Archives – Spring 1999

The NAS Building

Seventy-five years ago Washington luminaries dedicated the headquarters building of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. NAS President Albert A. Michelson, the first U.S. Nobel prize winner, presided over a ceremony that included a benediction by the Bishop of Washington and an address by President Coolidge. Though immediately hailed as an architectural achievement and an important addition to official and artistic Washington, its architect, Bertram G. Goodhue, was initially unhappy with the site, which he characterized as bare, uninteresting, and “without distinction save for its proximity to the Lincoln Memorial.”

Between 1924 and 1937, the neighborhood improved as Constitution Avenue acquired other prestigious tenants, among them the Public Health Service and the Federal Reserve. Wags of the day referred to the three buildings as “healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

The NAS-NRC building was expanded by two wings and an auditorium between 1962 and 1971 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The additions were designed by the architectural firm of Harrison and Abramowitz. Senior partner Wallace K. Harrison was a junior member of Goodhue’s firm and was the draftsman for the 1924 floorplans and blueprints.

Left to right: Albert A. Michelson, C. Bascom Slemp, Charles D. Walcott, Bishop James E. Freeman, President Calvin Coolidge, John C. Merriam, Vernon Kellogg, Gano Dunn.