The Treasury Building was “to bring honor and benefit” to the nation, “to show to the European… that the american [sic] talent for architecture is not a whit inferior to the European’s.”

~Robert Mills

With its colossal colonnade, Treasury’s stone exterior was a bold move toward creating a façade unlike any other in Washington. Robert Mills’ design for the new Treasury bore little resemblance to its brick-clad Georgian predecessor that was identical to the State, War, and Navy Department buildings flanking the east and west sides of the White House.

This photograph, taken between 1862-1866, shows the stylistic contrast between the Greek Treasury façade, seen at the left side of the photograph, and the Georgian State Department Building, seen at the right side of the photograph. The State Department building was demolished in 1866 to allow for Treasury’s North wing addition.

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By the early 1830’s, Treasury’s distinctive uninterrupted colonnade appeared in only a few buildings in America, never used before in federal architecture in Washington. Mills cited the Bourse des Valeurs, the 1808 Stock Exchange in Paris, as well as the colonnaded addition to the eastern façade of the Louvre as contemporary precedents that inspired Treasury’s East façade, evidence of a shift towards America’s increasing sophistication alongside its economic progress.

Mills was not alone in his admiration for the design for the Bourse des Valeurs in Paris, seen left, which received much public praise when it opened in 1808.

 

Treasury’s long colonnade is perched high upon the ground story base that skims 15th Street, creating a strong horizontal facade that Mills himself considered “both grand and imposing”. The thirty columns retain its repetitious impact, even after the pediments at the North and South were added with the later extensions to Treasury.

Photograph by Gary Griffen

The large size of Mills’ original plan demonstrates the growth of the Treasury Department, the government, and the expanding nation. Upon completion, the Treasury was a robust symbol of America’s increasing economic stature while serving as a catalyst toward an aesthetic of austere formality of architecture in Washington.

This 1869 engraving shows the dominant size of the Treasury Building , seen in the center of the image, over the landscape of Washington, reflecting the prominence of the national treasury in the American government.
Drawn by Theo[dore] R. Davis. Kiplinger Collection.

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