Capital Drawings

The history and development of Washington D.C. as seen through its buildings, monuments, and public and private spaces.

Over the past ten years, the Library of Congress has cataloged more than forty thousand drawings, prints, and photographs that capture important developments in the growth of Washington, D.C., and its greater metropolitan area, including Virginia and Maryland. This elegant volume, a guide to the library's massive collection, offers an introduction to its content and a celebration of the ambitious project of designing the nation's capital.

Capital Drawings features drawings for some of Washington's most important buildings, monuments, and memorials—the United States Capitol, the White House, and the Vietnam Memorial—as well as anonymous structures of everyday life and ambitious projects that were never built. These newly available documents tell the story of the capital's planning and growth. Each of these "capital drawings" reflects some aspect of the lives, history, and values of its creators and sponsors.

Featuring essays from distinguished scholars in preservation, architecture, and history, Capital Drawings invites us to explore the history and development of a city and nation through the buildings, monuments, and public and private spaces that have given them physical form and symbolic meaning.

Contributors: Richard Longstreth, George Washington University; C. Ford Peatross, Library of Congress; Pamela Scott, American University; William Seale, White House Historical Association; Damie Stillman, Society of Architectural Historians; Gwendolyn Wright, Columbia University.