The DC Office of Motion Picture and Television Development is pleased to recognize the National Building Museum in Northwest Washington as the January 2014 One City Location of the Month. Formerly the Pension Building, the Roman palace inspired museum occupies a magnificent building with an expansive Great Hall, massive 75-foot-tall Corinthian columns, and a 1,200-foot ornamental wall adorned with terracotta. The National Building Museum is arguably one of the country’s most architecturally stunning buildings of the nineteenth century.
The National Building Museum is located at 4th and F Streets NW, approximately four blocks from the National Mall. The original building, built in the late nineteenth century, served as the U.S. Pension Bureau’s headquarters and the venue of choice for Washington’s social and political functions.
U.S. Army Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, who served as both the architect and engineer, designed the building with two Roman palaces in mind. The classic red brick exterior was modeled after Michelangelo’s Palazzo Farnese and the interior of the building resembles the Palazzo della Cancelleria with its open galleries surrounding an expansive central hall. The Great Hall measures 316 feet by 116 feet, and is 159 feet at its highest point. The Great Hall features a 28 foot (across) central fountain with its original terracotta trim and is divided into three courts by two screens of four colossal Corinthian columns measuring 75 feet tall and 8 feet in diameter, among the tallest classical columns in the world.
The Pension Building continued to serve as office space for a variety of government tenants through the 1960s and in 1969, the Pension Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Congress passed a resolution in 1978 calling for the preservation of the building as a national treasure, and a 1980 Act of Congress mandated the creation of the National Building Museum as a private, nonprofit educational institution. In 1997, the historic building was officially renamed the National Building Museum.
In 2011, the DC Film Office launched One City Location of the Month to bring attention to the wide range of varied, cinematically compelling locations that are available to film and television productions. Former One City Location of the Month recipients include the Georgia Ave Business District in Northwest, the Main Ave Fish Market in Southwest, The Hill Center in Southeast, and the Fort Lincoln neighborhood in Northeast.
To learn more about the National Building Museum and to view photos, please visit the One City Location of the Month feature on our web site. If you are interested in using the National Building Museum for a future filming location, please contact us at [email protected].