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Exterior of the Department of the Interior Building. Courtesy of Shalom Baranes Associates

Historic Places wouldn’t be sufficiently challenging of
Project: U.S. Department of the Interior its own merits.
Headquarters Modernization, The DOI headquarters, officially the Stewart Lee
1849 C Street, NW, Washington, DC
Udall Department of the Interior Building, occupies
Architects: Shalom Baranes Associates two entire city blocks in the “Federal Rectangle” area
Structural Engineers/Physical Security Designers: Thornton Tomasetti of Northwest DC, near the White House. Built in 1936,
MEP Engineers: GHT Limited it was the first federal project of the New Deal’s Works
General Contractor: Grunley Construction Company
Progress Administration (WPA), and served as a model
for other federal construction projects later in the New
Ultimately, the project spanned four presidencies Deal period. This started with the styling: DOI is a
and six administrators of the General Services prime example of what is sometimes called “stripped
Administration (GSA), the client agency, representing classical,” or more catchily, “Greco-Deco” or “Stark
a wide range of views about the role of the federal
Photo © Ulf E. Wallin Deco.” That is, while there is a classical (“Greco”) bent
Grand Stair in the Stewart Lee Udall government and how federal offices should function. to the ornamentation, overall the surfaces are far less
Department of the Interior Building. Notably, the GSA’s “utility ratio”—essentially square ornamented (“stark”) than would be typical in a full-
footage per employee—continually tightened. Security blown Art Deco or neoclassical building.
needs increased dramatically, through the Oklahoma Artworks were integrated into the architecture,
City bombing of 1996 and then the terrorist attacks of primarily in the form of murals and stone bas-relief
9/11. The digital office revolution, starting to mature as sculptures. Most of the artworks, along with the
the project ended in 2017, was still in its infancy in 1994. occasional architectural detail, were themed to reflect
Moreover, although GSA has long been at the the department’s mission and scope: Native American
forefront in historic preservation, standards for and Western wilderness imagery is prevalent. In an
preservation projects have shifted considerably in era of institutionalized racial segregation, the inclusion
recent decades. GSA has also long been a leader in of works focusing on African American and Native
sustainable design standards—but in this case, in 1994 American history and culture caused a stir.
there really weren’t any: Not only did the DOI project The size of the building was also prototypical—the
span versions 1 through 3 of the LEED program, but the idea being to consolidate all branches of a given cabinet
project was a LEED pilot project before the standard department under one roof, with an enormous amount
formally existed. The building’s lighting is a good of flexible, daylit office space supported by a small city
example: “We started with incandescent, moved to CFL of amenity and service spaces including a cafeteria,
[compact fluorescent], and finished with LED,” noted art gallery, soda shop, broadcast studio (originally the
Bob Booher, LEED AP BD+C, an associate principal at Voice of America radio), and a health clinic. The DOI
SBA who was the project manager from 2005 to 2017. headquarters also included such innovations as the first
All of this—as if the modernization of a air conditioning and escalators in a federal building,
1.2-million-square foot building on the Register of

INTERIOR MOTIVES 61