Building An Icon

An aerial view of the Pentagon, approximately 10 years, after the end of World War II

BUILDING AN ICON

By Dwight Jon Zimmerman

“Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be successfully executed.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On Thursday, July 17, 1941, Brig. Gen. Brehon Somervell, the commander of the Construction Division of the Army Quartermaster Corps, told Lt. Col. Hugh “Pat” Casey, chief of the Design Section; Operations Branch chief, Col. Leslie Groves; Engineering Branch chief, Col. Edmund Leavy; and chief consulting architect George Bergstrom that instead of several temporary buildings to house the expanding staff of the War Department, he wanted a permanent one, something he called the “biggest office building in the world.” It would contain 4 million square feet of office space, be no more than four floors high because of steel shortage, hold 40,000 people, have parking space for 10,000 vehicles, have 500,000 square feet of office space ready for occupancy in six months by 10,000 people, and to be entirely finished in 12 months – a job otherwise estimated to take at least four years. And, because no available space in Washington was big enough, Somervell said it would be built across the Potomac River on the site of the old Washington-Hoover Airport. Finally, he wanted the preliminary plans and designs on his desk Monday, July 21.

While architect Bergstrom and his team got organized to create the necessary drawings and schematics, Casey went out to eyeball the site. The more he saw in his walkaround, the more troubled he became. The airport was on low-lying riverbed land that regularly flooded and was little better than a swamp. Somervell’s boss, Assistant Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Eugene Reybold agreed, calling it “hazardous.”

After getting Somervell’s okay to look elsewhere, Casey pulled out a map of the area and began searching. What attracted him was a 67-acre, 60-foot-high plateau about a half-mile upriver from the airport at the northern tip of the Arlington Farms Experimental Station just across the Arlington Ridge Road east of Arlington National Cemetery. He liked what he saw. It was above the flood plain, large enough to accommodate the building, had access to utilities, water supply, and road network – everything the largest office building in the world would need. Best of all,

Arlington Farm once again belonged to the War Department. Weeks earlier Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall had requested the land, which years before the War Department had sold to the Agriculture Department. President Roosevelt signed the necessary transfer orders. A down-and-dirty survey confirmed Casey’s assessment. With Reybold also backing the move, Somervell signed off on the new location. Overall, he wanted the project to remain in Virginia. A project of such magnitude was going to need political allies. For him, none were more important than Rep. Clifton Woodrum of Virginia, acting chairman of the Subcommittee on Deficiencies, a subcommittee in the House Committee on Appropriations, and the man who earlier had asked for an “overall solution” to the War Department’s office problem.

Bordered on the north, west, and south by roads and on the east-northeast by a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a proposed truck route, the location had an asymmetrical pentagon shape, hardly an aesthetic recommendation. Nonetheless, Bergstrom and his architects and draftsmen went to work.

Even before they rolled out their drafting paper, a change order in the design was made – the first of what would be many. Though he still wanted the 4 million square feet of space, Somervell reduced the number of floors from four to three to ensure the profile of the building – in its new location on the northern plateau – would be low enough so as not to obstruct the view between the cemetery and Washington.

Despite the fact that the configuration of the land itself suggested a pentagonal design for the building, that shape did not immediately come to the team’s mind. Casey later said they played around with “different set-ups and layouts” before settling on a pentagonal shape. According to Casey, Bergstrom deserved “the greatest credit” for the pentagonal design that emerged, a statement supported by a 1943 Corps of Engineers memorandum stating the design was “the responsibility and the contribution of Mr. Bergstrom.”

The location selected for the Pentagon, on the site of the old Washington- Hoover Airport in Arlington, Virginia. The runways of the airport can still be seen in this photograph, as well as the airfield’s hangars, one of which soon was filled with architects and draftsmen producing thousands of pages of blueprints for the building.

National Archives Photo

In keeping with the land’s asymmetrical shape, the building’s pentagonal design was irregular, conforming to the three border roads and lopping off a corner of the building’s southeastern corner to complete the five-sided shape.

In this first design draft, the building was composed of two rings, outer and inner, in effect making two buildings. Extending inward from the outer ring were 49 barracks-like wings. The inner ring had 34 wings that pointed to the outer ring. Each wing, 50 feet wide and 160 feet long, was separated from the others by a 30-foot-wide open air “light court.” The ground and third floors had corridors that connected the two rings to each other.

