LEGO Architecture 21006 User manual

The White House
Washington, D.C. USA
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JamesHoban
James Hoban, 1762-1831, was born in Desart, near Callan,
County Kilkenny, Ireland. Hoban was raised at Cuffesgrange,
Co. Kilkenny where he learned carpentry skills. He studied
architecture at the Royal Dublin Society.
During the American Revolutionary War, Hoban
emigrated to the United States, and established himself
as an architect in Philadelphia in 1781. Hoban moved
to South Carolina in 1787, with his brothers Philip and
Joseph; he lived there for at least six more years.
We know little of Hoban’s life in South Carolina except
that he formed a partnership with carpenter Pierce
Purcell and became well known among the gentry for
his ability as an architect and builder. He was a
founding vestryman in 1791 of Saint Mary’s Church,
the first Catholic church established in the Carolinas.
Among Hoban’s references were some of the most
prominent citizens of Charleston: Henry Laurens,
a close friend of President George Washington; fellow
Irishman Aedanus Burke; and American Revolutionary
War General William Moultrie.
The White House Historical Association (White House Collection)
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Pierre L’Enfant plan of Washington, D.C. Wikimedia Commons
Hoban’s name has been connected with public buildings
and plantation houses in the Charleston area, most notably
the historic Charleston County Courthouse and the William
Seabrook house. Another prominent building in Charleston,
actually documented as a Hoban design, was a 1,200-seat
theater on Savage’s Green that no longer survives.
The plan of Washington
In 1791 President George Washington appointed Pierre
Charles L’Enfant to design the new capital city. L’Enfant’s
plan was based on a grid, with streets traveling north-
south and east-west. Diagonal avenues, which came to
be named after the states, crossed the grid, intersecting
with the grid to form plazas. The overall effect aimed to
establish a city with direction and character.
To be connected in a straight line by an avenue
160 feet wide, L’Enfant selected two high spots – Jenkins Hill
for the “Congress House” and a second hill a mile and a
half away for the “President’s Palace”. The avenue,
though no longer a straight line, since an addition,
to the Treasury building in 1840 effectively blocked it,
became Pennsylvania Avenue.
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As described above, the pattern of radiating avenues was
joined and filled by a gridiron matrix of streets, which were
numbered to the east and west and lettered to the north
and south - excluding J Street, which L’Enfant omitted
to avoid confusion with the letters l and J that were
indistinguishable and often interchangeable at the time,
according to a 1994 Washington Post Magazine article.
Although L’Enfant’s design became the basis for land
sales, construction and planning, President Washington
fired him a year after he was hired because L’Enfant “forged
ahead regardless of his orders, the budget, or landowners
with prior claims”.
The design competition
In 1792, at Washington’s request, Secretary of State Thomas
Jefferson announced an architectural competition to
produce design drawings for the President’s House.
Washington insisted that the building should be made
of stone, so that it would have a more substantial
appearance, much like the most important buildings in
Europe. The young nation had never seen anything like it,
and that was what Washington liked about it. The building
was to be more than the home and office of the president;
it was to be a symbol of the presidency. A republic could
not have a king’s palace, but the building must command
respect from citizens in the United States and, just as
importantly, foreign visitors who came to visit America’s
leader.
On July 16, 1792, President Washington examined at
least six designs submitted in the President’s House
architectural competition. The plans were quite varied.
One of the designs was by James Hoban, an Irishman
whom the president had met a year earlier in Charleston. A
second plan was submitted by a mysterious man known
only as “A.Z.”. Historians have speculated that Thomas
Jefferson was the mystery designer, but records suggest
that the architect in question was more likely John Collins,
a builder from Richmond, Virginia. A third of the six
designs is by James Dimond, a Maryland inventor.
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James Hoban’s White House design.
Wikimedia Commons
President Washington sought out Hoban, conferred with
him, and quickly selected the architect’s proposed design
for the President’s House in July 1792.
Thomas Jefferson, himself of Irish descent, must have
gained particular pleasure as the second occupant of the
White House in Washington, which was doubtless inspired
by Irish Palladianism. Both Castle Coole and Leinster
House in Dublin claim to have inspired James Hoban.
