May 28, 2007
How the Pentagon Got Its Shape
ON A WARM AND RAINY THURSDAY EVENING IN JULY 1941, inside a War Department office in Washington, a small group of Army officers hastily assembled for a meeting and listened in disbelief to the secret plan outlined by their commander.
The general spoke in the velvety Southern accent of his native Arkansas. He was not in uniform -- Army policy kept officers in civilian clothes so as to disguise from Congress the burgeoning military population in Washington -- but he cut an immaculate figure, with his trim build, combed-back, graying hair and neatly groomed mustache. Over the past eight months, the officers of the Army's Construction Division had grown accustomed to bold and quick action from their chief. At age 49, Brig. Gen. Brehon Burke Somer-vell had earned a reputation as a smooth but ruthless operator. "Dynamite in a Tiffany box" was how an associate later described him. Now Somervell turned his eyes -- "the keenest, shrewdest, most piercing eyes one is likely to meet," in the words of one observer -- toward his chief of design, Lt. Col. Hugh "Pat" J. Casey.
he War Department needed a new headquarters, Somervell said. The building he wanted to create was too big to fit in Washington and would have to go across the Potomac River in Arlington. It would be far larger than all the great structures of the city, including the U.S. Capitol. Somervell wanted a headquarters big enough to hold 40,000 people, with parking for 10,000 cars. It would contain 4 million square feet of office space -- almost twice as much as the Empire State Building. Yet it must be no more than four stories high -- a tall building would obstruct views of Washington and require too much steel, urgently needed for battleships and weapons....
Late on Friday afternoon, July 18, George Edwin Bergstrom got to work. A formal man with a brusque manner, his dark hair whitening at the temples, Bergstrom was an accomplished and experienced architect, now in charge of the largest project of his long career. He gathered with his assistants at the division headquarters.
Bergstrom led the deliberations. The restrictions were confounding, given the space they needed. The easiest solution, constructing a tall building, was out. They would have to spread out horizontally. But how? A square building that size -- with the enormous interior distances to be covered -- was too unwieldy, as was a rectangle. The Arlington Farm tract had a peculiar asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions. Finally, guided by the odd shape of the plot, they designed an irregular pentagon. A sketch by Socrates Thomas Stathes, a young War Department draftsman, showed a square with a corner cut off, more or less matching the tract's shape. It was really two buildings, a five-sided ring surrounding a smaller one of the same shape....
The general spoke in the velvety Southern accent of his native Arkansas. He was not in uniform -- Army policy kept officers in civilian clothes so as to disguise from Congress the burgeoning military population in Washington -- but he cut an immaculate figure, with his trim build, combed-back, graying hair and neatly groomed mustache. Over the past eight months, the officers of the Army's Construction Division had grown accustomed to bold and quick action from their chief. At age 49, Brig. Gen. Brehon Burke Somer-vell had earned a reputation as a smooth but ruthless operator. "Dynamite in a Tiffany box" was how an associate later described him. Now Somervell turned his eyes -- "the keenest, shrewdest, most piercing eyes one is likely to meet," in the words of one observer -- toward his chief of design, Lt. Col. Hugh "Pat" J. Casey.
he War Department needed a new headquarters, Somervell said. The building he wanted to create was too big to fit in Washington and would have to go across the Potomac River in Arlington. It would be far larger than all the great structures of the city, including the U.S. Capitol. Somervell wanted a headquarters big enough to hold 40,000 people, with parking for 10,000 cars. It would contain 4 million square feet of office space -- almost twice as much as the Empire State Building. Yet it must be no more than four stories high -- a tall building would obstruct views of Washington and require too much steel, urgently needed for battleships and weapons....
Late on Friday afternoon, July 18, George Edwin Bergstrom got to work. A formal man with a brusque manner, his dark hair whitening at the temples, Bergstrom was an accomplished and experienced architect, now in charge of the largest project of his long career. He gathered with his assistants at the division headquarters.
Bergstrom led the deliberations. The restrictions were confounding, given the space they needed. The easiest solution, constructing a tall building, was out. They would have to spread out horizontally. But how? A square building that size -- with the enormous interior distances to be covered -- was too unwieldy, as was a rectangle. The Arlington Farm tract had a peculiar asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions. Finally, guided by the odd shape of the plot, they designed an irregular pentagon. A sketch by Socrates Thomas Stathes, a young War Department draftsman, showed a square with a corner cut off, more or less matching the tract's shape. It was really two buildings, a five-sided ring surrounding a smaller one of the same shape....