The Origins of the NAS Building
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The creation of the home for science in America is a rich history. The information below is drawn from the publication The National Academy of Sciences Building: A Home for Science in America. 

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The Site

In 1919, through the efforts of Academy members Robert Millikan, Gano Dunn, J. C. Merriam, and Research Council member James Angell, sufficient money was raised through a subscription program to purchase a parcel of land that was within view of the new Lincoln Memorial for the sum of $185,010.21. The site was located in an area then known as Potomac Park that was part of a development plan formulated by the Senate Parks Commission in 1901-1902.  The plan, popularly known as the McMillan Plan, envisioned the area between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial as a park filled with monumental structures. The Commission of Fine Arts, established in 1910, was to oversee the aesthetic integration of the area covered by the McMillan Plan, and informal discussions on the desirability of locating an Academy building in this area occurred within the Commission as early as 1914.  The building was about to become a reality.

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Selection of an Architect: Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

Even before the final site was selected, Hale visited architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869-1924) in March of 1918 to discuss the possibility of engaging him as the building’s architect.  Shortly afterward, in April 1918 Hale submitted examples of work by Goodhue and by a second architect to a joint meeting of the NAS Council and the NRC Executive Board.  Goodhue was approved as the architect for the National Academy of Sciences Building.

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Early Concepts of the Building

In June of 1919 a joint NAS and NRC Committee on Building Plans was appointed to oversee the design of the building.  The original committee membership consisted of Academy members George Ellery Hale, Charles Walcott,  Richard M. Noyes, Gano Dunn (appointed to act as advising engineer to the project), and Robert A. Millikan, along with National Research Council members J. C. Merriam and James Angell.  At a meeting in December of 1919 the group stated its vision of the building's function and character, specifying “two definite elements”: First, it should be monumental, in order to “serve as center and symbol of American scientific research.”  Second, it should meet the Academy's and the National Research Council's needs for office and exhibit space, as well as contain a library and “anything else deemed necessary.”
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Henry Bacon's Neoclassical Lincoln Memorial, which was still under construction when the Academy building was being planned, was a key element in the realization of the McMillan Plan.  The Commission intended it to serve as a “frame” for subsequent development in the area, calling for “the continuation along B Street of semipublic buildings architecturally in harmony with the Memorial.”  Thus in the Commission's view, architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue's design should incorporate strong elements of classicism in order to harmonize with the Lincoln Memorial's Doric colonnade and overall appearance, a direction that was disagreeable to Goodhue and that led inevitably to conflict.

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue began work on the NAS Building in 1921. His involvement with the Academy project dated back to a 1918 series of sketches for an unspecified site, including this one. NAS Archives.

Goodhue preferred to produce a “building of the irregular character” that would be “practical and convenient without regard for symmetry.”  Nevertheless, given the constraints inherent in the B Street site, he created a plan for a building he described as shaped as “a hollow square” with a center rising “in the form of a Greek cross with domed ceiling.”  Although the Academy's reaction to the plans appears to have been mostly positive, Goodhue recalled being asked to add a Corinthian colonnade to the façade, an unwelcome suggestion he described as “the last straw.”  A compromise of sorts was worked out, specifying that Goodhue would design a classically-informed building that he described as being “an interesting variant of, though by no means out of harmony with, the prevailing style of Washington architecture.”  He then proceeded “rather downheartedly” to draw up the plans.

On March 26, 1920, Goodhue, accompanied by Angell as a representative of the Academy Building Committee, met with the Commission on Fine Arts to submit his drawings.  To Goodhue's dismay, the Commission was dissatisfied with the plan, particularly with its design of the main façade, and as Goodhue recalled it, they wanted him to “try again, and to be more classic.”  Goodhue did not take kindly to the suggestion.  Neither did Angell, who declared himself “extremely irritated” with the Commission's actions and whose “personal disposition” was “to invite this entire crowd to retire to regions where the temperature is said to be permanently uncomfortable.”  A standoff ensued, until finally at its May 12, 1921 meeting, the Commission approved a slightly revised version of the Academy's plan for its building. 

​Ground was broken in the first week of July 1922.  Because part of the building site had once been a stream bed, elaborate steps had to be taken to secure the foundations.  Seventy-four square concrete piers, each five feet on a side, were sunk to bedrock to shore up the reinforced concrete girders supporting the walls; the girders supporting the marble terrace were set on 33 large steel tubes that were driven to bedrock and filled with concrete.  The bedrock under the once-submerged southeast corner of the site was encountered at thirty-seven feet below ground, as compared to a depth of only four feet for the northwest corner.

