“...Benjamin L Latrobe’s invention of an American carefully considered adaptation and Order—a care transformation of the language of classicism— was an important step toward the articulation of a national identity...”
hard work, perseverance, and love of land; and asserts the nobility, power, and importance of the American Everyman. Benjamin Latrobe’s title of “Father of American Architecture” is well-earned and well-deserved. In addition to his work at the U. S. Capitol, his architectural works include Philadelphia’s Bank of Pennsylvania, the Latrobe Gate at the Washington Navy Yard, and the Baltimore Basilica. He is also credited8 with suggesting to his friend Thomas Jefferson, in 1817, that a central building—a rotunda based on the Pantheon in Rome—be added to Jefferson’s design for an Academical Village, a proposal approved by the Virginia Assembly in 1819 and chartered as the University of Virginia.
have embarked on the design of public projects with bold agendas that were surely aspirational in nature, few of those architects appreciated that the expression of aspirations can only be understood and acted upon when there is already a strong and clear sense of national or regional identity. Benjamin Latrobe’s invention of an American Order—a carefully considered adaptation and transformation of the language of classicism— was an important step toward the articulation of a national identity. At a time when Americans were most inclined to perceive themselves as citizens of a state rather than a nation, Latrobe’s American Order made manifest the expression of a national identity that was inclusive rather than exclusive, an identity that was understandable rather than elusive.
Identity and Aspiration The architectural achievements of Latrobe at the U.S Capitol are best understood and appreciated in terms of the desire for an expression of national identity as well as the cultivation of a sense of national aspiration in the early decades of the 19th century. And, while a number of American architects of the past two centuries
Furthermore, Latrobe’s transformation of the classical orders of architecture shifted emphasis from the expression of a social or political hierarchy rooted in the autocracies of Europe to the expression of democratic principles and the affirmation of an agrarian way of life, the foundation of the new republic.