“Have you seen the presidential seal? It’s your last chance before we tear up the floor,” I was asked after volunteering for an event at the National Building Museum. Although one of the most monumental interiors in Washington, DC, if not the most, the former Pension Building is not so well known as it should be.
Built following the American Civil War, the Pension Building is a spectacular example of Renaissance Revival architecture with an interior so big and grand that it has been chosen to host several presidential inauguration
balls since its completion in 1887.
Eight enormous Corinthian columns that support its ceiling are some of the largest anywhere in the world, measuring seventy-five feet tall and eight feet in diameter. Between two of them is the presidential seal in question, a curious group of tiles that must have been meant to look like a mosaic but instead look like pixel art to the modern eye. Regardless, I greatly appreciated having this unusual presidential seal pointed out to me just before the National Building Museum closed for its major renovation this winter.
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