The building’s gross area totaled 5.1 million square feet with 4 million available for office space. Private offices were only for senior officials and commanders, with everyone else working in gigantic open bays. In giving each person 100 square feet of working space, the building hit its target population of 40,000.

On Monday morning, Bergstrom laid on Somervell’s desk the preliminary designs. Bergstrom put the cost estimate at $17.5 million. Somervell, wise to the way of construction costs, immediately doubled it.

With plans in hand, Somervell began the involved process of getting approvals, starting with the War Department. The first person he saw was Army Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Richard C. Moore, responsible for armed forces and supply, who approved, calling the plan “very logical.” This was followed by quick approvals from Marshall and Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson. The potential stumbling block was Stimson, who was on record as being leery of approving construction of another, larger, office building so soon after the New War Department Building had been erected.

Bergstrom had designed it in the style known as “Stripped Classicism,” a sober synthesis of classical and modern style characteristics. Looking at the sketches, Stimson found himself favorably impressed with what he called its “practical and simple lines.” Somervell listed its advantages: bringing everyone under one roof would improve efficiency anywhere from 20 to 40 percent; it would be built in one year, as it was on War Department land; the Army, and not the Public Buildings Administration, would oversee construction. Convinced, Stimson gave his blessing, writing that night in his diary, “Of course it will cost a lot of money but it will solve not only our problem . . . it will solve a lot of other problems.” Stimson’s approval that morning set the stage for the even more important meeting that afternoon on Capitol Hill with Woodrum’s subcommittee.

Somervell cannily first went to Woodrum’s office to give him a private, advance look. The impressed Woodrum was particularly happy to hear that the proposed building would free for other departments and agencies 2.1 million square feet of office space presently occupied by the War Department in Washington.

When he made his presentation before the committee, Somervell remained unfazed when questions of cost and building durability were thrown at him. Near the end, Woodrum asked, “If you had the money, how soon could you get underway on it?” Somervell replied, “We could get underway on it in two weeks.” The subcommittee voted unanimously to approve the project, sending it for a vote by the full Appropriations Committee, at which point it started attracting enemies.

The first serious opponent was Roosevelt’s budget director, Harold Smith, who was suspicious that costs had not been fully examined. But the president brushed aside those concerns and at a July 24 Cabinet meeting gave it his official approval. More serious was the threat posed by Rep. Merlin Hull of Wisconsin, who upon reading HR 5412, the defense supplemental bill, saw a rider attached to it authorizing $35 million for the construction of a War Department Building, a violation of House rules as it had not originated with the Committee of Public Buildings and Grounds.

The War Department Office building, better known as the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia, shown under construction, Jan. 17, 1942. The building was completed in just 17 months.

Image from the Secretary of Defense History Office

Hell hath no fury greater than that of a point-of-order pedant seeing a procedural bypass (which is what Woodrum was attempting), and on the House floor, Hull successfully managed to put the entire $8 billion defense supplemental bill on hold. Hull and his supporters attempted three times to block the appropriation. Each time they failed, and the House overwhelmingly voted for the $8 billion bill, with only 11 dissenters. Now it was the Senate’s turn.

Though keeping a close eye on the political battle, Somervell remained focused on pushing the project forward. He got Philadelphia-based John McShain, Inc., which had constructed a number of federal buildings and monuments including the Jefferson Memorial, approved as the prime contractor without putting it out for bid. For political reasons, two Virginia contractors, Doyle and Russell and Wise Contracting Company, were added with the understanding they would contribute little more than their name to the project.

But contractor success was counterbalanced by partial victory from his opponents. Roosevelt’s uncle, Frederic Delano, chairman of the influential National Capital Park and Planning Commission, had joined the chorus of those objecting to the size and location of the building. With his voice added, Roosevelt bowed to pressure and cut the size of the building in half. Momentum for getting the now downsized building moved elsewhere was also growing.

The showdown came on Aug. 8, 1941, in a closed-door subcommittee session chaired by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Carter Glass (co-sponsor of the 1933 banking regulation Glass-Steagall Act).

