St. John’s Church (Church of the Presidents) and Washington Monument

Looking south 16th and I Streets.

(c)Bill Lebovich, all rights reserved, 2014.

Embassy Row sculptures

Massachusetts Ave., NW is lined with former turn of the century (19th into 20th centuries) mansions that are now rather forbidding embassies, with lots of security cameras and barred windows and doors.  But the addition of sculpture celebrating the founders of the countries, their religions, or in one case, memorializing the assassination of a former Chilean diplomat and his aide by car bomb as they drive on Mass. Ave. has made Embassy Row more interesting,more informative, and more attractive.

©Bill Lebovich, all rights reserved, 2014.

Washington Monument flanked by the Watergate and The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts

(c) Bill Lebovich, all rights reserved, 2013

Washington Monument, flanked by East Wing of National Gallery of Art.

Robert Mills won the competition for the Washington Monument in 1836, but it was not until the late 19th century that construction was completed, delayed by various problems, especially raising money for construction.

I.M. Pei designed the second building for the National Gallery of Art in the late 1960s.  Its modernist architecture of flat facades and sharp angles is in marked contrast to John Russell Pope’s Classical Revival building, started in the late 1930s and finished in the 1940s, after his death, by his associates.

(c)Bill Lebovich, all rights reserved, 2013

Beaux-Arts Fountain at DuPont Circle

(c) Bill Lebovich, all rights reserved. architecturalphoto@me.com

Among the most elegant boulevards in Washington,DC is Massachusetts Ave. (nicknamed Embassy Row) and one of the most elegant sections of that Avenue is Sheridan Circle.

In the middle of the Circle is  General Philip Sheridan by Gutzon Bornlum (of Mt. Rushmore fame). This statue has a rawness and power neither present nor perhaps desired in many of the city’s other monuments to Civil War, War of 1812, and Revolutionary War generals.file://localhost/Users/williamlebovich/Pictures/Aperture%20Library.aplibrary/Previews/2013/05/06/20130506-050902/TPM86d2jTg6D+Z+Eqkay5g/General%20Sheridan%20Sculpture%206.jpg

Photographing History by Bill Lebovich: Washington Monuments and Robert Mills

Robert Mills, one of the earliest American born professional architects , designed the Washington Monument in Baltimore and later designed the Washington Monument on the National Mall.  For the latter monument, Mills proposed a colonnade around the base of the structure,but it was not erected.  Baltimore, photos 1,2.  Washington,  photo 3, scaffolding going up to repair earthquake damage, photo 4.  (C) Bill Lebovich, 2013.  All rights reserved.