The US Capitol with its distinctive white double shell cast iron dome is one of the iconic buildings of the United States that is recognized around the world. Completed in Washington DC during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, it replaced the building’s original copper-clad wooden dome and the work became a symbol of the country’s continuity during the Civil War.
The project is also notable for the bitter dispute between its architect and engineer.
The original wooden dome, completed in 1824, had required regular repairs and was a fire hazard. So Philadelphia architect Thomas U. Walter, who served as architect of the Capitol from 1851 to 1865, designed a new dome as part of an expansion that added new wings. The work lasted between 1854 and 1864.
Walter and Montgomery C. Meigs, a captain of the US Army Corps of Engineers who served as the lead construction superintendent, together they oversaw the creation of the new dome.
is “America’s most famous man-made landmark,” states the current Architect of the Capitol website, where much of the information for this story comes from. It’s the term used to describe both the federal legislative branch agency that maintains, operates, develops and manages the historic preservation of the US Capitol complex, and the person who heads it, currently Thomas E. Ausrin.
Walter’s design for a new dome, with pilasters and windows and a coronation statue, was quickly approved by Congress and he was given $100,000. The final cost was much higher, but the financing allowed the work to begin.
Walter and Meigs clashed extensively, and work was slowed considerably in 1858 by their disagreements over the engineer’s changes to the architect’s design. At one point, Walter withheld payments to Meigs’ writing team. .
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The ill will between the two was so strong that at one point in 1858, Walter accused Meigs of altering and taking credit for some of the original design work for the building’s north extension.
The first dome of the United States Capitol, designed by Charles Bulfinch.
Image: Architect of the Capitol
“I observe from a photographic copy of my design of the main story of the north wing of the Capitol extension, which you sent me today,” Walter wrote in a letter to Meigs, “that you have caused certain letters to be placed in the drawing which implies that the revised plan was designed by you, which you well know was not the case.
The architect continued: “I also find that you have caused similar letters to be put in my designs for the alterations of the original plans. I therefore respectfully request that the said letters be removed and the drawings returned to my office.”
Thomas U. Walter, the son of a mason, provided the architectural design for many important buildings and clashed with engineer Montgomery Meigs.
Photo (cropped): Mathew Brady/Library of Congress
Meigs also didn’t hide his feelings about Walter’s accusations.
“I am not surprised at this movement of Mr. Walter, except in his gross impudence,” wrote the engineer. “Though I know that he spoke of this work to his friends as if it were his and under his exclusive control, I did not suppose that he would have the impudence—for I can call it by no other name—so gross an assumption and falsehood, to make the claim to my face.”
Meigs argued his side of the conflict to Jefferson Davis, who was then Secretary of War in President Franklin Pierce’s administration. Davis at the time was also in charge of the expansion of the US Capitol and new wings for the House and Senate.
According to the Capitol Visitors Center website, the new dome reused the old walls of the rotunda as its foundation. “The technical difficulties were easy to overcome compared to those of the Civil War,” which broke out just six years after work on the dome began, he said.
Montogomery C. Meigs served for several years as aplead construction superintendent of the US Capitol expansion and the new dome.
Photo: Library of Congress
William B. Franklin replaced Meigs as engineer-in-charge in 1859.
While work on the new wings of the Capitol stopped for a time during the war, work on the dome never stopped.
Contractors persevered installing ironwork, and Lincoln saw the raised dome as a sign that the Union would continue despite the war, the Capitol website states. The Statue of Liberty was placed atop the dome in late 1863, and its interior, with its fresco by Constantine Brumidi standing 180 feet above the floor of the rotunda, was finally completed in 1866. The final cost of the dome was $1.047 million.
The building has endured as a symbol of American democracy and an example of architectural and engineering excellence.