The Palladianism of the White House is interesting as it
is almost an early form of neoclassicism, especially the
South facade, which closely resembles James Wyatt’s
design for Castle Coole of 1790, also in Ireland. Ironically,
the North facade lacks one of the floors from Leinster
House, while the Southern facade is given one floor more
than Castle Coole, and has an external staircase more in
the Palladian manner.
Time, and occupants, have altered the White
House in many ways. However, the White House image is
Hoban’s entirely. It is a handsome residence, embellished
with unquestionably the finest architectural stone carving
produced in America at that time. And when Hoban rebuilt
it, following the fire in 1814, he was ordered to make it as it
had been, which he did, perpetuating the image and his
own claim to a place in history.
Hoban died on December 8, 1831. He is buried at
Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
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HistoryofTheWhiteHouse
TheWhiteHousehasatotalofsixstoreysatwo-storey
basementtheGroundFloorStateFloorSecondFloor
andThirdFloorThereareroomsandbathrooms
in the White House There are also  doors 
windowsfireplacesstaircasesandelevators
TheWhiteHousehasavarietyofrecreationfacilities
including a tennis court jogging track swimming
poolmovietheaterbilliardroomandabowlinglane
The State Floor includes the East Room Green
Room Blue Room Red Room State Dining Room
Family Dining Room Cross Hall Entrance Hall and
Grand Staircase The Ground Floor is made up of the
Diplomatic Reception Room Map Room China Room
Vermeil Room Library the main kitchen and other
officesThesecondfloorfamilyresidenceincludesthe
YellowOvalRoomEastandWestSittingHallstheWhite
House Master Bedroom President’s Dining Room the
Treaty Room Lincoln Bedroom and Queens’ Bedroom
as well as two additional bedrooms a smaller kitchen
andaprivatedressingroomThethirdfloorconsistsof
theWhiteHouseSolariumGameRoomLinenRooma
DietKitchenandanothersittingroom
TheexterioroftheWhiteHousewasexpandedto
include two colonnades in  Further additions
includetheSouthporticoinandtheNorthportico
in  Today the porticos connect to the East and
WestWingsTheWestWingwasaddedtothehousein
withtheOvalOfficeaddedtothewinginThe
EastWingwasaddedin
Lorenzo Winslow’s 1948 plan for
changes. White House Museum
Alterations to the Executive Mansion.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photo-
graphs Division
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TheWhiteHouseisagrandmansionintheneoclassical
Federal style with details that echo classical Greek
Ionic architecture James Hoban’s original design was
modeledaftertheLeinsterHouseinDublinIrelandand
didnotincludethenorthandsouthporticos
Federal style architecture is the name for the
classicizing architecture built in the United States
between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to
1815. This style shares its name with its era, the Federal
Period. In the early Republic, the founding generation
consciously chose to associate the nation with the
ancient democracies of Greece and the republican
values of Rome. Grecian aspirations informed the Greek
Revival, lasting into the 1850s. Using Roman architectural
vocabulary, the Federal style applied to the balanced
and symmetrical version of Georgian architecture that
had been practiced in the American colonies new motifs
of neoclassical architecture as it was epitomized in
Britain by Robert Adam, who published his designs in
1792. The classicizing manner of constructions and town
planning undertaken by the federal government was
expressed in federal projects of lighthouses and harbor
buildings, hospitals and in the rationalizing urbanistic
layout of L’Enfant’s Washington, D.C. and in New York the
Commissioners’ Plan of 1811.
American federal architecture differs from preceding
Georgian colonial interpretations in its use of plainer
surfaces with attenuated detail, usually isolated in panels,
tablets and friezes.
Federalstyle
Sailors’ Snug Harbor, Minard Lafever.
Wikimedia Commons
Tennessee State Capitol, William
Strickland. Wikimedia Commons
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FactsfromTheWhiteHouse
Location:.......................... 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, D.C. USA
Style:.................................. Neoclassical Federal blended
with Irish Palladianism
Materials:......................... Aquia Sandstone
Size: .................................... 55,000 ft2(5,110 m2)
Year: .................................... First cornerstone laid in October
of 1792. The full construction of
the building took place between
1792 and 1800 when the first
residents moved in.
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