[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 177 (Thursday, November 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16930-S16931]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               GEORGE M. WHITE, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

 Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Architect of the Capitol, 
George M. White, will retire on November 21, 1995, after 25 years of 
service.
  At a recent dinner honoring Mr. White, Senator Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan offered eloquent remarks on the history of the position of 
Architect of the Capitol, and of the stamp that George White has made 
on the Capitol complex.
  Mr. President, I ask that my distinguished colleague's remarks made 
at a dinner at the National Building Museum on behalf of Mr. White be 
printed in the Record.
  The remarks follow:

Remarks of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan at Dinner Honoring George M. 
White, Architect of the Capitol--National Building Museum, Washington, 
                          DC, November 1, 1995

       To begin at the beginning, from the time of George 
     Washington, until just now, the Architect of the Capitol was 
     simply picked by the President and presented to the Congress. 
     George White's predecessor died in 1970. President Nixon 
     asked if I had any thoughts as to a successor. As it 
     happened, I did, for it had been a full century since a 
     President had chosen an architect to be Architect. This was 
     beginning to show. The result was George Malcolm White.
       I am aware that the Capitol as we know it is a felicitous 
     accretion of separate elements. Some infer from that that 
     succeeding generations are free to add to the building at 
     their pleasure. I think not. The various parts were 
     designated in the course of one-half century's work by a 
     string of extraordinary 

[[Page S 16931]]
     minds, both Architects and Presidents. Thus, Jefferson and Latrobe 
     argued at length as to whether the column capitals in the 
     House of Representatives chamber should be modeled after 
     those in the Theater of Marcellus in Rome or the Choragic 
     Monument to Lysicrates in Athens. Latrobe won; although 
     Jefferson had the better case. This tradition had waned. Then 
     George White renewed it.
       Like his early predecessors, he is a polymath, with degrees 
     in engineering, in business administration, and in law as 
     well as in architecture. He is registered in and has 
     practiced in all these fields. Beginning in 1988, I had the 
     honor of chairing the Judiciary Office Building Commission, a 
     body which was careful to stay out of George's way as he used 
     his master-planning skills to propose, his legal skills to 
     enact, his business skills to finance, and his architectural 
     and engineering skills to design and construct what is 
     properly judged the finest new government building in a 
     generation, the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building 
     at One Columbus Circle.
       While the Capitol grounds and several of the buildings in 
     the Capitol complex bear his stamp, George White has made the 
     Capitol itself the focus of his life's work. He added balance 
     and proportion where he found it lacking and improved what 
     was existing when it needed his care. Who else could 
     recognize stone shock in the West Front and repair it to a 
     state better than before the British burned it? From the 
     foundations of the East Steps of the House, to the Minton 
     tiles on the floors, to the murals and frescoes on the 
     walls--indeed, to the crown of the Statue of Freedom atop the 
     Dome which he climbed and made new with great style and at no 
     little peril--all is better than he found it. We perhaps do 
     not yet understand how indebted we are! If you wanted to see 
     his works, look about you.

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