Planning and Interior Space

“..in the Treasury Building---[Mills’] repeated, individually vaulted cells, articulated access to every office, and a narrow, dark, barrel-vaulted corridors for access. In forming the Treasury Building on the vast scale he did, however, Mills recast these elements into a new imagery and a new conception of the bureaucratic work space.”

~Dell Upton, Architectural Historian, 1996

The architectural importance of the East wing goes beyond style and aesthetics. Mills’ approach for the interior of the E-shaped plan reflects the building’s function as a modern office building comprised of long expanses of double-loaded corridors of office spaces, an entirely new concept in America. These repetitive cells represent a modular system of spatial division where each office is of nearly equal size formed by the module of the vaulting system that served a duel function with the fireproof construction.

In his original conception of the Treasury, Robert Mills envisioned an E-shaped plan with the spine butted against 15th street. The three westward projections from the spine addressed the White House with a row of open terraces closest to the Executive Mansion. Only the east and center portions of the plan came to fruition in the first stage of building, only later to have the south, west and north additions added in succession, each by different architects. Mills envisioned fountains and gardens in the terraces between the wings as a visual reprieve, but these features were never realized.

Documented accounts relating to the interior environment and working conditions within Treasury help shed light on some of the flaws of the original Treasury, many of which were common challenges that affected architectural design in the 1830's. Shortly after the building was completed, the expanding Treasury Department quickly exceeded the available office space, leading to increasingly overcrowded offices and corridors congested with clerical desks, files, and stored materials. Even the corridors became congested with clerical work desks, storage, and filing. At the subbasement level, rescinded money, stored documents, and empty boxes laid side by side with coal and paint chemicals turning the cramped spaces into an astonishingly hazardous firetrap. Offices that Mills originally designed for one worker became overcrowded with two or more as the Treasury staff grew in staff at a faster rate than any other executive department. To add to the confusion, human activity within the building was difficult to monitor given the Treasury’s porous nature with a dozen entrances allowing people to enter and leave without notice. Consequently, thirteen years after the original Treasury was completed, designs were produced to expand the space with the South wing addition in 1855.

To the dissatisfaction of some, the spatial demands of the building did not fit the bureaucratic structure of the Treasury Department. There was little variation in the sizes of spaces, making the Treasury's operational system of hierarchy less adaptable to fit within Mills' largely uniform office spaces. This non-conformity turned out to be more burdonsome rather than the flexibility of the standardized spaces that Mills’ envisioned.

Adding on to Mills’ Treasury was a relatively easy design task given the repetitious arrangement of the modular office spaces. However, while the modular vaulting system allowed for easy additions of rooms added onto the ends without design disruption, the process of dematerializing the existing walls in order to add new openings and additions risked jeopardizing the strength of the vaults which depend on their vertical support. This obstacle thus restricted the alteration of the original structure and hindered the creation of larger spaces.

The interiors of Mills’ East wings are distinguished from the South, West, and North additions by the unbroken barrel-vaulted corridors and groin-vaulted offices that carry out the mandate for fireproof masonry construction. Advances in cast iron construction made fully masonry-vaulted construction unnecessary in Treasury’s successive wings. An additional distinctive feature of Mills' East wing are the simple Doric columns along with the plain balustrade of the cantilevered staircase that create an aesthetic palette that is more restrained than the rest of the Treasury. The fluted columns and pilasters crowned with elaborate capitals that were used in the later additions reflect a change fashion of the mid-1800’s.

Aesthetically, the decorative palette was limited to neutral tones in Mills’ East wing. The walls were painted with whitened size or in an oil-based paint in a stone color, while the attic and basement walls in a drab shade. Unfortunately many of these surfaces did not age intact as many walls and ceilings became cracked around the architraves at the skylights at the stairways, some of which fell down in disrepair by the early twentieth century.

Although sandwiched between the North and South wing porticos at either end of the 15th Street façade, Mills’ original colonnade may still be seen in its entirely. However, significant changes to the exterior have altered the way the interior is used. In 1910, the exterior steps to the second floor that formed the original 15th Street entrance were removed following a re-grading of 15th Street. This changed Treasury’s entry to the first floor, resulting in a less formal, darker vestibule than was intended by Mills.

For the exhibit, "The History of Open Spaces at the Treasury Building," Click here.

For a virtual tour of the Treasury building, Click here.

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