Gilmore Clarke, chairman of the politically influential District of Columbia Commission of Fine Arts who had nominal approval rights over federal building design in the district, was an early opponent of the project, and led the attack to discredit the Arlington Farms site on aesthetic grounds, even though the proposed building was now half the original size. Clarke’s imperious, unbending testimony grated on the senators. When it came time for Somervell, he turned on the charm. Afterward, even Clarke agreed that Somervell had delivered a tour de force performance. On Aug. 11, the subcommittee unanimously approved the project and site, and two days later the full committee approved it, with just five dissenters. But the fight was far from over.

On Aug. 14, 1941, the afternoon session of the Senate opened with the electrifying news of Roosevelt’s secret meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, and the announcement of the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles between the United States and Great Britain that bound them in the fight against Nazi tyranny.

Against a dramatic backdrop that put the nation further down the path of war, discussion opened on the proposed new War Department office building. The ensuing two-hour debate was described as “a first-class battle.” No stone was left unturned by opponents, with defense equally impassioned. Three times amendments were introduced to scotch the project and three times they were defeated. In the end, Somervell won – not only in getting the Senate to pass the bill, but also in restoring the building to its original size.

A U.S. Geological Survey topographical map of the area around the Pentagon in Virginia, soon after the road network was built.

USGS Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Though the bill had passed, the president had yet to sign it into law. Upon his return from Canada, the president found himself besieged by a clamoring press, his secretary of the interior, “Uncle Fred” Delano, Clarke, and others beseeching him to stop the project. Of all their arguments, the one that had the most impact was that of aesthetics. All claimed the building was ugly as sin and would desecrate the Washington landscape. It was an argument that hit home. Roosevelt fancied himself an amateur architect with a fine sense of the aesthetic.

In 1917, when he was assistant secretary of the navy, he had been responsible for getting constructed on the Mall along Constitution Avenue temporary office buildings for the War and Navy departments, which he deliberately had designed “of such superlative ugliness that their replacement” would have been insisted upon the war’s completion. Yet in 1941, there they still were, a blot on the Washington landscape. Roosevelt could not permit a second architectural affront to the eyes built with his name attached to it.

In an Aug. 19 meeting with Smith on the subject of the building’s cost, Roosevelt got so upset he threatened to throw out the entire $8 billion appropriation. Smith advised an alternative. Later that day, as workers began excavation, Roosevelt held a press conference to announce that his “present inclination is not to accept” Congress’ decision regarding the building. Though he couldn’t cancel Congress’ funding, he was going to recommend other sites, and other designs, and was looking forward to his scheduled meeting the next day with Somervell to discuss them.

The news was a thunderbolt, and Somervell went into overdrive. To nix this presidential monkey wrench, he enlisted the aid of the one person who could save the project: Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, the man regarded as Washington’s preeminent fixer. On Aug. 20, Somervell and McCloy walked into the meeting with the president – and hours later walked out with the blueprints approved with no changes, leaving opponents shocked.

In that meeting, when he saw arguments leaving the president unimpressed, McCloy played his extortion card: Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl. A Harvard classmate of Roosevelt’s, the former Hitler crony had fallen out of favor and, fearing for his life, fled to England, where he was imprisoned. Roosevelt, thinking his former classmate might have useful intelligence, arranged to have him brought to America. Hanfstaengl turned out to be a buffoon, and the embarrassed Roosevelt was anxious to quietly unload the ex-Nazi. McCloy promised that if Roosevelt approved, unchanged, the blueprints on his desk, he would discretely shunt Hanfstaengl to a remote Army base and keep him under wraps. The President signed off. The following week, when Roosevelt saw McCloy at a Cabinet meeting, he growled, “You blackmailer!”

It was perhaps with the memory of being so rarely outmaneuvered in mind that Roosevelt decided to personally inspect the recommended sites. With Somervell and Clarke in tow, they reviewed the entire area from Arlington Farms to the airport. One of the sites was just north of Hell’s Bottom and west of the airport slated for a quartermaster depot. Looking at it, the president said, “We’re going to locate the War Department building over there.”

The War Department went to work acquiring additional land. Of the 583 acres originally needed, the government owned 296. Condemnation proceedings of 150 nearby houses and purchasing of other plots netted the remainder.

The two men tapped to be project managers, and thus the individuals responsible for day-to-day operations, were McShain’s J. Paul Hauk and Army Capt. (later Colonel) Clarence Renshaw. To oversee the rapidly growing drafting force, architect Bergstrom tapped his chief assistant, David J. Witmer.

