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| Dirksen Senate Office Building | |
|---|---|
 Dirksen Senate Office Building, renamed 1972 for SenatorEverett Dirksen ofIllinois, built 1956-1958, northeast ofU.S. Capitol,Washington, D.C. | |
  Location withinWashington, D.C. | |
| General information | |
| Type | Offices for members of the U.S. Senate |
| Location | United States Capitol Complex,Washington, D.C., United States |
| Coordinates | 38°53′35″N77°0′19″W / 38.89306°N 77.00528°W /38.89306; -77.00528 |
| Completed | October 15, 1958; 67 years ago (October 15, 1958) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor area | 712,910 square feet (66,232 m2) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architects | Otto R. Eggers Daniel Paul Higgins |
| Architecture firm | Eggers & Higgins |
| Website | |
| Dirksen Building Official site | |
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TheDirksen Senate Office Building is the second office building constructed for members and staff of theUnited States Senate, northeast of theUnited States Capitol, inWashington, D.C., and was named for the late longtimeMinority LeaderEverett Dirksen fromIllinois in 1972.
On the eve of America's entry intoWorld War II, in December 1941, the U.S. Senate authorized theArchitect of the Capitol, then the seventh Architect,David Lynn, to prepare plans for a new second Senate Office Building. The federal government's expanded wartime role nationally and internationally beginning in the 1930s, raised new issues for senatorial action, which in turn required increased staff assistance and created crowded conditions in the Capitol and the original Senate Office Building of 1904-1908 (later renamed theRussell Senate Office Building). When World War II delayed implementation of the Senate's building plans, the space problems grew increasingly urgent. Soon after the war in 1945, theUnited States Congress passed theLegislative Reorganization Act of 1946, in order to modernize and streamline its operations and provide senators and committees with professional staff assistance. To house the additional staff, the Senate resorted to renting space in nearby private and several government buildings. Moreover, with the anticipated admission ofAlaska andHawaii as states in 1959-1960, four new senators would also require office space. As pressure for more space mounted, the Senate in 1948 acquired adjacent property on the north side of the Capitol in which to eventually erect a second office building in order to accommodate the enlarged staff and Senators.
The consulting architects,Otto R. Eggers andDaniel Paul Higgins's firm ofEggers & Higgins, ofNew York City, drew up the plans for a seven-story building faced in white marble, to be located across First Street from the Old Senate Office Building of 1904-08 (Russell Senate Office Building) and diagonally northeast across the Capitol grounds from the Senate's north wing of the Capitol. Although more streamlined and less ornate than the first Senate Office Building (Russell), the new building was designed to harmonize with the Greek / Roman eras ofClassical Revival stylearchitecture of the Capitol and the first Senate Office Building. Bronze spandrels between the third- and fourth-floor windows depicted scenes from American industry: Shipping, Farming, Manufacturing, Mining and Lumbering. Below the new building's west pediment is the inscription: "The Senate is the Living Symbol of Our Union of States."
Although the Senate approved the plans for the new building beginning in 1949, construction was delayed until six years later in 1956. By then, increased costs of construction caused some scaling back of the original architects' design, including the elimination of a planned central corridor. With the eighthArchitect of the Capitol,J. George Stewart, looking on, members of the Senate Office Building Commission laid the cornerstone on July 13, 1956, and the new office building was finally opened a little after 2 years later, on October 15, 1958.
The Dirksen Building was designed to accommodate the new modern invention oftelevision and the wider media era, complete with committee hearing rooms equipped with rostrums that were better suited to listening to testimony than sitting around conference tables, as had been done in previous committee rooms, both in theU.S. Capitol and theRussell Senate Office Building, during the 19th and earlier 20th centuries.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, a third Senate office building, the current distinctly different of modernist-style of architecture of theHart Senate Office Building of 1971-1982, was built to the west next to the Dirksen Building on a spot originally intended for a mirror image of the ancient architectural style of the Dirksen Building, the Russell Building and the Capitol, plus surrounding similar Classical structures, such as theU.S. Supreme Court Building, the oldPostal Square Building (formerly the City Post Office forWashington, D.C. and theDistrict of Columbia 1914-1986, now theNational Postal Museum of theSmithsonian Institution), and the old adjacent monumental railroad terminalUnion Station. The Hart and Dirksen Buildings however are inter-connected, and one can walk between the two almost as easily as if they were one structure.
Almost two decades later (after its extremely long of a decade and controversial construction period), the building was renovated during 1999–2000 under the auspices of the tenthArchitect of the Capitol, who at the time wasAlan M. Hantman. Day-to-day supervision of the project carried out by Assistant Capitol ArchitectMichael G. Turnbull. The renovation was well received by senators and their staff. SenatorRobert F. Bennett ofUtah, Chairman of the Senate Legislative Branch Subcommittee, made the following comments regarding the renovation:
| Name | Party | State | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angela Alsobrooks | D | Maryland | Room B40E |
| John Barrasso | R | Wyoming | Room 307 |
| Marsha Blackburn | R | Tennessee | Room 357 |
| Susan Collins | R | Maine | Room 413 |
| Mike Crapo | R | Idaho | Room 239 |
| Mark Kelly | D | Arizona | Room B40D |
| Andy Kim | D | New Jersey | Room B40D |
| Amy Klobuchar | D | Minnesota | Room 425 |
| Ben Ray Luján | D | New Mexico | Room B40C |
| Cynthia Lummis | R | Wyoming | Room G12 |
| Ed Markey | D | Massachusetts | Room 255 |
| Dave McCormick | R | Pennsylvania | Room B40C |
| Jerry Moran | R | Kansas | Room 521 |
| Lisa Blunt Rochester | D | Delaware | Room B40A |
| Bernie Sanders | I | Vermont | Room 332 |
| Adam Schiff | D | California | Room B40B |
| Tim Sheehy | R | Montana | Room G55 |
| John Thune | R | South Dakota | Room 511 |
| Thom Tillis | R | North Carolina | Room 113 |
| Tommy Tuberville | R | Alabama | Room B40A |
| Raphael Warnock | D | Georgia | Room B40D |
| Roger Wicker | R | Mississippi | Room 555 |
| Ron Wyden | D | Oregon | Room 221 |
| Todd Young | R | Indiana | Room 185 |
There is a staffgymnasium located within the Dirksen Building. Prior to 2001, it was referred to as theSenate Health and Fitness Facility (without mentioning the "staff"). A revolving support fund administered by theU.S. Department of the Treasury for the office of theArchitect of the Capitol to run the exercise / health facility was established in Chapter 4, Section 121f of theTitle 2 of the United States Code. The revolving fund receives funds from membership dues and monies obtained through the operation of the Senate's waste recycling program.[2]
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