Jefferson

Jefferson. Library of Congress. , The Thomas Jefferson Building , When its doors opened to the public in 1897, the Library of Congress (now the Thomas Jefferson Building) was an unparalleled national achievement. The U.S. Congress selected the architectural team of John L. Smithmyer and Paul J. Pelz based on their Italian Renaissance design. Its elaborately decorated facade and classical interior represented the young nation's growing cultural nationalism and its optimism for the future. In 1888, Congress charged Brigadier General Thomas Lincoln Casey and Superintendent Bernard R. Green with the construction of the building. The two men had recently worked together to redesign and complete the Washington Monument and build the State, War, and Navy Building (now the Old Executive Office Building). In 1892, General Casey's son, Edward Pearce Casey, became the lead architect of the Library of Congress and supervised the final construction and decoration of the building. Embellished with works by more than forty American painters and sculptors, the building connected the United States to classical themes and traditions. Yet in both design and structure, it demonstrated contemporary American culture and technological ingenuity., Bronze Entry Doors , The three deep arches of the entrance porch hold massive bronze doors - each is fourteen feet tall and weighs more than a ton. The female figures on the doors and the tympana represent (from left to right) Tradition, The Art of Printing, and Writing. Taken together, according to Herbert Small's 1897 guidebook, they represent "the successive and gradually more perfect ways in which mankind has preserved its religion, history, literature, and science."