Architecture: 1790s-1840s
1790sThe Presidents House was a major feature of Pierre Charles L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city of Washington. He envisioned a...
Mr. Truman's Renovation: Demolition
Gallery
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Window openings provide bursts of light into the cavernous interior of the White House, supported by temporary steel bracing. Concrete underpinnings for the walls allow earth-moving equipment to dig a new basement on May 17, 1950.
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View to the southeast corner of the White House. The arched entry of the staircase and wooden joists of the second floor corridor are seen on the right of this photograph taken on April 20, 1950.
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The North Portico excavation on July 11, 1950, showing the areaway that had ventilated and lighted the ground floor rooms since the house was built. The ruins in the foreground are underground storage rooms dug out in the 1930s. Truman replaced these with a larger underground service area that today houses both gardening staff and a bowling alley, all under the north lawn.
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View to the west along the south wall reveals the depth of the new foundation and excavation, extending 25 feet below the original footings. This image from June 12, 1950, shows earth along the walls was left unexcavated until cross beams, running north and south, were installed to prevent the walls from bulging.
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The ground floor in the process of demolition on April 25, 1950. An arch (lower left) remains from the long transverse corridor and a ghost of the stairs to the state floor appears on the distant wall.
National Park Service
About this Gallery
To provide solid support for the interior walls, crews poured 126 new reinforced concrete support columns to a depth of 25 feet. This would eventually provide space for two newly excavated sub-basement levels. By autumn 1950, interior demolition had left the White House a cavernous hollow space 165 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 70 to 80 feet high.
Abbie Rowe visited the construction site frequently. His photographs not only tracked the progress of the work, but also tried to capture the architectural forms and a web of steel wall supports in attractive ways. Using backlighting to illuminate the dark cavernous spaces of the gutted structure, he gave a sense of depth and beauty to the crumbling piles of stone, mortar, timber, and brick.
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