The U.S. Capitol dominates The Lost Symbol and is prominent on the dustcovers of the American and British editions of the book. Its role in the L’Enfant’s Triangle and its Masonic origins have been noted. But the Capitol is also a living museum that has continued to grow with the Nation over the centuries. Architecturally and artistically, it is testimony to American creativity inspired by and imbued with a spirit of classical antiquity. It is fitting that the master of this place is designated the Architect of the Capitol. The Architect of the Capitol not coincidentally maintains a spectacular website on our nation’s pride.
The site for the American legislative branch was selected by George Washington and Pierre L’Enfant. Designed by Dr. William Thornton, who helped Washington lay the cornerstone on September 18, 1793, the building was not occupied until 1807, years after Washington’s death. During America’s War with the British, the building was burnt down in 1814. While it was soon restored, the building underwent expansion in the 1850s and 1860s, even in the course of the American Civil War. A new U.S. Capitol Visitors Center was opened in 2008. Americans frequently speak of “Capitol Hill” as the place where congressmen work, debate, and pass the laws that govern our nation.
The center of the American legislative branch, the Capitol is indeed a temple, the seat of a government of an independent people protected by a constitution. Here convene the Senate, not unlike the Roman Senate, and the House of Representatives. The building itself has a long and colorful history, and according to various sources, the Capitol can be compared to the Roman Pantheon, the Temple of Jupiter, Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, and it clearly has been inspired in part by St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Langdon and Mal’akh, as do most visitors, enter the Capitol via the new Visitors Center. Since it has just recently been opened even most Americans who have visited before would be surprised to discover their Capitol anew. The Capitol is a working place where the House and Senate conduct in public sessions to debate and adopt legislation. But it is also a museum that celebrates the American democracy. Visitors, as well as Langdon, are directed to the Rotunda, the floor below the magnificent Dome, where Langdon views The Apotheosis of George Washington and unfortunately finds the tattooed “hand of mystery” of Peter Solomon. Langdon will also descend into the subbasement of the Capitol, to the secret Room 13, where he first discovers the Chamber of Reflection and an unfinished pyramid. The Chamber of Reflection in the Capitol basement is a fiction. Brown admitted as much in a television interview.
From there, he is guided by the Architect of the Capitol, a real title, but fictional officeholder Warren Bellamy (Walt Bellamy was a professional basketball in the NBA in the 1960s and 1970s). He will help Robert evade Director of the CIA’s Office of Security Sato (a common Japanese surname and one that can mean “sugar”). They use one of the underground tunnels that connect the Capitol to the three buildings of the Library of Congress across the street. There is, in fact, a subbasement to the Capitol and the tunnel actually exists. Originally the Library of Congress had been established specifically to support the needs of representatives to Congress and their staffs, and for a time it was located in the Capitol Building. There are actually underground rail lines and tunnels that connect the Capitol to the six buildings that hold the offices of senators and representatives. The Capitol Dome, where Langdon and Katherine will end their journey and the novel, is topped by a Statue of Freedom. Access to the top of the Dome that Langdon ascends can be arranged by special permission.
Aerial view of the Capitol
Books have been written and websites abound about the placement of the Capitol and the zodiacal significance of the exact time for the laying of the cornerstone. One of the most recent and complete overviews can be found in David Ovason’s The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital (1999). The cornerstone itself was symbolically re-laid in 1993 with Masonic hours. Readers will wonder at this “treasure trove of bizarre arcana” from the “killer bathtub,” “General John Alexander Logan’s long-deceased stuffed horse” (25). All of this and much more appear in a book by Jim Berard, The Capitol Inside & Out (2003). But these anecdotal and mystical explanations of the Capitol are but a supplement to the rich and varied history of America’s Temple of Power, which is available on the Internet, including spectacular photographs and detailed maps of the Capitol Complex and the Capitol Building itself.
Perhaps most impressive are the building’s dimensions.
Today, the Capitol covers a ground area of 175,170 square feet, or about 4 acres, and has a floor area of approximately 16½ acres. Its length, from north to south, is 751 feet 4 inches; its greatest width, including approaches, is 350 feet. Its height above the base line on the east front to the top of the Statue of Freedom is 288 feet; from the basement floor to the top of the dome is an ascent of 365 steps. The building contains approximately 540 rooms and has 658 windows (108 in the dome alone) and approximately 850 doorways.
Under the Dome on the second floor is the Rotunda, 96 feet in diameter and which rises 180 feet 3 inches to the canopy. To the south of the Rotunda is the National Statuary Hall, where Langdon assumed he would give his speech. It is 365 steps from the Capitol basement to the top of the outer dome, a steep climb up a narrow metal staircase that snakes between the double dome, out of sight to visitors below, to an outdoor walkway. One final Masonic coincidence is that there are thirty-three steps that lead from the Inauguration site on the west side of the Capitol up to the Rotunda!
A TOUR OF THE CAPITOL
uschscapitolhistory.uschs.org/tour/index.htm
C-SPAN VIDEO AND AUDIO GUIDE
www.c-span.org/capitolhistory
THE ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
www.aoc.gov and www.aoc.gov/cc/capitol/index.cfm
U.S. CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER
www.visitthecapitol.gov