Renwick Gallery—Site 12
The Renwick Gallery, made of brick and sandstone, was completed in 1859.
This building of brick and sandstone, completed in 1859, is interesting from a stone preservation point of view. The decorative sandstone panels were badly deteriorated, so in 1968 the panels were saturated with epoxy to strengthen them. This treatment actually accelerated the deterioration because when water penetrated behind the epoxy-filled area, large portions of the treated panels spalled off. A second renovation attempt was therefore necessary two years after the first, and the present panels are cast sandstone. A post of the original sandstone stands at the southeast corner of the building.
Casts of ground sandstone and epoxy replaced the original carved sandstone decorative trim at the Renwick Gallery when a first attempt to preserve the carved stone failed.
The next part of the tour begins at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue S. To get there, walk east along Pennsylvania Avenue, past Blair House and between Lafayette Park and the White House. Lafayette Park has a number of bronze statues that have been cleaned fairly recently. The White House is built of sandstone that was painted white; the paint was used in part to improve the durability of the stone. After you pass the White House, you will come to the Treasury Building. Turn right onto 15th Street and walk south, towards the Washington Monument and the Mall. The total distance from the Renwick to the corner of 15th and Pennsylvania is about three-fourths of a kilometer (half a mile).
Federal Triangle Buildings—Site 13
On the east side of 15th Street, beginning at E Street, is the Commerce Department building, which was constructed of limestone in the 1930’s. This building is part of the Federal Triangle, a cluster of Federal office buildings in the area bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, Constitution Avenue, and 15th Street, built primarily during the New Deal administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some sculptures on the buildings were done by participants in the WPA program. These buildings were cleaned in the 1960’s, probably by sandblasting. Look for fossils in relief and alteration crusts in some sheltered places on the carved work. Some of the blackening on this building is from dirt and organic material trapped or growing in the rough surface of the stone.
