The bleak asphalt expanse of the Capitol's East Front, secured by a patchwork of guardhouses and bollards, is where construction has now begun on an underground visitor center.
A Capitol Dilemma Involving Security
Philadelphia Inquirer, August 4, 1998
The tragic deaths at the Capitol last week have reopened the debate about how best to protect our citizens and our institutions against the depredations of terrorists, political zealots, and now, the mentally ill. After two Capitol policemen died last month while trying to stop an apparently deranged gunman, Sens. Trent Lott and John Warner have revived a proposal, first made in 1991, for a Capitol visitor center. This structure would both orient visitors to what Congress is about and offer security forces an opportunity to scrutinize them before they can gain entry to the Capitol.
The center would be located beneath the east plaza of the capitol, on the side that faces away from the Mall. The snag so far, proponents say, is money. Building the center would cost as much as $125 million. While the three-level, 350,000 square foot center would include exhibits, a cafeteria, auditoriums and rest rooms, it's primary purpose, according to a Senate bill introduced in 1997, "is the enhancement of Capitol security."
How do you keep a working symbol of democracy both open and safe?
There’s something viscerally repellent about a bunker, a moat, a fortress–call it what you will–posing as a visitor center. While the capitol steps beckon, you will be herded into a basement. No matter how handsome or seamless the design, the symbolism would be lost on no one.
Certainly tourists, staff, even our oft-derided politicians deserve the best security the nation can offer at our most sacred civic shrines. But the trend toward ever more overtly fortified federal sites further isolates government from the governed.
The tendency over the last decade or so has been, in security parlance, to harden the target. In the wake of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma, officials have beefed-up police forces on site, and have placed concrete barriers, cameras and metal detectors around and in almost every federal facility. But the singular focus on security can have unexpected consequences. A program begun in the mid-1980s to build or replace embassy facilities in Latin America and the Middle East infuriated host countries and embassy staff alike as personnel hunkered behind thick walls in fortified buildings pierced by the tiniest of windows. These were built to well-intentioned regulations promulgated after a Marine barracks and embassy facility in Lebanon were demolished by a truck bomb in 1983. Implementing the standard has also proved enormously expensive. It not only requires elaborate staffing and infrastructure to screen visitors and vendors, it also calls for buildings to be set back 100 feet from the street, which obligates the state department to buy huge tracts of land. These facilities still have vulnerabilities, say critics, and threats evolve. The Murrah building was designed to resist Vietnam War-era pipe bombs; the car bomb that demolished the building was not anticipated.
Sen. Lott, hs said the visito-center proosal would not simply be revived, but reevaluated for its suitability to today’s needs. In reviewing the plans, Congress and the architect of the Capitol, Alan Hantman, might look to Germany’s example. It is a country with plenty of security threats of its own, but it has moved in recent years to make its seat of government both secure and inviting.
In Berlin, the Reichstag, the pompous 19th-century monument to empire (burned, allegedly by the Nazis, in 1933 and bombed in World War II) is being dramatically renovated as the new home of united Germany’s parliament after languishing as a semi-ruin in the decades of the divided-city era. While the 1894 building’s massive stone exterior walls are being restored, London-based architect Norman Foster has designed what is essentially a glass box within the walls as the place where the Bundestag–the German parliament–will sit. To be sure, the walls of this box are of specially strengthened and fire-resistant glass, but they are glass nevertheless and clear. Anyone can watch, in person, the action of government.
The hall has a glass roof surmounted by a glass dome, which has replaced the building’s traditional solid one. Visitors will even be able to look down on the proceedings because the roof is accessible and the dome includes a spiraling ramp that opens onto stunning vistas of the city. It is arguable whether the light of day will dispel the shadows of political rhetoric, but the symbolism is powerful, poetic, and intended to exorcise the demons of the nation’s militaristic past.
The Reichstag will not be finished until next spring, but this is not Germany’s first foray into “transparent” government. West Germany completed what must rank among the late 20th century’s handsomest and most self-effacing government structures when it commissioned Stuttgart-based Behnisch and Partners to design the Bonn parliament building, completed in 1992. It, too, is essentially a glass box, with beautifully filtered daylight from above and oblique views of the Rhine river. The building has the apparatus of security (as Berlin’s will), but it is played down. The structure, according to the architect, has never attracted attack.
It may be wishful thinking to hope that American politicians would put outside-the-beltway concerns higher on their agenda if they had a visual connection to the people they serve and to the world outside going about its business. But voter apathy is real, and a Capitol that increasingly resembles a stockade becomes physically and symbolically more isolated.
As a result of the Oklahoma City disaster and others, there is a great deal of good research available about how to design for security. One of the lessons learned is that many security measures are better invisible. To show constituents that they are “doing something,” however, lawmakers may erect so many physical barriers that the public they serve will conclude that visiting the Capitol is too much bother. It’s easy to forget that maintaining the openness and dignity of public structures works to defy the government-disrupting aims of terrorists and zealots.