Taken during construction on April 6, 1923, this northeast-facing photograph features the Great Hall in the foreground. NAS Archives.

Construction of the Great Hall's dome was photographed in progress from a southeast-facing view, circa fall 1923. NAS Archives.

The cornerstone was laid in October of 1922.  After nearly two years of construction, the building was completed and dedicated on Monday, 28 April 1924, just in time for the first day of the Academy's Annual Meeting that year.

​The dedication was described in the Academy's Annual Report as “simple but impressive,” and was attended by more than 600, including 106 of the Academy's membership of 210 at that time, as well as members of the Cabinet, Congress, the diplomatic corps, and representatives of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.  After brief addresses delivered by Academy Vice President J. C. Merriam, NRC Permanent Secretary Kellogg, and Gano Dunn, head of the NAS Building committee, the principal address was delivered by President Calvin Coolidge, who referred to the building as a “Temple of Science.” The day after its dedication, the building was opened to the public.

President Calvin Coolidge, delivering the principal address at the NAS Building's dedication on April 28, 1924 declared, “this magnificent building now being dedicated to science predicts a new day in scientific research.” NAS Archives.

The Academy now had an appropriate home, a building for the NAS and NRC, with enough space to conduct the NRC's work and to serve as the gathering place for the membership of the NAS.  In retrospect, the building sits on a marvelous site, within view of the memorial dedicated to President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the charter document creating the National Academy of Sciences.

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Timeline

This timeline features the rich history of the NAS Building, the work accomplished by the NAS in service to the public welfare, all in the context of US and world events over the past 100 years.  The timeline has been curated by Alana Quinn and Alexandra Briseno in consultation with historians Ruth Schwartz Cowan and Peter J. Westwick. Design by Fabio Cutró

From the Archives

U.S. Presidents at the NAS Building. President Calvin Coolidge, delivering the principal address at the NAS Building’s dedication ceremony on April 28, 1924, declared, “This magnificent building now being dedicated to science predicts a new day in scientific research.” Since then, numerous U.S. presidents have visited the NAS Building to address members during annual meetings, to host press conferences, and to speak at other ceremonies. The U.S. presidents who have spoken at the NAS Building are Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

The US Officially Enters the Space Race At the Explorer 1 press conference in the NAS Building’s Great Hall on February 1, 1958, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director James Pickering, James van Allen of the State University of Iowa, and Army Ballistic Missile Agency Technical Director Wernher von Braun triumphantly announced that the US had entered the Space Race with the successful launch of America’s first satellite. Image: NASA.

Egyptian Influences at the NAS Building. Designed by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the building’s architecture harmoniously weaves together Hellenic, Byzantine, and Egyptian influences, as well as hints of Art Deco. Goodhue developed a late-career interest in Egyptian Revival architecture around the time that King Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered. The NAS Building’s design references Ancient Egypt with its battered or inwardly sloping façade which gives the building an air of monumentality, and its depictions of the god Imhotep, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Museum of Alexandria, the ancient lighthouse on the island of Pharos, and hieroglyphic decorations. The NAS Building reflects Goodhue’s distinctive aesthetic, and it also harmonizes with the nearby neoclassical Lincoln Memorial, which was under construction when the building was planned.

The Planets in the NAS Great Hall Dome. The Great Hall is the focal point of the NAS Building and at the center of its dome is a stylized sun ringed by a circular band containing astronomical symbols representing the eight planets known in 1924. Pluto was not included because it was discovered in 1930, six years after the building opened. In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet, and we learned that we were right all along!

Great Hall Iconography by Hildreth Meière. Designed as the NAS Building’s central feature, the Great Hall’s dome and supporting elements are decorated with iconography by Hildreth Meière that illustrates the history of science. The project was Meière’s first major commission and launched her forty-year career. The commission presented several technical challenges that required her collaboration with building engineers—a significant accomplishment for a woman working in the 1920s in a male-dominated field. The designs are done in the streamlined Art Deco style that became her trademark. Meière went on to complete more than 100 commissions including the roundels of Dance, Drama, and Song at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the iconographic suites at the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. Today, her daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter are actively involved in preserving her legacy.

Madame Marie Curie and US President Herbert Hoover at the NAS in 1929 Madame Marie Curie, the co-discoverer of radium, is pictured on the steps of the NAS Building with President Hoover. He had presented her with $50,000 for the purchase of a gram of radium to be used in the oncology institute she was sponsoring in her home city of Warsaw, Poland. Curie was a Polish and naturalized French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.