"Longitudinal Section Looking West"
By John Russell Pope, Otto R. Eggers, and Daniel P. Higgins, ca. 1939
Pencil, wash, and ink on paper on board
18" x 24"
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the National
Park Service
Jefferson Memorial
By the early 1930s, only one site remained for
a major monument near the Mall in Washington, DC. The spot, near the Tidal
Basin and on a line with the White House and Washington Monument, was
first set aside for a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. Congress, however,
ordered it reserved for Thomas Jefferson. In 1934 it created the Thomas
Jefferson Memorial Commission, which selected John Russell Pope as the
memorial's architect. Pope's design was modeled on Rome's Pantheon, with
formal tree plantings, small lakes, and large terraces surrounding the
structure. The design immediately became the focus of a debate between
architectural traditionalists, who supported Pope's Neoclassical concept,
and modernists who criticized it as too formal, too large, and not in
keeping with Jefferson's democratic ideals. The project lingered for several
years during which time Pope died. The commission then asked Pope's associates,
Otto R. Eggers and Daniel P. Higgins, to scale down the size of Pope's
pantheon and eliminate its formal setting. These drawings are similar
to the final design for the memorial.