Event

Elegant Things & Vile Uses: The Civil War and the United States Capitol

From 4/9/2012 – 5/18/2012 Philadelphia & the Countryside Exhibition

By the time the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861, the United States Capitol building had been under construction for more than a decade. The new Senate and House wings remained unfinished and the great dome rose to less than half its final height. The Great Civil War that would test whether the nation would survive was a trial also for the building itself, and its long-suffering Philadelphia architect, Thomas Ustick Walter. Based on original drawings, photographs, prints and the architect’s own diaries and letters, this exhibition focuses on the architectural, engineering, political, artistic, military and family challenges Walter faced during the war years.