Hubert H. Humphrey Building

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The Hubert H. Humphrey Building exemplifies Brustalist architecture, which first developed in the 1950s, and is also a significant work by a major architect, Marcel Breuer. Brutalism is known for its use of exposed, rough concrete surfaces, heavy massing, recessed windows, and stark appearance. The style also developed as the need for energy efficiency was becoming a greater concern.

Completed in 1976, the Humphrey Building was designed by Marcel Breuer and Associates — with Marcel Breuer as Principal Architect and Herbert Beckhard as Senior Partner — and Nolen-Swinburne and Associates. The two firms were already collaborating on the nearby Department of Housing and Urban Development (Robert C. Weaver Federal Building) (1968). The Humphrey Building, like the Weaver Building, was designed and built in an era of urban renewal and interstate highway construction, and within a new approach to the design and construction of federal buildings, as illustrated by the "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture" (1962).

Southwest Washington, the location of the Humphrey Building, was targeted for large-scale urban renewal. The Southwest Washington Redevelopment Plan (1954) included proposed sites for future federal buildings. The Humphrey Building was the last of these six federal buildings to be completed. Simultaneously, a highway connector between Interstate 95 and Interstate 395, known as the Center Leg, was proposed. This proposed highway was controversial with planning officials, due to its proximity to the U.S. Capitol and National Mall. Eventually, the Center Leg would tunnel under the Mall and the north and south ends flanking the Mall would be hidden beneath two new federal "air rights" buildings — one of which being the future Humphrey Building. This complicated site, as well as cost concerns and layers of review, would make the Humphrey Building's design and construction a long process that spanned a decade.

Starting in 1966, Breuer and his colleagues were given the task of designing a building around the new highway tunnel and its ventilation stacks, as well as a new sewer line. Following pushback and subsequent design revisions, the new plan was approved by the General Services Administration (GSA) and the relevant federal planning agencies by 1969. Site work began in 1972 and the federal building opened in 1976. The following year, the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare headquarters was dedicated. Shortly before the dedication, legislation was passed naming the new federal building in honor of Minnesota Senator and former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who was able to attend the dedication shortly before his death. In 1980, the Humphrey Building became the headquarters of the newly created Department of Health and Human Services.

The Humphrey Building and plaza are located just south of the National Mall on Independence Avenue SW, between 2nd and 3rd streets. Despite the extensive use of concrete, the lobby is visible from the plaza (and vice versa) through glass windows. The building is cantilivered over the hardscaped plaza, which features Heroic Shore Points (1977), a large, red aluminum sculpture by James Rosati. The sculpture was commissioned by GSA through the Art in Architecture Program, which brings public art to federal properties. The granite plaza includes both a stepped depression and stepped pyramid.

The steel-frame office building is eight-stories tall, including a penthouse below a flat roof. The building also has three basement levels. The building's cladding is composed of travertine panels (on the first and second floors), cast-in-place concrete, and precast concrete panels. The building has stairwell towers at each corner (four in total), which also support the building's "bridge-trusses" and, in turn, its concrete slabs. The building includes entrances on all four sides, but the main (public) entrance is located on the north elevation facing Independence Avenue.

The Lobby and Great Hall span the first two floors. These floors are setback, beneath the cantilvered third through seventh floors. The eighth floor penthouse is also setback, behind "fin-like" truss ends which extend downward along the building's four elevations. The building is notable for its recessed, one-light, aluminum windows on the third through seventh floors, and their brise-soleils.

Breuer, born in Hungary, attended and then taught at Germany's Bauhaus School — which was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and had a major impact on world architecture and the development of Modernism. While there, Breuer designed his Wassily chair, a tubular steel chair that has since become world famous. Following the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s, Breuer moved to London and then Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he taught architecture, along with Gropius, at Harvard University.

Marcel Breuer and Associates was founded in New York City in 1946. Beckhard joined the firm in 1951 and became Breuer's business partner in 1964. Breuer went on to design many high-profile commissions and receive various honors and awards. The Humphrey Building was one of Breuer's final projects and Beckhard oversaw — in consultation with Breuer — the project's completion.

DC Inventory: July 25, 2024
National Register: September 12, 2024