Qualla: National Archives Building

National Archives Building: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gabichan2020, CC BY-SA 4.0. Beneath the National Archives Building, an underground river still runs. Tiber Creek, the freshwater stream that once flowed through downtown Washington before the city paved over it, passes directly under the rotunda where the Declaration of Independence is displayed. Architect John Russell Pope, faced with the problem of placing one of the heaviest buildings in Washington on top of a stream, had 8,575 wooden piles driven into the soft mud below before crews poured a single concrete bowl as foundation. The piles still hold. The river still flows. Above it all, sealed in inert-gas display cases that descend each night into a hardened underground vault, sit the three documents the country has used to define itself - the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They share the rotunda with a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta, confirmed by Edward I.

Image: Gabichan2020 | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Archives Building: 150 Years Without an Archives

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sebastian Wallroth, CC BY 3.0. For most of its first century and a half, the United States federal government had no centralized place to keep its papers. Important documents were stored in agency basements, attics, and warehouses. Fires destroyed substantial portions of the early record - including a 1921 bla...

Image: Sebastian Wallroth | CC BY 3.0

National Archives Building: Pope Replaces Simon

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Raul654, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first design came from Louis A. Simon, an architect in the Office of the Supervising Architect for the U.S. Treasury. He sketched a building between 9th and 10th Streets along Pennsylvania Avenue. When the entire Federal Triangle program was unveiled in 1929 as a three-dimens...

Image: User:Raul654 | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Archives Building: Limestone Over Granite

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AgnosticPreachersKid, Public domain. Building above an underground stream required engineering decisions that were resolved in concrete and wood. 8,575 piles went into the unstable soil before the foundation could be poured. The choice of building material was political. Both granite and limestone had been authorize...

Image: AgnosticPreachersKid | Public domain

National Archives Building: The Charters of Freedom

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosa Pineda, CC BY-SA 4.0. The rotunda displays what staff call the Charters of Freedom: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The three documents share the central chamber with a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta confirmed by Edward I. The exhibition format is unusual - vis...

Image: Rosa Pineda | CC BY-SA 4.0

National Archives Building: Where the Warren Commission Met

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 123home123, CC BY-SA 4.0. On December 5, 1963 - thirteen days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy - the Warren Commission held its first formal meeting in a hearing room on the second floor of the National Archives Building. The location was symbolic and practical. The records the commission would ...

Image: 123home123 | CC BY-SA 4.0