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James Hoban: Architect of the White House

James Hoban's life is a memorable Irish-American success story. In his boyhood he learned the craft of carpenter and wheelwright, and became an architect by profession and a builder by trade. Hoban came to America with high ambitions, and designed and erected many buildings; but what keeps his name alive today arises from one special commission—he was the architect of

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In a White House Passageway

Arches and vaults are techniques of construction that serve to divert the support of heavy masses that would otherwise require bearing walls or pillars directly beneath them. They have been in use for millennia, forming the structural systems of buildings. Steel beams in the later nineteenth century rendered vaults and arches unnecessary, and indeed generally replaced them. James Hoban built

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Determining Where the White House Must Stand

The new drawings were in hand, yet the site of the President’s House was not determined. Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s monumental “palace,” planned as a landmark in his ambitious city plan, was under way, but work was halted. A smaller house was now to be substituted for it. Already one could see the tremendous scale of the building L’Enfant h

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"A Communication Between These Offices"

When David Baillie Warden remarked in 1816 that “it was originally proposed to form a communication between the [executive departmental] offices and the house of the president,” he was referring to the initial idea for a close configuration of all the executive buildings within the President’s Square.1 Four L-shaped wings were shown as attached directly to the President’s House on Pierr