Witmer’s force was truly at the tip of the spear on the project, for without designs from them, nothing could be built – supposedly. In addition to designing the building itself, Witmer’s work also “entailed planning the approaches to the building and the parking fields and the road system to give access to the building. It involved a sanitary sewage system and a disposal plant, a heating and refrigeration plant, an electrical power station, the relocation of a railroad, and the redesign of the topography of some 400 acres and the landscaping of this whole area.”

Witmer’s force grew so large that it had to be located in the airport’s abandoned 23,000-square-foot Eastern Airlines hangar. The number of major architectural drawings eventually totaled 3,100. Blueprint presses ran 24 hours a day, cranking out an average of 15,000 yards of drawings per week. Even that prodigious output fell behind the voracious needs of fast-track construction. Architect Luther Leisenring ruefully referred to his design group as the “historical records” section because it was so often behind actual construction. Years later, renovators would discover whole sections of the Pentagon for which no plans existed.

The Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, taken from an airplane in January 2008.

Photo by David B. Gleason via Wikimedia Commons

Groundbreaking began Sept. 11, 1941, and initially, despite some 4,000 men working around the clock, progress was slow, a rate calculated to be 1 percent a month, meaning it would take eight years to complete it. Everything changed with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. A sense of urgency seized everyone, and the pace of construction accelerated.

Loose soil and the great depth to bedrock necessitated the use of cast-in-place pile footings. Eventually 41,492 piles were sunk. Length ranged from 27 feet to 45 feet with an aggregate total of more than 200 miles. Floors and walls were reinforced concrete slab-and-beam, with floors typically 5 ½ inches thick and capable of bearing 150 pounds per square foot. Story heights varied from 11 feet, 4 ½ inches to 21 feet, 1 ½ inches, with an overall height of 71 feet, 3 ½ inches.

The 680,000 tons of sand and gravel for the concrete were dredged from the Potomac River and delivered directly to the onsite batching plant by barge. Its daily capacity of 3,000 cubic yards of concrete was delivered directly into trucks that mixed the batches as they drove to the site. Ultimately, 435,000 cubic yards of concrete were poured.

Now containing five rings, the walls were concrete, with the outer wall of the outermost ring covered in Indiana limestone. Thanks to the extensive use of reinforced concrete, about 38,000 tons of steel were saved, more than enough to build a battleship. One area where steel was necessary was in the window sashes.

Of all the countless headaches experienced by management during construction, none was greater than the uproar of what material would frame the building’s 9,000 windows. When the first round of bids awarded the contract to steel sash manufacturers, wood sash companies raised such an uproar that a second round of bidding became necessary. Even when that bid was won by steel sash manufacturers, wood sash manufacturers and their congressional advocates continued protests for weeks.

Problems weren’t confined to materials. This was the era of segregation, and Virginia had on its books Jim Crow separatebut-equal laws. Though they should not have applied to the Pentagon, as it was federal property and subject to Roosevelt’s Executive Order No. 8802 that forbade discrimination, whether deliberately or by accident, separate toilet and dining facilities were incorporated into the design. The result was a doubling of the normal number of toilets and dining rooms.

By the spring of 1942, two of the five wedges had been built and, though conditions were hardly ideal, Somervell’s promise to have functioning office space available was achieved on May 1, when 300 Ordnance Department workers moved into Section A. While not the promised 1,000 workers, it was still an impressive achievement.

Because the Army had dramatically grown far beyond pre-war projections, in July 1942 a fifth floor was added to the design. This meant that the roof installed on the two finished sections had to be ripped up and replaced.

Finally, on Feb. 15, 1943, prime contractor John McShain, Inc., announced that construction of the Pentagon was finished. Instead of 12, it had taken 17 months to build. But during that period dramatic alterations had been made on the fly, with basements expanded, a new floor added, and countless other changes both big and small. It had grown from 5.1 million to 6.24 million gross square feet. Office space had grown from 2.3 million to 3.6 million square feet.

Designed in a race against time and planned for efficiency, not beauty, it was originally derided as ugly in its design and construction stage, but over the years that attitude changed. Army historian Maj. William Frierson noted that the building came to possess a “quiet dignity” that was “Hellenic in its simplicity and harmony; modern in its lack of curves, its rigid formality, and its vastness.”